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Summer Fur

4/19/2017

19 Comments

 
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(Unless otherwise noted, the Kathryn Tucker Windham blog is written by her children, Ben Windham and Dilcy Windham Hilley.)


One sweltering July Sunday in Selma, Alabama, my mother wore mink to church.

As a rule, the three young Windham children were vigilant about remembering our mother’s June birthday.  But one year, we forgot.

On other birthdays, we’d worked in secret, weaving potholders or making elaborate drawings of battle scenes.  But this June 2, school was letting out, band camp was about to begin, and the city pool was open.  And we forgot my mother’s birthday.

Sometime in the early part of July, in a miraculous moment when my sister Kitti’s mind turned from boys in bathing suits to her family, she said to brother Ben and me, “Oh good Lord.  We forgot Mother’s birthday!”

Guilt-stricken, we gathered our savings together and set out on a Saturday morning to make things right.  At Woolworth’s.  
After close inspection of Evening in Paris cologne and other exotic possibilities, Kitti selected the most perfect present in the universe---a pair of mink earrings.   I guess they were real mink.  The cardboard they were clipped to said MINK EARRINGS.  We had just enough savings to purchase these high-end fluffs of elegance.

We wrapped them and presented them to Mother that night, apologizing for the oversight a month earlier.  Mother appeared delighted, saying she could hardly wait to wear them to church the next day.  And she did.  She wore her hair short, and those furry muffs must have grabbed the attention of more than one fashion-conscious woman in the congregation.  I doubt Mother cared one whit.

After Mother died and we were sorting through her house, I opened her top dresser drawer where she kept all things special.  There, wrapped in a cotton handkerchief, were a pair of tattered, shedding mink earrings…worn to church one sweltering Sunday in Selma, Alabama.

19 Comments
Yvonne link
4/19/2017 04:02:19 pm

Oh my, you have to love how a Mamma loves the gifts of a child! Love the picture of my "home" church for my grandmother Mae MCloud Manderson was one of those fashion conscious ladies! Ladies who worked collectively to bring us up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord!

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Betty Ehlert McManus
4/19/2017 05:11:44 pm

Kathryn and your beautiful grandmother Mae were dear Methodist friends of my Aunt Fayde Rowe. Fayde once gave me a much prized rhinestone hair barrette that Mae had given her. Bless be the ties that bind.

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Dilcy
4/19/2017 06:35:18 pm

Fayde was one of my very favorite adults, and, for some reason, the only adult I was allowed to call by her first name.

Dilcy
4/19/2017 06:35:27 pm

Thank you, Yvonne. It was a wonderful church to grow up in!

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Dilcy
4/20/2017 07:47:15 pm

It was a church full of wonderful people, Yvonne.

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Deborah Tankins
4/19/2017 04:22:24 pm

Simply hilarious. Dilcy, you've been endowed with the gift, storytelling. And I'm loving every word.

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Dilcy
4/19/2017 06:35:12 pm

Thank you, Deborah. Mama must have been horrified!

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Diane Walton
4/20/2017 08:23:39 am

I love these stories. Plus, you have a REAL gift at telling story!!! I love reading your writing.

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Dilcy
4/20/2017 07:48:35 pm

Thank you, Diane.

Beth Robertson
4/19/2017 04:33:45 pm

Thank you for this beautiful story.

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Dilcy
4/19/2017 06:34:54 pm

Thank you for reading it, Beth.

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Peggy Farmer
4/19/2017 04:39:07 pm

Thank you so very much for keeping her memory alive and well

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Dilcy
4/19/2017 06:34:45 pm

Thank you for that sweet comment, Peggy.

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Sheryl McBride
4/19/2017 04:46:04 pm

Love this story ! I have cd's of your Mother telling wonderful stories. Her voice makes me homesick for my home state. Thank you for sharing this memory of Kathryn.

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Dilcy
4/19/2017 06:35:01 pm

Come back home and see us sometime, Sheryl.

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Kelly kazek link
4/20/2017 06:18:38 am

Love this story so much. Beautifully written. I wrote a column from the mom's point of view when Baby Girl bought me a bracelet of plastic beads interspersed with purple plastic horseshoes and 4-leaf clovers. I wore it to work. So sweet that your mom kept the earrings.

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Dilcy
4/20/2017 07:50:48 pm

Baby Girl and I are so pleased you wore that bracelet, Kelly.

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Nita Poer
4/21/2017 09:01:06 pm

Dilcy my family fell in love with your mother and her story telling a few years before we met and fell in love with you. I love reading all of your memories.

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Dilcy
4/22/2017 08:33:55 pm

Nita, sometimes your sweet posts make me cry. I love you.

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"Some people are important to intellectuals, journalists, or politicians, but Kathryn Tucker Windham is probably the only person I know in Alabama who is important to everybody."      

​–
Wayne Flynt, Professor Emeritus in the Department of History at Auburn University. 
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  • Home
  • KATHRYN'S WORK
    • PHOTOGRAPHY
    • BOOKS
    • TELLING STORIES
    • AWARDS
  • Biography
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  • OUR STORIES (Blog)
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  • NEW 8 x 10 Prints