For my
Ancestral Histories I decided to write about some of the women that have
affected me over the years. There are many who have, but for this short paper I
chose my Nana, my Mammaw, and my mother. All three of them are mothers and
teachers and I wanted to share parts of their lives.
My Nana was born on February 10, 1935 at
Dana’s nursing home. Her name is Ann Fuller and she is the second daughter of
Orin C Fuller and Faun Ellsworth Fuller. Her Father was born on August 8, 1903
and her mother was born in Mesa, Arizona on March 30, 1905. Her parents
disagreed on her name. Orin insisted that she be named Ann after a character in
a book he had read about, but Faun preferred something else. Eventually they
decided to stick with Ann.
Her father was warm and
affectionate. He loved to give hugs, but was also a hard worker. He was a
school teacher in California at an all-boys school. He taught 5th
grade. He went on to become a principal of Alma School in Mesa, Arizona. Faun
was a homemaker. She liked to cook and was excellent at it. She was also good
at sewing clothes and because of this Ann never had to wear hand me downs. She
always had new clothes. When Ann was old enough, Faun taught her to sew and
it’s a talent that my Nana has always encouraged me to develop and work on. Faun
was also a school teacher at the same school that Orin worked at. They met at a
church activity and several years later were married. Orin tried to work a
dairy and Ann was instructed by her mother never to learn how to milk a cow or
she would always have to do it. She didn’t have any pets but her father owned
two horses. One of them was feisty and liked to knock of its rides.
Ann went to Kindergarten at Lincoln
elementary one of the Mesa public schools. She also attended Franklin and
Irving. In 8th grade she was paddled as punishment for chewing gum
in class. The punishment was either one hard hit or two soft ones. She went to
Mesa High School and played tennis for the Mesa Jack Rabbits. She was also
President of the Girls League. She made the Rabette team but chose not to join
because of Girls League. She used to sell concessions and other things during
half time of school games. She also played the Clarinet in the band her
sophomore and Junior years. She was a good student and worked hard something
that she is constantly reminding me to do.
She spent her summers swimming the
Groom Creek, climbing mountains, and running wild. She would bath every
Saturday night and then go to church in Prescott the next day. Most of her
friends were church members and she loved to spend time with them. They went
through school together and she is still in contact with some of them. She
loved playing at the park with her cousins. Some of her favorite games were
Ring around the Rosie, Red Rover, Marbles and Chase. Her father taught her how
to play marbles and he was really good at it. He was hard to beat. During one
game of chase one of the boys caught he pants and tore his pants and he had to
buy a new pair. She loved to play sports like softball, volleyball and tennis.
She spent her free Saturdays playing at her friends’ houses and going to visit
her cousins. She and her siblings went skating at Peps point skating rink
almost every Friday night and sometimes they got to go to the drive-in movie.
Her first job was as a babysitter
for 25 cents an hour. She also sold citrus and pecans door to door. Her second
job was when she was a senior in high school and she got a job at a jewelry
store for 25 cents an hour. For her college training she worked at a hospital
in Salt Lake City for 75 cents an hour.
Her hobbies included tennis,
horseback riding, knitting, sewing, embroidery, and reading. She used to sit
under and tree and read. She also liked to color and paint pillowcases. Her chores
included doing housework, doing the wash on Saturdays with a wringer washer and
a clothes line, and taking care of and killing the chickens. Her mother said
she was the best neck wringer she had ever seen. On Saturdays she would do her
chores and then if she had the money she would go to the 10 cent movie. Her
father would drop the kids at the movies in the afternoon and then they would
walk home.
Ann wanted to be a scientist when
she grew up. Her mother wanted her to be a nurse and her father wanted her to
be a school teacher because it meant she would get summers off. She went to BYU
for 2 years and studied nursing, but she didn’t enjoy the patients bossing her
around. She eventually went to ASU and studied teaching for 2 years. She taught
6th grade at Franklin.
She met my Papa, Ernest Johnson, on
a blind date. He was a last minute full in for a water ski date. She thought he
was nice, thought he was forgetful because he left his skis on the dock. They
spent more time together got to know each other a little better and on March
27, 1958 they were married in the Mesa Temple. He asked her father permission
and then went ring shopping. Her proposed in the Temple Gardens. When they had
their children Ann tried to be like her parents. She tried to mean what she
said and to follow through with what she said. If she expected her kids to do
something they did it.
The next person I want to talk about
is my Mammaw. She is my mother’s mother. She was born in Laurel, Mississippi on
June 7, 1941. Her mother carried her for 10 months before giving birth to a
baby girl named Beverly Thompson. She was named after a black family that used
to work for her parents when they needed the help. Their last name was Beverly
and my Mammaw calls them “wonderful people.” She was the 9th child
of 10 children. Her Father was a hardworking man who worked away from home for
many years. When he first started a family he was a farmer. Her father was born in
Moselle, Mississippi on July 8, 1902 at his parent’s home. Her mother was born
at her parent’s home on January 11, 1904 in Moselle. She had five older sisters
that she was jealous of and was shy, but she loved to help her mother in the
yard and house. For pets she had a nice assortment. She had cats, dogs,
rabbits, pigs, and chickens, but no animals were allowed in the house.
She grew up in Moselle. She didn’t
own a TV, computer or cell phone. She didn’t see a TV until she was 15 and
personal computers did not exist. When she was teenager her family got a party
line phone that had 8 other families on it. It was very rare that she would
pick it up and find the line free. She had to get an operator to make a call.
She played outside a lot. Some games she played were marbles in the dirt, Rover
Rover, throw the ball over the house to see who would catch it, Hopscotch, and
Pole vault. She used to make homemade stilts and go swimming in the creek. She
used to look for turtles and cut paper dolls from magazines. She and her
siblings used to make up their own games. She says that the holidays were
mostly about getting the family all together and spending time with each other.
She and her sisters would help their
mother with the house cleaning, washing the dishes, doing the laundry, and
working in the family garden. There was no money for allowances so they did not
receive any. They did the work simply because it needed to be done. Her mother
would give the kids snack money if she had it though. Mammaw would buy candy
bars at the school snack shop if she was lucky enough to have a dime or nickel.
She describes her friends as “country girls with strong ambitions.”
One childhood memory that sticks out
to her is a time her father took her shopping. It was a special trip. They went
to Sears and walked past the Women’s hat rack. She was looking at them and so
he insisted that she get one. She says she will never forget that because her
father was rarely home when she was a child. He made her feel very special that
day.
Her
first job was picking cotton on a cousin’s farm when she was a teenager. She
was paid 3 cents a pound. She would pull a bag that could carry 100 pounds
through the fields, but she doesn’t think she ever had more than 30 pounds in
the bag at a time. When she grew up she wanted to work for the FBI. When she
was old enough she applied but did not pass the physical exam. The doctor
thought he heard a murmur in her heart and told her parents that she had a year
to live. Mammaw calls him a crack, but by the time she went to see another
doctor it was too late to apply for the job. She also thought about becoming a
fashion designer.
She attended the same school house
all twelve years. Elementary school, middle school, and high school were all
held in the same building. She was a member of the Glee Club, the 4-H club, and
she really enjoyed her home economics class. She also took a typing class that
she was very glad she took. For college she attended Jones County Junior
College which was about 15 miles away from where she lived. She would ride the
school bus down there. She majored in art and fashion design, but only went for
one year. When asked if she ever got in trouble at school she answered with a
resounding “NO!”
Her hobbies included drawing,
climbing trees, walking in the woods and reading the classics like The Hardy
Boys, Little Women, Huckleberry Finn, Tom Sawyer and lots of other books. In
Junior High she played basketball. In High School she played softball and she
loved to run track. When she went to college she joined the photography club.
When
she first saw my Pappaw her first impression was that he was handsome. She says
that they did not date long and they were married in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
on December 19, 1970. She says the reason she married him was because she loved
him and she will always love him.
She says that her own parenting
techniques did not differ that much from her parents’. Her parents taught her
to be honest, dependable, reliable, to have integrity, and to know the value of
hard work and enduring the trials of life. She hopes that she distilled these
same qualities in her own children. I know that these are things she always
taught me and they were qualities my mother taught me so I think she did a good
job of following her parents’ example.
I asked her if she had any memories
of church activities and she said she had many wonderful memories from being
the counselor in both Primary and Young Women. She has good memories of
teaching in Primary and of learning in Relief Society. She says she enjoyed
working with the road shows. She wrote the Children’s Sacrament Presentation
once and she has many other wonderful memories of activities from over 43 years
of being in the church.
She considers her strengths to be
are endurance, persistence, and a loving heart. She considers her weaknesses to
be many, but she says she is working hard to try and overcome them. What she
wants people to know is that she loves the Lord and that she has tried to the
best of her ability to be a good person. She has a strong testimony of the
truthfulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She has a testimony that the Book
of Mormon is completely true and that the temple is the house of the Lord and
the work there is the most important work in this earth.
My Mother is last, but certainly not
least. Her name was Jane Eileen Cleere. She was born in Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania on May 26, 1963 (almost exactly 30 years before me). Her mother
says she doesn’t remember much about the birth because she was knocked out for
it. She was named after her Aunt Eileen and Aunt Jane.
Her
mother was born in Moselle as I mentioned above and her father was born in
Philadelphia on August 16, 1938. She says that growing up her mother was
depressed a lot and her dad was away for his work a lot, but he always took her
and her sister to parks and other plays and he would read to them. She says her
mother is very creative and when she wasn’t too depressed would plan some
really fun birthday parties. Her mother is a good cook and my mother loves to
eat so that’s good. After her parents divorced, she would visit her father
every other weekend. They would take long walks around Philly, get ice cream,
fly kites, go to museums and visit the library. She says that both of her
parents were very accepting of people and always welcomed her friends into
their home.
When
my mother was a child her family moved around a lot. She was born in Philly,
but the moved to New Orleans, Louisiana when she was a baby. Her family loved
in a couple of different apartments and houses there. Then they moved to live
with her grandmother in Moselle. That’s where her older sister Angie went to
Kindergarten. She says it was great fun to run in the woods on my grandparents’
60 acres of land. She and her siblings would swing on vines, hunt for arrow
heads, and make up fun games to play with each other and their cousins. She
moved back to Philadelphia when she was in Kindergarten. She really liked that
neighborhood. She would play for hours and hours in the streets and in vacant
lots. They would play street games like stick ball and spring. They also played
Hand ball, Buck Buck, Jacks, Double Dutch. She would get together with a group
and play softball or kickball. In Summer time the ice cream man would come and you
could get a Strawberry Shortcake for a quarter. She used to save her money so
that she could buy several every summer. After her parents divorced they moved
to Dawson Street. She says that was another really fun neighborhood. Then she
moved down to Mississippi with her mother. They lived with her grandmother,
then her Aunt Jane and then on their own for a little while, so my mom went to
2 kindergartens and 3 first grade classes. Back in Philly, they had clubs and
they lived in a great house that had a dumb waiter. When she was 9 and a half
she moved to Oklahoma and lived there for three years. She liked it in the
suburbs. After two more elementary schools and a junior high with some awesome
friends it was back to Philly for the summer. She didn’t like that
neighborhood, but the only lived there a few months before they moved to the
mountains of Honey Brook, PA. She said it was a beautiful area with Amish
people and Menonites. They had 3 acres and built a log house. She says that
growing up she had many wonderful experiences and that the Church was a major
anchor for her no matter where she moved thanks to her mom joining during the
divorce.
She says both of her Grandmothers
were excellent cooks. Her grandpa Cleere died before she was born so her
grandma Cleere had to work full time, but she cooked great meals every night.
She was very fun and spunky just like any American Irish woman. She was either
in the kitchen or doing chores around the inside and outside of the house. She
kept a garden, slopped hogs, kept chickens, and could wrestle a snake with the
best of them. My mother loved living in her house and they went down there
every summer for at least a month.
For chores my mother would help with
the babies, do dishes, do the laundry and wash the cloth diapers. She did get
an allowance every once in a while. When she did piano she got 75 cents a week
and she would spend it on candy at the corner store. She also spent her money
on buying Barbie clothes for her Barbie lady. She got $5 a week for babysitting
her younger siblings when her mother worked nights. Her mother would sleep all
day while my mother and her older sister took care of the kids. She says her
friends were really fun she would play with them outside for hours and hours
especially in the summer time because they had no air conditioning. She loved
catching lightening bugs at night and just having fun in the summer air.
For pets her family raised pure bred
collies when she was younger and still living with her father. They adopted
strays or pound dogs. Blacky was a small black mutt who she loved. He was her
friend and confidant in her teenage years. She also had cats when she lived in
Oklahoma and brought a couple of them to the log house in PA. Her cat’s name
was Snowball and he only lived to be three years old.
She wanted to grow up and write and
illustrate children’s books, but her first job was at McDonalds just of the PA
turnpike in Morgantown. She saved her money then because she wanted to leave
home and go study at BYU.
She went to school all over. She
went to many different elementary schools and went to Sequoia Jr. High in OK,
Twin Valley middle school and High school in Elverson PA. Twin Valley didn’t
have a football team because it was a small country high school. She says it was
a good school though. She took AP English, Physics, and Political Science. Her
hobbies included drawing, listening to music, talking on the phone, and playing
the piano. She was a staff manager for one of the show choir productions. She
wanted to be in the musicals, but her mother always needed her at home. She was
in Spanish club. She spent her Saturdays at her dads and her summer vacations
mostly at her Mammaw’s in Mississippi, her Pappaw died when she was 11.
She
married my father on June 22, 1984 in the Mesa, Arizona Temple. When she had
children of her own she gave them more responsibility then her parents gave
her, but she limited out TV time and set up a chore store in an effort to make
chores fun. She spent a lot of time with use. She set up traditions for
birthdays and holidays and always made time for us to talk to her.
Her family wasn’t very active in the
church when she was growing up, but she loved church and so would get rides to
activities every chance she got. Back then Primary and YM/YW activities were on
different days during the week. They did great fund raisers like the Strawberry
Festival. It was a big carnival and bazaar that helped them earn money for the
ward. They had a Gym night and a great seminary teacher who had Lord of the
Rings parties. They did a spook alley at Halloween and hayrides. She says her
ward in Reading, Pennsylvania was fab.
She
says her strengths are that she is creative and loves people which I have to
agree with. She is great with kids and is a pretty good writer. She is a
Special Ed. teacher and so she has a lot of patience when it comes to kids. My
mother is one of the most creative people I know and she gets along with people
really well. For her weaknesses she says she is scatter brained and gets discouraged
by people. I would also have to agree with this. She is always losing things
and can never remember things and she can get very fed up with people.
She wants people to know that she
has a strong testimony of the church even though she has been through a lot and
is now watching as some of her children fall away. She wants to be remembered
as a good mother, not perfect, but definitely engaged in loving her children
and trying to bring them good experiences.
So now that you’ve read a little bit
about the women in my life I hope you learned something. They all have had
their ups and their downs, but they have made it through. They are all examples
to me in my own life and I’m glad I’m related to them. They have helped to
strengthen my own testimony. They are all wonderful people and I hope I can be
like them in my own life.
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