jimthompson.org > Family History > Maxine Calvert Thompson > Maxine and Myra
  
Editor’s Note:

Myra Chatham Carden is Mother’s first cousin. To the best I realize, I first met Myra at Dale’s funeral three years ago. She is an extremely nice, generous lady with an outgoing personality. She and I began corresponding via email a few months ago and I found out she and Mother were terrific friends. They grew up together, attended high school together, played together, and sometimes went to church together. Myra started telling me a few stories of their experiences and I asked for more. I began to know Mother through Myra’s stories. The more stories Myra tells me, the more I beg her for additional tales. I extracted the stories from her emails and, with her permission, put them here for my siblings. I cannot thank Myra enough for sharing my mother with me.

Leigh Ann Holeman
January 26, 2007

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Maxine and Myra

Maxine and I were first cousins and we were the same age. We spent lots of time with each other growing up. My sister Doris and I would go stay a week at a time with her and she would do the same at our house. Maxine was a sweet, bubbly girl and had the most infectious giggle or laugh of anyone. Her laughter just rolled out and I loved to get her tickled to just hear that laugh. She and I liked being together just laughing and talking. She was a beautiful girl, with blond hair and pretty fair complexion. She and I liked to take long walks but mostly just enjoyed each others company and we were very proud to be cousins. My daddy was named Irving Chatham. Dale was also good to us and would take us places when he got a car. He was a great guy when he was growing up; he changed later on and was hard to understand sometimes.

Maxine was a finicky eater, would never eat meat. She ate only a few things growing up. But she loved hamburgers. Each time Uncle Ed went to Cullman he would always bring home a bag of burgers. One such occasion he got back with the burgers and she met him at the car and he gave her the sack full. Well, she started to run and one fell out of the sack and came apart and dropped the meat on the ground. Aunt Lizzie saw her pick up that meat and really stare at it. She ran inside and said “I do believe one of those hamburgers had a piece of meat in it”. She said if it did she would not eat it. Uncle Ed said “Maxine, you have always ate lots of hamburgers” and she said “yes”. So he said “they all had meat in them so why not go ahead and eat one?” She thought about it a long time and they finally saw her take a little bite and it tasted so good she never mentioned the meat anymore but would still say “I do not eat meat”. This story happened when she was around 7 or 8 years old. Maxine was a real good person and she was honest, fair, loyal, just the greatest cousin and friend I ever had. I know her laughter is ringing out all over Heaven.

One day Maxine took a day off work and visited me in Gardendale. I said “I do not know what to fix for someone who does not eat meat. She was 20 at the time and she said “I eat meat now, did not know what I was missing, then that wonderful laughter. She said “I got to thinking how good hamburgers are so I tried spaghetti with meat sauce and loved it so I gradually started eating other meats and found out what was I missing”.

She used to visit me often while she was working at State Farm. She loved her babies and was so proud of you all. The last time I talked to her she called about two weeks before she passed away, did not complain at all and I had no idea she was so sick. She was like that.

One day when we were in the ninth grade, we were visiting another friend. Now neither my Mother nor Aunt Lizzie would let us in the water because we couldn’t swim????? ha. Well our friend’s Mom let her swim so a gang were going to the creek to swim. They begged us to go and we had no bathing suit but our friend’s sister had several so we put on our first swim suit and we sat on the creek bank getting up out nerve to get in. Well finally I got in and two steps later I stepped in a hole and down I went. Fortunately a strong boy pulled me out of the water. Well my hair was wet so we thought we would be caught. Max said” leave it to me”. She then wet her hair and when we got home Mother asked why our hair was wet and she said “we got so hot playing we just wet our hair to cool and Mother believed it. Yes, we were good girls but not above telling a little white lie. ha.We looked out for each other.

Thank goodness we went to Cullman High and were required to take swimming in PE. Maxine was terrified of the water. I cannot remember if she learned to swim or not but I think I would lead her around in the pool until she was not so afraid. After we both moved to B’ham she would go to the pool and we would lie in the sun and talk and giggle. I so wanted us to grow old together. She called me a week or two before she passed away and pretended she was doing great–she was not. Yes, Daddy was Aunt Lizzies brother. The other brothers were Rudolph, the oldest died in his sixties with emphysema, Jimmy died at age 48 from an aneurysm in the brain, Irving ,my dad who passed away with a heart attack at 52, Alton passed away in his early sixties heart related Felton who died from a heart attack at 52 and Woodrow, unsure of his age. Aunt Ethyl, the oldest sister, passed away at 48 from a brain operation for a tumor. Some of those things may be incorrect, just from the best of my memory. Rebecca would know from our family history.

Another time Doris and I were spending a week to go to revival with them and Aunt Lizzie had a good vegetable supper and we forgot we were going to church and we ate onions. One the way to church Maxine said “Oh, we ate onions ” and she started blowing her breath in her hands and told me too. Uncle Ed said “Girls what in the world are you doing?” Maxine said we are blowing our breath into our hands to see if we can smell onions on our breath. He laughed so hard he almost wrecked. He always teased us. We were about 11 years old when this happened. But the best memory I will always carry in my heart is her laughter, so melodious I really cannot describe it. I can hear it but cannot adequately describe it. We were so excited when we started high school and we got to be together. We had lived in different communities until then. We had many classes together and sat together. They called us the two sisters. Not a day goes by that I do not think of her. Always remember how much she loved you.

I am sure you know the old store in Trimble (gone now). Well, going towards your Grandmas, you would turn right at the store and go about 3 miles to where I grew up, a place called Sardis. I can just bet Uncle Ed would take you to that store with a quarter and let you buy a sack of candy. I guarantee the old house you went to with Uncle Alton was Grandpa and Grandma Chatham’s little home. They had a nice home and farm and lost it during the great Depression and that was all they could afford after that. They lived there till they died. We had family reunions there monthly and us cousins had such a good time.

I can still taste the special dishes each one made. Dale reminded me of what Aunt Lizzie fixed not long before he died. He was craving it and I made him describe it and I remembered it then. He said it was meatballs made from sausage and she had it in some kind of tomato sauce but not catchup and he told how the grease would puddle around the edge and said he would slip into it and get in trouble. He said Aunt Lizzie only made it for special occasions. I knew back then women made and canned something we called chili (made by cooking tomatoes, onions sugar et. down until it was rather thick). I bought some sausage and mixed with onions and ground beef, made meatballs, cooked till brown then made some of that sauce and made a casserole and took Dale. He ate till I thought he would be sick and that was a couple of weeks before he died. he said,” that is it, like Mother made, how did you do it?” I knew how Dale had done you, also his own family wrong, but when he was dying and had alienated most everyone, I just had to help him. We grew up so close and he was such a different guy then. He was so good Maxine and me.

Max and I saw each other often when we moved to Birmingham after I married. I was a teacher, she worked at State Farm so then when she married and moved to Huntsville and we had our families, we just talked to each other occasionally. Ashamed we can get so busy with raising our family we mostly lose touch.

My husband reminded me to tell you that Maxine introduced us. When we started to Cullman High in the ninth grade we rode the same bus. When the bus stopped at Trimble she had saved me a seat. As we rode along each morning some guy from the back of the bus kept saying Myra, Myra. I finally said “Maxine do you know who that crazy boy is?” She said, “it is Charles Carden” and I said “when you see him tell him to shut up”. She and I had a locker next to each other. He came by one day and said “why don’t you introduce me to your friend?” She said “this my cousin Myra Chatham and you better quit pestering her or she will never talk to you.” ha Here I have been married to him 52 years. Ha

Maxine loved wild grapes that grew in the woods around their farm. She taught me to like then also. Dale would hunt for them in the summer and bring us home a huge bag full. Hope someday you can find some to taste. That was a taste Max loved.

At night she wanted to catch lightening bugs in the summer and she would grab them in her hands and put then in a quart jar. Uncle Ed or Daddy would punch lots of holes in the lid and she was not afraid to catch them, I was, so my job was holding the jar and making sure none got out. That was our lamp and when they made us turn out the lights, we had our lightening bug lamp to see by and we would whisper and everyone thought we were sound asleep. So some night make you a lightning lamp and I know Maxine’s spirit will be right there with you.

Tell me how old each of you were when Maxine passed away. I knew at the time but have forgotten. I am 71 years old and it makes me mad when I forget something. I remember how much Uncle Ed and Aunt Lizzie loved you all. Aunt Lizzie and I know that Uncle Ed lost his will to live when Maxine died. He just stayed off to himself and grieved.

Charles, my husband remembers something about us. At one time when he had a cousin come up we would double date. We would go to Maxine’s house and one night we told them about a game we played at school called concentration. The class at school would get in a circle and chose one person to leave the room and be blindfolded. The group would choose something for that person to do when they returned. Example we might choose for them to pick up a pencil from a designated place in the room. One person was chosen to go get them and lightly place hands on their shoulders to prevent falling. The group had to concentrate each move for them to make, like start walking—when they did we had to think what direction for them to go, on and on until they would do what we were thinking. It is amazing.

Maxine decided we needed to see if it would work with our small group so Uncle Ed, Aunt Lizzie, Charles his cousin, myself, Dale and Maxine tried it and it worked. Well, Dale was fascinated by that and we played half the night. We would try to stop and Aunt Lizzie or Dale would say just one more time.

Just one fun thing we did. No TV, no phone, nothing. We had to invent our fun. We would make play houses in the fall with leaves, then we would use pine straw and weave together big oak leaves for skirts, worked better before the oak leaves turned brown. The more rooms we could make the better our play house was, we made furniture from stacks of leaves, put handkerchiefs on them for table cloths etc. There was a berry that turned purple in the fall called poke berry. We would mash it in a jar of water and it was pokeberry juice (could not drink it) but it was a lovely magenta color. Then we made mud pies and pretended we were having a picnic. One day Maxine was playing with us at our house and this mean boy who lived down the road slipped up and picked up our lovely magenta poke berry juice and poured it on Maxine’s gorgeous pale blond hair. Mother almost never got that out of her hair or off her dress. Back then girls could not wear pants or shorts, but a dress to play in. I thought Mother would kill him!! Ha. We were around eight years old.

One day we went to Sportsman Lake in Cullman and stayed in the water all day. We could not swim but we floated in an inner tube all day. I wouldn’t listen to Maxine. She covered up, I did not and by the next morning my shoulders were huge blisters, I mean I had blisters on my blisters and I was so sick and the only way to get home the next day was to catch the bus that passed their house once each morning and ride to Trimble, then walk 3 miles to my house. I could not bear my clothes to touch my shoulders. Aunt Lizzie made me a strapless dress from some terry cloth she was going to make towels from. She put elastic in the top so it would stay on bound my breast with a piece of cloth (we had no strapless bra) It was a disgrace then to go with a strapless sundress and I was so embarrassed. Maxine met the bus with me, stepped inside and to my surprise said “my cousin is badly sunburned as you can see so nobody better not say a word about how she is dressed.” She could be real protective of me when she needed to be and I her. That dress was pale green and was actually pretty and I wore it around the house for years.

I was in bed with that burn for several days and had to wear that strapless dress for two weeks. The first week I got a card from our Cullman Baptist Association and it thanked me for being willing to speak at out associational meeting and had the schedule written down. I figured my Uncle Curtis Hancock had done that, he was always volunteering me for something. Well, he had to fix that one - no way could I speak before a bunch of preachers with my new sundress. Ha

As you can tell this is an old picture. Mother is on the left, then Doris, Me, Janice and Larry. Mother has been gone about 6 years (written 2006), Daddy died young at 52, Larry died of cancer last year, about killed us sisters. Jan and Doris live in Decatur.

Also last July Doris’s middle son fell dead while jogging. He was head football coach at East Limestone, you probably heard about it. Below is his guest book and to read it is to know him. He was 44 years old, a health and exercise guy all his life yet fell dead with a massive heart attack, something you need to be aware of . Heart disease ran in the Chatham family so you and all your siblings keep a check on yourself. The cancer came form the Calvert side maybe, do not know of much in the Chatham family. I had by-pass surgery when I was 67.

I read your post on Maxine’s birthday and yes, she would be 71. If she were alive she would be your best friend and supporter. She would be so proud of you. Yes, you would do lots of things together. And would you go shopping, you bet. She would adore your children and they would her. But most of all, the fun you would have, she would giggle and giggle with you and that laughter would be in your ears forever. I can still hear her laughing, always will be able to. She and I used to go to Cullman on the bus every now and then. Can you believe our Mothers would allow that. It left around eight in the morning so we had to stay all day. We had enough money for a coke and hamburger and for a movie but we still had hours to kill. Every time we heard a train we would hurry to the viaduct to look over and see it. That was a rare sight to our country eyes. And when we got real tired we would walk the 7 or so blocks and stay awhile with Aunt Ethyl Chatham Livingston. We had to walk all the way back to the bus station to go home at 4:30. There was only one public restroom in the whole town of Cullman then. Both our Mother’s said “DO NOT use that bathroom” and “should you just have to, put lots of tissue on it and stand up or you will catch some horrible disease”. ha So funny to think of those days now. We would go in there holding hands scared to death. ha

When we were teenagers, there was no crime in Cullman that we ever heard of, wasn’t that wonderful? The bus came right past Aunt Lizzie’s but I lived three miles from where it went, so usually I rode to a store at Trimble with Mother’s brother and I waited for the bus. Looking back I am shocked that they allowed us to do that sometimes. The only thing they feared was that awful PUBLIC restroom. ha They would not even allow us to go look at the first public pool in the county, women and girls in bathing suits swimming with men!

Aunt Ethyl lived about two blocks from the business section in Cullman and real close to Cullman Hospital. She was Aunt Lizzie’s and Daddy’s sister and a wonderful person. The bus left Cullman at 4:30 going back so we went to the bus station at 3:30 so we sure would not miss it. No telephones to even call if we had a problem. No, I still cannot imagine we got to do that but they felt it totally safe back then and it was. We thought we were grown up for sure when we got to do that (we were 16).

Yesterday we were out eating lunch and I saw a couple from Cullman. She mentioned Maxine and said what a precious girl she was. I told her I had been talking to you and she said to tell you that she was a wonderful person.

Today I will introduce you to your Mother’s and my Uncle Rudolph. He was the oldest son of Grandpa and Grandma Chatham and had three children. The oldest, Wanda, two sons, Denny and Leon. He (Rudolph) married a second cousin, a very jolly, happy wonderful woman. During the terrible polio epidemic when Wanda was just a baby she took polio, almost died but survived and never walked. What a great child she was, brilliant. She matured into a wonderful woman, finished high school and worked and also married in her twenties. She wrote poems and articles for the paper, just great. She passed away a few years ago at a fairly young age, perhaps in her forties. I do not know what happened to Leon but sometimes see Denny who was born severely hair-lipped, possibly because of the cousin deal. Uncle Rudolph was a smoker and developed severe emphysema and that is what killed him in his early sixties if I remember it right. Maxine and I always played with Wanda when we visited Grandma’s for a get –together, which we did often. I will never forget her in that little wheelchair. The other kids seemed to ignore her probably because of her disability, so she loved Maxine and me a lot and she was our favorite.

Leigh Ann, it means just so much to me to share about Maxine and I growing up and about the rest of us Chathams If it helps you to hear, it helps me to share, makes me feel like she is here again, I know her spirit is.

Yes, Aunt Lizzie told me she knew Uncle Ed grieved himself to death. I am sure of it because every time we passed he was out in the barn or near just sitting alone, made me sorry for him and Aunt Lizzie also because that meant she was alone inside grieving.

Today as we passed the home place I imagined I was there. Aunt Lizzie had lots of four o’ clock flowers in all colors and you could pop the buds on your forehead and make wishes. We spent lots of time doing that and daydreaming about meeting our prince charming. Maxine went to a different school until tenth grade and my husband said her best friend in that school was named Peggy Tucker. If I can find out who she married I will have her share stuff with you.

Sometime tell me again where to get to their graves. I was at all the funerals and I seem to remember them being fairly close to the road in Cullman cemetery. I have not been back to that cemetery but I too want to take them some flowers sometime. Charles dad is buried way out in the country at Shady Grove, a little church built in the eighteen hundreds, just darling, looks like The Church InThe Wildwood. It is several miles past Aunt Lizzie’s at a place called Logan.

These days are so lovely. I am reminded of week-ends like this when Maxine, Dale and I hunted for wild grapes and muscadines in the woods near Aunt Lizzie’s house.

We ate the wild grapes and Aunt Lizzie made muscadine hull preserves and jelly–yum, yum. it was Maxine’s favorite growing up

Well, Maxine and I were always giggling but as for mischief, I do not think we ever got into any?? We just loved being together and talked about boys and talked way into the night. Yes, we were close in age. If I remember she had a Sept. birthday and I was a June bug so I was from June 29th till Sept. older {editor’s note: Mother’s b-day was in December}. I remember something that was done to her once. She was very blond and we were playing in our playhouse. We picked poke berries, mashed them in a quart jar to make the most beautiful magenta “paint” you ever saw. Well, one day a boy who lived close to us slipped up behind us and poured that pokeberry water over Maxine’s blond hair (very blond) when she was young. Mother could not wash out all the color and when she went home Aunt Lizzie had to wash and wash it over and over. You should have seen her with magenta hair. ha

I always think about Maxine in December. She and I would walk into the woods and hunt for a perfect Christmas tree. We would tie a string on them and tell Daddy or Uncle Ed where we found them and they would go bring them home. She always wanted me to help decorate their tree because she liked the angel hair I used. She and I always got a small tree for our Grandma Chatham and decorated it for them also, fun, fun. We would parch peanuts and make peanut candy, also we made pop corn balls (wish I knew how we did it) and giggle half the night. It was a happy time.

I remember one time we got Maxine a date with one of Charles’ cousins from Birmingham and he had a little Nash Rambler and we let the top back coming home one night and it stuck and, in trying to get the top up, the lights went out and it was black as could be - no street lights on that road to her house at all, no moon either that night. Well, Maxine started giggling and I remember saying “this is not funny” and she could not stop cackling, then we all got to laughing. I do not know how we ever got home that night. We would almost run into the ditch but somehow we always saw it just before it happened. I was spending the night with her, we could never have gotten me home. She laughed all night. The next morning they all asked what we were so tickled about and when we told them about it they all had a big laugh. As I remember it, rain started coming down just after Maxine and I got in the house and Charles and his cousin got wet. They got home and parked the car in the barn to get out of the rain.