Memories of my Mother

Mom grew up at the corner of Peachtree and Statford in Atlanta, in a large house with chicken coops in the back. The youngest of three children, with brother Lowry and sister Harriet. She played across Peachtree in pastures and woods that would later become Lenox Square. She attended North Fulton High School, about a mile south on Peachtree.

Later she worked for Coca Cola. Every day a clerk would come around and place a cold bottle of Coke on her desk. It was mom’s neighbor Bill Key, an executive at Coke, who got her the job. Mr. Key sponsored mom’s trip to New York City, where Andy Williams sung to her during his performance on the Tonight Show. Years later David (me) got to know old Mr. Key at his church in Atlanta.

Nita was born in Atlanta, and attended day care on Piedmont Road. Not long after Marion and Bill moved to Macon, David was born. We lived in house rented on Ingleside, before moving to Wimbush Road. Franklyn arrived a few years later.

We church-hopped from Ingleside Presbyterian to Forest Hills Methodist before attending Northminster Presbyterian for much of our childhoods, where David Garrett and I were two of a number of Davids in the same Sunday School class. After moving out to Kathryn Drive we attended Northside Christian Church. Later Bill and Marion moved on to Mable White, then later New Heights.

Side note: our minister of music at Northminister in the late 60’s / early 70’s was Jim Davidson. Years later in the mid 1980’s I chaperoned a middle school choir retreat to Rock Eagle, where dozens of young choirs were performing. I ran into Mr. Davidson there.

As a boy I always remembered mom’s deep Southern accent, something I will never forget. My parents would get together with other couples to play bridge. Later she worked for Howard Hightower at State Farm. I remember tagging along with her on trips to the grocery store, of getting to paste the S&H green stamps into the little book, and looking through the catalog at things we’d never get.

I was a sick child, with asthma and allergies. Mom would take me to countless doctor’s appointments, to Dr. Spivey on Ingleside, to the allergist in downtown Macon, and to an allergist in Atlanta, back when there were doctor’s offices at Lenox Square. I never lacked for medicine, which I needed constantly.

Back in the late 60’s and early 70’s we’d drive up to Atlanta for Falcons games. Mom would make the sandwiches and we would literally tailgate in the parking lot. I always thought her cooking was great (except the boiled okra – never fried).

For Banner Night at a Braves game in the late 1960’s, mom created a huge banner that to me looked so authentic, with the Braves Indian spearing a red St. Louis Cardinal bird. To me it was the best banner in the parade.

Mom could sew. As a boy she sewed up a black Batman mask for my Halloween costume, complete with the little bat ears. I wore that thing for months afterward, playing out in the yard and with friends. In ninth grade when 70’s fashions were wild, she took a pair of kelly green bell-bottoms I was about to outgrow, and added a wide royal blue panel down the sides. She lengthened the legs with more royal blue fabric. And I wore them to school, with a flower print royal blue shirt and beige and burgundy platform heels. I fit right in.

She loved her Sunday School class at Mabel White, and later at New Heights. Mom was a packrat, preferring to print things off the computer. Not sure how many print cartridges she went through, but it was a lot. She’d print all kinds of helpful tips, family photos and histories, medical information, Sunday School directories. She’s clip articles from the newspaper for her files, and mail some to me. She had files where she’d put stuff. She was always trying to get more organized.

Mom had been in pain ever since her wreck in 1987. She has surgeries on her shoulder and knees and other body parts, with only limited relief. Long-suffering, but she rarely complained. She’d slide around the house in her wheeled chair or rollator, grabbing food from the fridge and placing it in the microwave, which she had on the side table at her level.

It’s worth telling the story again of how, just two or three years ago, when dad built a huge fire in the backyard to burn leaves. The fire looked to be out of control. Dad was outside tending the fire as best he could. Mom called the fire department, who came out and extinguished the fire. Dad never knew it was mom who made the call.

Mom was diligent. In recent years as her hearing faded, she became an email and text messaging machine, her slow fingers pecking out long texts even on the old style cell phones where you had to click from A to B to type a C. She would text and email in all caps. When I asked her why, she said it hurt her hands to type in lower case.

We finally got her an iPhone, and she became even more prolific. Not sure what some of her friends are going to do without all those texts coming in any more. She was a decent lip-reader, and learned to use Facetime as well.

Mom picked out the four songs that were sung at my dad’s funeral, including “I’ll Fly Away.” When each was sung her eyes lit up as she sang along.

Her obituary: https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/macon-ga/marion-murphy-10359496

Live stream and video of the service: http://www.marionmmurphymemorial.com/