Rose vines, pines, other places in the heart

Rose vines, tall pines, and other places in the heart

by HELEN LEDFORD HELEN LEDFORD

Being dropped by the stork on my parents’ doorstep smack-dab in the middle of the Great Depression was, I’m sure, a joyous event. However, little Helen entering the world on that cold February night meant also one more mouth for our already large family to feed! At the time I had nine siblings, some of whom were already working at public jobs. As my Papa’s health failed and, when I was only 4, he passed away, money earned by my sisters and brothers helped keep taxes paid and our farm operating.

I can identify with the 1986 movie “Places in the Heart,” for which actress Sally Field won an Oscar. The poignant film was set in a small Texas town during the Depression era. Field portrayed a young widow with two adolescent children who was trying desperately to hold on to the small family farm.

This last year of dark pandemic waters has definitely been a roller coaster of pain, fear and suffering from that ugly culprit, COVID-19, and many have declared they never had it so hard. We have had to make numerous lifestyle adjustments, some desired products have been hard or impossible to get, and a large part of our population (for the first time) has learned to do without a few things!

From the mid‘30s to about 1940, many in our country experienced despair and severe hunger – in some cases, even starvation. Jobs were scarce, and those that existed paid little. Soup kitchens were everywhere, and people swallowed their pride and stood in lines for a free meal. There were no stimulus checks from the government to temporarily “fix” economic woes. Ours, and other farm families worked and grew our own food, depending and surviving on our resourcefulness.

As a young child during those hard times, I was sheltered from many of the harsh realities surrounding us. Though we were definitely not rich, there was good, home-grown food on the table, and always a few extra pennies, nickels and dimes to spend in town on Saturday afternoons.

I suppose everyone has a private “go to” place in our past that cushions us from the uncertainty of the quickly changing and sometimes hostile world. I’ll admit that I occasionally retreat in my mind to childhood locations where there was a deep sense of security. One such gentle memory is of a familiar “haunt” – the cold, mossy-edged spring that was once our only source of water. It served as a “refrigerator” for our milk, butter, Pepsi-Colas and watermelons. The big rocks there were cool

This last year of dark pan- do without a few other farm families worked and grew

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and comforting to lie on while basking in the leafy shade of tall trees. A spring branch trickled nearby, frigid and inviting to dusty, tired feet, with feisty crawfish whose merciless claws nipped at our invading toes!

My heart sometimes takes me back to several beloved other nooks where I walked, ran and played as a child. I loved to go barefoot, and a favorite pastime was slipping away to a grove of tall pines near our home. The ground was covered with years of soft, fallen pine needles, and growing among those majestic pines were many trailing vines covered with fragrant wild roses. Each spring they bloomed prolifically, their fragile pink petaled flowers filling the air with heady perfume.

It was a retreat for thinking, daydreaming, or simply to lose oneself in the silence of the woods. As children, the youngest of my brothers and sisters and I could escape into our own self-indulgent “feel-good” pastimes. My mother could not – her responsibilities were too great for that. She managed well with what little money she earned from egg and butter sales, and kept the old Singer treadle sewing machine busy, earning extra dollars from her skills as a seamstress.

A very strong woman she was, but I am certain she often shed private, silent tears when others could not see them. Mama’s own mother had died when she was young; most likely, that had prepared her for the hardships she would face later in running our small farm without Papa by her side.

Mama had been raised on a large acreage of farmland in southern Virginia. She knew what it was like to toil in the sprawling tobacco and cotton fields, alongside her siblings and the Black tenant farmers, their wives and offspring who lived in small cabins nearby.

And Mama always sang – everywhere – mostly melodies from the Baptist hymnal and Negro spirituals she learned from her growing-up years close to African-American culture. It always gave me a warm feeling to hear her lovely contralto voice bursting into song when she might be steering the

Mama gave us music in the elds, woods and garden – and what a precious, joyful sound it was to our ears!

I loved my mother’s stories about growing up, and especially the ones about her suitors, parties and dances she attended as a raven-haired young beauty. As she told it, one particular evening she was invited to a soiree at a home nearby. When the festivities had ended, a young gentleman offered to walk her home. Since it was dark and the pathway led through some rather thick woods, her escort was carrying a lantern. At one point Mama paused in her walking and asked the gentleman if she could carry the lantern. He agreed, and graciously handed it to her. She, in turn, grabbed her long skirts and took off like a rabbit, running home and leaving him alone in the unfamiliar, inky blackness. I don’t think she ever saw him again!

Instead of always time-traveling to kinder, more carefree, warm and fuzzy moments in our lives, once in a while it can be good to revisit less pleasant vignettes of yesterday. Occasionally, when I am feeling sorry for myself, or thinking negatively, I turn to a happening in my past that calls me back. It was in the late ‘60s, and I had an appointment at a local newspaper office. I was running late, and rushing to be on time. My destination was on another floor, so I turned to the left as I cleared the front door, and headed for the elevator. In my haste, I didn’t notice anything unusual at first, but as I prepared to enter the open cubicle, I stopped short and froze. One more step would have plunged me into an empty shaft! The foreboding innards of that cavernous, open elevator were unmarked by any sign of danger. How fortunate that I am still alive!

Life is not always strewn with wild rose vines – and not all places in our hearts are pleasant to recall, but it may be from those that we learn the most....

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