THE GOOD DIE YOUNG

My sister Margaret was the oldest. She was really drop dead gorgeous and all those visits from Lonny and various others were mainly to see Sis even if they would lie about it. Margaret seemed to get those traits from Mom which meant that she was on top of most things. She had a kindness to her that seem to escape most people. Since our house was the epitome of open, meaning people in and out all the time, Margaret befriended several whose life prospects were less than stellar. One was a youngster in our one room school. He had been crippled by polio and couldn't walk. The Dad would ride him on his back to school every morning which was at least a three mile trek. Sis decided that the father should be spelled of some of the burden of carrying the youngster. Without fanfare, she announced that it was my turn and named several others to follow. When I even came close to hesitating, she grabbed my arm and with a squeeze and a look, my opposition departed the scene. Up until that time, I don’t think that I had noticed the man carrying his son.

His name escapes me and his hesitation at anyone helping him was a natural independence. Everybody took care of his own burdens. However, my sister had this way about her. It was both matter of fact and kind. What others seem to think made no never mind to Sis, she acted. She took the boy and he grabbed around my neck and off we went. The boy was probably in the first grade and I must have been in the sixth. He was light as a feather

Later on, I remember hearing Sis talk to Mom about how thin the boy was. Mom was saying something to Dad like, “Well, Raz, you have to see what we can do to help those people because Margaret says that boy is not getting enough to eat."
"You know Bertie, Margaret would take on the world if we let her” he probably said. I don’t remember any response as Mom probably fixed the gaze on Dad. All I know is that we regularly made visits to their rambled shack on the White Line and just so happened to leave "fixins" as George called them, meaning food.

The White Line was this group of houses that were like thrown together, somebody called them tar paper shacks. To be honest, I don’t know but most of them were pretty rough and the folks who lived in them were the poorest of the poor. And, I don't have a clue why it was called, White Line. The country was recovering or trying to recover from what we know as the Great Depression. People didn’t have jobs and especially those on the White Line. Margaret was right out there on the firing line wanting to do something. For being young, she was way ahead of the curve, her view was that you couldn’t help all but if someone crossed your path, God meant for you to help. And, we figured that Sis was God's agent and who were we to question. No use arguing.

In school, there was a copy of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. The weird thing as I remember is that nobody wanted to read it as we were living it. Not so for Sis, She was a vociferous reader and got into it and insisted that she relate to us everything about the book. Poor was almost a metaphor for life especially as represented in the White Line experience. We were almost the characters in the book. As opposed to being Okies going to California, we were placed in Eastern North Carolina. Our great advantage was that we didn’t suffer the dust bowl of Steinbeck’s novel but we were as poor, just not as desperate. And, the generosity of Sis made a little dent in it all for a few. We all found it very difficult to resist her passions for helping the people of White Line and especially the “poor Rosens” as she called them.

In the Grapes of Wrath according to Sis there is one bad thing happening after another. We are listening to her thinking, what is different than here? If we could have recorded all the stories we knew they would surely add up to more than were in Grapes. The poor little Rosen boy died and it fell to us to give him a proper funeral. It was here that Sis insisted that we get Grandpa and all our Aunts involved. Not an easy thing. In those days there were plenty of tragedies. But, somehow it all came together and Dad arranged for a burial spot on a little piece of ground we had acquired by that time. I remember hearing Sis say to Mom, "tell Grandpa we can’t be having one of his long sermons. We want comfort." As I look at it now, I can hardly believe that my sister was so on top of life. After the funeral, as far as I remember, we never again heard from the Rosens.

Sis escorted me to school for the first time. I was proud to be in the first grade. Since we only had two teachers for the eight grades, they didn't have time for a lot of formality. One of the first questions they asked, "What is your name and how do you spell it?" It was understood that your parents taught you how to spell your name before you entered school. When I was asked the question, I proudly stuck out my chest and said, "Raz and it is spelled Raise." Maggie busted out laughing, “raise is not Raz." She intoned.

All of us were in different spots of the one room. Sis kept an observant eye on me She was, as I look back on it now, very protective. One of my earliest memories is of wanting to sing in the school choir. Apparently that was not to be my calling in life. I was rejected fairly unceremoniously. Maggie didn’t like it a bit and offered to help me practice. It must not have happened as I don’t remember singing in school again.

Discipline was quite different in those days. I don’t know that if it had been in modern times, I would have said I was ADD (attention deficit disorder). Today they would have given me ridlin or something but what happened to us then when we were cutting up or were a perceived discipline problem, Miss Briar would slap us up beside the head a few times. And, trust me on this, it will get your attention and you know how to be still quickly as these were no love taps. Or, a familiar ploy of our teacher was to send us out to this peach tree for a limb. We often tried to outsmart her. Forget it. Once when I selected a switch, I used my knife to notch it, carefully placing the bark over the notch. When the teacher cut down on me for fighting, the switch broke. The fire came in her eyes, she knew what I had done. To make matters worse, the rest of the boys laughed, which didn't help my situation. To say that Mrs. Briar, now there’s a name, was a woman of some girth and consequently strength would be an understatement. In this case it was a big time whipping. With that ham of a hand, she blistered my behind and slapped every boy on the side of his head for laughing--one tough woman but a terrific teacher. Once you got a whipping at school, you didn't go home and complain, if so, you got another one for misbehaving at school.

Maybe it was our almost worship of our sister or something but as protective as she was, she also held our feet to the fire in doing our work and seeing what school was all about. She was a second mother and often more exacting than our Mom. For instance, she said over and over, "one day you'll appreciate all of this." I surely found that to be true with Miss Briar. We became great friends as time passed. In all the teachers I had growing up, she taught me more than any of the others and I'll have to say that Sis was "right on" about her.

I will never forget one night that related to Sis. As I look back on it now, I can only imagine what those times were like and what my mom, in particular, went through. This is how I remember it.

"Bertie, I think Sis is pretty sick", Raz said as he met her at the door.

Without hesitating, Mom went to the back bedroom. The cover was piled high on Margaret but she was still shivering. "Get some cold water and bring it back here", she said to me. I must have just stood there as she said, "Move, boy!”

This was what she feared, scarlet fever--she was not sure but Margaret was burning up. After bathing her from head to toe, Mom pulled the rocker up and straightened the pillow that Margaret had made for it. She slid her hands along the ties that secured it to chair and probably had these thoughts: how hard it was raising children and wondered to herself if she was up to it. Looking at Margaret, she maybe wondered what her life was going to be like. Somehow, getting her kids out of this hardscrabble life had to be one of her goals but how. How do you rise above the circumstances of your life? I can imagine my Mom this way: As she sank into the chair she vowed to give more thought to the “how" once this crisis had passed.

Right now, Bertie had to concentrate on this illness. Could it be scarlet fever or even worse rheumatic fever. She checked for a rash. There was one. They would use the remedies for awhile before figuring if they had to call the doctor. There was no money for a doctor and Bertie always felt that doctors were just guessing anyway. For now, it had to be a mustard plaster.

A mustard plaster consisted of a mixture of dry mustard powder and a small amount of flour, mixed with water or egg white to form a paste. It was applied to the chest or abdomen to stimulate healing. Bertie took the mixture and spread it on a cloth and applied to Sis. For us, it seemed to be the cure all for everything. Mom probably didn't put it in those terms but she believed it promoted overall god health and who could dispute Mom.

As I remember, this seem to go on forever and we were left to fend for ourselves. At night my brother and I made a pallet and slept just outside Maggie's door. Nobody told us too, we just wanted to be close to her. The doctor came and pronounced that she had rheumatic fever. Maybe it started out as scarlet fever but became the dreaded rheumatic fever. Many had it and there were ill effects when someone recovered if they recovered. It was a sad couple of months, nothing was the same. Slowly but surely Margaret got better. She had gigantic circles under her eyes. We were only permitted to see her when we fetched something for Mom for her. Almost always she gave us a weak smile. The day that she emerged from her room was the happiest of our lives.

Mom and Dad were so happy. We were all so happy. Mom always wondered when Sis was born if all her children were going to be girls. She needn’t have worried based on the fact that so far there were two boys. Margaret was such an obedient child and there was only one incident of which I was told that clashed with that view. She was suppose to be looking after me and allowed me to play close to the fire and I fell against some hot coals. It could have been worse but she was able to grab me immediately and put a cool compress on the one burn. Today, I never see that scar that I don't think of my sister.

Margaret was gorgeous and we are talking about a head turner. I knew this because boys were constantly telling me or hanging around. She had this black hair that shined like you cannot imagine. Although she was the apple of Dad’s eye, she never seemed to take real advantage of it. Sure, she would be a little coy from time to time and nudge us into doing her bidding but she was incredibly responsible. My sister Margaret, I now know, was an "old soul."

Margaret was independent and didn’t have any real interest in boys but they were always around. Mom was constantly having to shoo them way. They would come, claiming to see one of us, but Mom would say, “yes, I know you want to see so and so” as she gave them the skeptics gaze. There was this one kid. He lived in town. We lived out a couple of miles away, based on how you got there and your mode of transportation. This guy had his own car. It was a 47 Ford roadster as I remember. It was black with a white top and had a rumble seat. He seemed pretty impressed by all that he had. It sure didn’t impress us any and I can remember us gathering around and lightly hassling him till Mom came out followed by Margaret. We scattered but not far enough to be out of ear shot on what was happening. Apparently he asked if she could go for a ride. Noway. She wanted to go. Mom said no. End of discussion.

He was persistent and one of the few times that I can remember Sis ever getting into trouble. She went for a ride. The place was icy with discussion for a few days. Dad taking Margaret’s part, Mom saying that he was not having a daughter of hers playing the role of a hussy. Somehow baby got in there.

Who said anything about babies."

"Well, it happens."

"Sure it happens but it doesn’t mean that it happens with me."

There were a few, "don't talk back."

"Well, it’s not going to happen with me."

Mercifully, the discussion ended. We were un use to conflict especially that related to our sister.

The guy kept coming around and we knew that Margaret liked him. He was smooth but too slick for me. At this time, there were three of us and we decided that if Mom didn’t like him, then we didn’t like him and would have to fix him one way or another. Plus, Chuck had seen him in town with other girls. What we were verbalizing but didn't have a clue was protection of our sister. We had a meeting. I told Chuck and Corb we’ve got to do something.

"What?"

"Well, let’s do something to his car when he comes around." We let the air out of one tire. Then Chuck offered to help him fix it for a price. He then paid Chuck to guard his car and so that ended any chance for us stopping him in that way. What to do? Chuck hit it and came up with the idea of a road hazard--we should have pattoned it. We took these log slabs as they were called and created spike like sharpened parts. When we thought he was showing, one of us went up the road just close enough to signal to put out the spikes. Sure enough after a few flats, he must have gotten the message as we didn’t see him anymore.

But, there were others to take his place. Maggie moped around for awhile I think but independent Sis was on to something else. Her interested in boys seemed to wane for awhile and that was OK with us. We were busy, things to do, a farm to run, games to be played and brothers yet to come.

Margaret and Mom eventually seem to get past the rancor and then one day, Rudolph showed up. He was older, had been in the Air Force and had all these stories to tell. He won us over immediately. Not once did he show up to "talk with us" that he didn't bring something: chocolates, the latest magazines. Before we knew it, he was in with everybody. The man would not take no for an answer.

Sis had finished school at Plainview which was a country school in the opposite direction of where we lived but about the same distance from town. I don't really know how it all came about. Margaret always had lots of friends and she joined with a couple of them to go to Plainview. I wish I knew more.

Sis took a job with the telephone office in town after she finished High School. She was a telephone operator and as I saw those pictures through the years of old time operators, my imagination says, she was one of those.

She married likeable and tenacious Rudolph. Sometimes, we wondered if Margaret really wanted to get married or if she simply just gave up. Rudolph worked at the old DeSota place in town, seems like he was the parts man. I use to go by and see him and be amazed at the beautiful cars.

Margaret was the light of my Dad’s life and letting her go to Rudolph was no small thing. They moved on the other side of town and lived close to Rudolph’s Uncle Levander if I remember correctly. What I know about Mr. Levander was that he was always dressed to the nines and had these enormous long feet. I was always amazed as was everybody else.

At some time, Margaret and Rudolph moved to Augusta, Georgia and lived in a place called Myrtle Court. I spent a couple of weeks with them one summer or maybe it was the summer. I remember making friends with some military kids and going with them to the pool. I was amazed that they could swim at such a big pool and not have to pay anything.

Two fine youngsters arrived to Rudolph and Margaret: Nicky and Ronnie. Our sister passed from this life to the next at just 37, way to young. A weakened heart from that long ago battle with rheumatic fever. Margaret, shortened on occasion to Maggie, sometimes called Sis and my Dad died just a few months apart. Yes, the good do indeed die young.