Benjamin Franklin once said, “When I wake up in the morning, I immediately check the morning paper. If my name is not in the obituaries, I get up.” At least, I think it was Benjamin Franklin. I googled it and received an interesting number of answers, everything from George Burns to Phyllis Diller. Isn’t that the craziest thing about the internet? If I googled “US Congress votes to move Christmas to July,” there would be an article that supported that statement. But, I recall it as a Ben quote and 88% of my research agrees with me. So, Ben, credit goes to you, sir. I take the obits to heart. My column is nestled in right next to them each and every week, after all. Each year that I rotate around the sun and still have the ability to make a difference in this world, I am called to recall those whose day to day interactions are lost to us. And yet, we don’t really have daily obits anymore. Newspapers are about as common as the Brachiosaurus these days. Instead, we rely on social media to inform us who’s still here and who has left us. And, it is with that sentiment laying on my heart that I inform you that an icon left us last week. Francis Moore left this world. I realize that lifelong Forneyites will not understand what I am saying. But you transplanted Seagovillians, you’ll understand. Miss Francis was a peach.
My father was a consummate gentleman. He taught me how to change a tire and how to tend to my own oil. He made sure I understood the power of words. He is responsible for my manners, and, if you consider his requirement for ladylike genteelness whenever his eyes were focused on me, my “breaking the 4th wall” extreme sarcasm, too. I’m sure we all loved our fathers. But, I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I can’t find anything he told me within the recesses of my mind that wasn’t true. And, believe me, I’ve psychoanalyzed this up one side and down the other. Ted was bend over backwards po lite. But, upon exiting the conversation, he’d tell his only daughter what was what. I knew that Mrs. So & So acted one way in public, and another way at daddy’s washateria when she would repeatedly fib about the Coke machine taking her money. I knew that Mrs. Who’s It, who thought her feet didn’t stink when she ran around town, had a washing machine that looked as if it had never been cleaned in 20 years. Daddy was an appliance repairman, too. He taught me to be an excellent judge of character. He taught me to be forgiving, still. Yet, when I tick down the list of people I heard tell of, the ones who did the tacky things, the naughty things, the unfair things, there were many people my father held high on a pedestal, people like Francis Moore. I’m using her real name because she was a living angel. I would want anyone who felt this way about my mother to have carte blanche to herald her one day.
Francis would bring her laundry to my father’s washateria. Many of the town matriarchs washed with my dad. He was handsome. He was funny. He would do your dry cleaning for less than Wade’s Cleaners around the corner. Plus, he hired Johnny Cole to manage his establishment. Johnny was my mother’s aunt. That’s how my parents met. My first memories are of Francis Moore at the washateria. With her June Cleaver-esque shirtwaist dress and her pincurled short hair, she looked like Kate Bradley from Petticoat Junction. My father thought she was grand. She would wash her clothes, hobnob with Aunt Johnny while they dried, and rub elbows with every single person, regardless of their social standing. And, Francis was hilarious. She would trade barbs with my dad like no one else. I remember thinking, one day, that they were angry at each other. Why, Miss Francis was saying mean things, but Daddy was saying meaner things. When she left, I looked back at my father to see him in a full head tilted belly laugh position. He said to me, “DD, that right there is a good woman.” Seems Miss Francis could give as good as she could receive.
Upon hearing of her passing, I began thinking of all the other matriarchs that have left us recently. It prompted me to ask, what do we do once all the good ones are gone? Who do I go to for advice? I don’t have the Francis Moores or the Katherine Ballards or the LaVerne Rucks of the world to go to for advice anymore. Where do I go to for reassurance or acknowledgement or a shoulder to cry on? Did my mother ever feel this way? Am I now at the point in my life where another generation will look to me for answers? Those are big shoes to fill. While I don’t think I am ready or worthy, I will take up that flag. If Francis could do it, I have to try. God bless the greatest generation. Rest easy, Miss Francis.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.