The picture is wonderful. I was really surprised. I didn't have any
pictures of her except one head shot, which was taken not too long before she died.
I was four years old when she died. I don't even remember when she died. All I can remember is that she was in
bed a lot. She was having headaches. I remember going to the bed, and my mother putting her arm around me. That's about
it. My oldest sister, Virginia, was about 14 when my mother died, so she took care of us, along with help from our neighbors.
I was about 11 years old when my father remarried. He married
Eva Wallace. She was a good bit younger than Dad. He worked in the textile mill, so we didn't have a lot. My stepmother
started making us clothes and really took care of us. My father and stepmother had four boys. Virginia got married during
the war and moved to California.
I finished high school and
then took a job sewing sheets and pillows for a company in Spartanburg. I did that maybe eight or nine years. I married Thomas
Franklin Puckett in 1952, and didn't work much while my children were growing up. Later, I worked in a factory that made
ladies' blouses. My husband worked for the railroad.
My
father worked for the Spartan Mill until the ‘50s, and then he worked for an outdoor advertisement company, putting
up billboards. He died in 1988. I never talked to my father about my mother, and I wish now that I had.
