Old Ladies Wear Undershirts

Copyright © 2020 Barbara J. Regan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

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WestBow Press

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Scripture quotations marked (NIV) are taken from the Holy Bible, New

International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica,

Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.

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Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

Scripture quotations marked (AMP) are taken from the Amplified Bible, Copyright ©

1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.

ISBN: 978-1-6642-0314-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-0315-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-0313-6 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020916055

WestBow Press rev. date: 09/09/2020

This book is

dedicated to

my children, my grandchildren,

my nieces and nephews,

and

all the Mrs. Maggie’s who teach so many so well.

Contents

Introduction

Part One

• At Home and Busy

• The Girls

• Mrs. Maggie, Bible Expert

• A Moment with Leslie, Melba, Mrs. Janice, Mrs. Maude and Mrs. Maggie

• Curious about the Two Groups

• The Lessons

Part Two

• Lessons Taught to the Girls by Mrs. Maggie’s Adult Children

• The First Nine

• The Second Nine

Part Three

• Do Everything with Love

• Treats and Trust

• On Their Way Back

• After High School

• The Commons Building

• Home Again

About the Author

Introduction

T here are times when illnesses or accidents may cause a person to be fitted with an artificial limb. Sometimes unexpected accidents or illnesses cause household budgets to decrease, necessitating the use of emergency savings. An unexpected change in our national economy may be the cause of thousands of people to be laid off. Their lifestyles change because of the lack of a regular income. A longer than normal winter freeze can cause farmers to produce fewer crops. Many things happen, and usually what happens is not controlled by any one person.

Perhaps you have also seen a person who appears to be as normal as everyone else until you just happen to see his or her artificial leg or hand. You may wonder why a neighbor’s utilities are disconnected, or you may wonder why some people walk and no longer drive to the grocery store. You may not know that they cannot afford to buy gas for the car now. You may wonder why vegetables are so expensive this year. You have forgotten about the long winter freeze and what the farmers endured. Many things happen to cause some inconvenience, or sometimes a serious hardship, for people. We would all rather not have those experiences, but we learn and grow from them. Our preference is to always have a good life to live.

Don’t you just love to live the good life? We all do. Have you ever stopped to think about why there is a good life and how it came to be? The good life does not mean the same thing to everybody. It depends on where a person places his or her values. Without a doubt, we know that not everybody has a good life. Consider the following three people: a child who has toys and games who may feel like that this is the good life; an average student who has worked very hard and was just told that he made the A honor roll for this marking period; and a wife who receives a long-wished-for diamond necklace from her husband. These three people had their spirits uplifted. What uplifts the spirit and improves the attitude of one person might have little meaning for someone else. We each have our personal thoughts, goals, values, and so forth, including our own thoughts about what a good life is, what we enjoy.

As young children we are taught to say please and thank you and to be polite and patient with others. We are given small chores, and as we grow, the chores grow too. The purpose of this is to teach us responsibility. We are also learning and coming to know how to be honest and fair-minded. We are developing our character. Through this, we obtain strong moral principles; we become a person who has integrity. Our parents know that these teachings will prepare us for a life of success and goodness. No life is perfect, but this is partial preparation for having a good life.

Not all people want to be well-known or want to be leaders. All many want to do is live a life without negativity, that is, without confrontation. They just want to get along well with others. For these people, this is the good life.

I was a happy child. I enjoyed playing with toys, and it did not matter to me whether they’d been purchased at a store or made by hand by a relative or another local adult and then given to me. I did not always like it when my older playmates went to school and I was too young to go. I missed playing with them, though I must admit, I was happy playing with my little dogs, Snowball and Snoopy, and my make-believe friends. Many of those days were filled with my mother teaching me the alphabet, both orally and visually, and the numbers 1 to 200, both orally and visually, or how to spell my name and write my name as well as my parents’ names. I also knew my address. There were days when I learned to cut out pictures from magazines and make stories that became my own. I was happy doing these things because my mother had made them all fun to do.

On warm, sunny days I was allowed to play in a very shallow, sandy stream of water that constantly flowed in front of our property. The water usually did not cover the top of my feet, but I liked it. It was always warm water, and it flowed down the hills on the far side of our property. As a young preschooler, I thought the water appeared only for my playtime. It was otherwise ignored.

To ignore the water was not a problem because I could always play with Snowball and Snoopy, my two dogs. If I threw a ball, one of them was sure to catch it and bring it back to me. We played catch-the-ball nearly every day.

Lunch was always a good time, but I did not always want to take a nap at naptime. I did it anyway, and life was good.

My parents took great care of me each day and looked with hope toward my future success. I recall my father working outside the neighborhood and my stay-at-home mother always being busy. When my father came home at the end of his workday, I would run to meet him. He always picked me up and gave me a hug. My mother didn’t pick me up, but she would pull me close and give me a squeeze during the day. I enjoyed these hugs, and they were reassuring to me, making me feel I was living the good life. My mother would clean the inside of our home then go outside to do such things as gather vegetables from the garden. Other mothers did the same. One day each week, sometimes two, was set aside for washing clothes. My mother would hang the clothes on the clothesline in the backyard to dry in the sunshine. My mother, and all the other neighboring mothers, had routines or schedules or clocks that none of us children knew about. They would often walk around the yard and look at us as we played. In later years I realized this was a safety check to see that all was well as we were playing, or to note if any child had left without notifying his or her mother. Each mother kept track of who was in the yard, when they arrived, when they left, and how well they played with the other children. My mother would often allow herself a few minutes to chat with the mother next door.

Their chatting was serious and helpful to both of them. Whatever the verbal exchange was about, it was done while the women were relaxed and dressed comfortably, never dressed up. Sometimes as the mothers leaned on the fence to talk, I might see the roll at the top of my mother’s work stockings, or her apron pulled just a bit off-center. Some days I could even see the edge of her undershirt. I sometimes wondered, Why does she wear undershirts just like I do? Well, as I grew older, I came to understand that the basic purpose of an undershirt is to absorb your sweat. It is a layer to keep the outer layer of clothes from appearing to be wet, insulation of sorts. My mother and all the other mothers did indeed sweat. I could see it. Everybody could see it. Yet our mothers appeared to be comfortable, and they seemed to work day after day without complaining or stopping.

I could not let go of the thought of the undershirts they wore. Many mothers made their own dresses, aprons, undershirts, and sweaters—most of their clothes. They also made clothes for their children. Some mothers specialized in making aprons; some specialized in making undershirts. The undershirts were made from a special cotton fabric that was especially soft. Those undershirts were there to serve a purpose for my mother and all the other mothers. The cooking and the housework made my mother sweat. Everybody wore an undershirt no matter what the season was.

My mother and I always had direct how-to interactions; she was always teaching me a new skill. All the mothers had easy and comforting conversations with any and all the children. All the children knew they were loved, cared for, and protected no matter whose yard they played in. One day I thought, That’s it! The undershirt is the connection! I kept thinking, Could it be that whatever the undershirts do for our mothers, our mothers do those things for us as their children? I believe that is true. Mothers pass all these good attributes on to us, not to mention the part where the undershirts are later repurposed or recycled. So then we pass those things on to the next generation. Was I learning how to theorize? Was I transferring my learning? I just knew I was watching and thinking about what I saw.

The same patterns were observable on my grandmother’s street. Young children have thoughts but don’t always know how to express them clearly. One of my many thoughts was that my mother and my grandmother were just like my undershirts; they protected me and kept me safe, clean, happy, comfortable. I also thought that the adult women wore undershirts, just as I wore undershirts, as a symbol that they could connect to me at any time. Yes, I was a preschooler then, but it seemed that all the women did so much work, and yet they were able to keep a good, close watch over us as we played outside.

As children, we were polite. We didn’t interrupt adult conversations, but often we would listen in. (Let’s not forget that children are still children. Yes, we did play pranks on each other, and yes, we did get in trouble with our parents sometimes and had to be disciplined.) Much about life was learned as the older generation conversed in the backyard over the fence. These lessons have been used, lived, and passed on to later generations.

When I was young and my world grew bigger, my playmates and I began to see other people who had different and interesting attributes. Some people spoke words quickly, whereas some spoke much slower; some people walked with short, quick steps, and some made longer strides.

As my friend Rose and I were playing in the rocks and dirt with other children on the side of her house, she said, When I grow up, I want to draw like Mrs. Cooksey. She can draw and paint all kinds of animals. She has painted birds on the wall of her storage shed in her backyard.

Alice, another friend, said, "When I am nine years old, I want to skate like Bobby and Madilyn. They always look so perfect at the skating rink.

What do you want to be when you grow up, Charles?

His reply was, I’m going to have muscles that are big and strong like my dad’s. There isn’t anything he can’t do. He knows how to do everything!

The things that we liked really got our attention. Sometimes we had no personal connection to those other people; we just liked whatever special attributes they had that appealed to us. As we continued to grow and our world got even larger, we got better at picking out things about other people, and we could do it faster.

There is a woman mentioned in this book whom we all need to observe and whom we all need to meet if ever we get the opportunity. Her name is Mrs. Maggie. In these chapters, Mrs. Maggie is a person with many fine qualities that are admired by so many people in her community. If we were to randomly ask some of her neighbors, some merchants in her town, or any of her church members about her, we would be amazed at their responses. Their statements would be positive with, if you were to write it, the list being long:

• Mrs. Maggie is helpful, dependable, and practical.

• She has a quiet manner about her and is very knowledgeable.

• She gets involved in church activities and community activities.

• She is kind, attentive, gentle, and patient.

• She and her husband are strong believers in God.

• Mrs. Maggie is hardworking, honest, and loving.

• She is creative and sensitive.

• She generously shares her artistic skills and her belongings.

• Mrs. Maggie will teach a Bible lesson anywhere if the opportunity arises.

• She is polite, thoughtful, and trustworthy.

• All her children are active in the church.

• She is a highly motivated individual and usually motivates others.

• She compliments others when it is deserved.

• From what I’ve seen, she lives what the Bible teaches.

• She speaks softly, and she seems to have the strength of a roaring giant.

Though Mrs. Maggie is elderly, the grace with which she moves is both admirable and astonishing, and her energy level is always high. Many look at her in wonderment. They like what they see and desire to be as she is. They want to get close to her, especially the younger generation. Truly, Mrs. Maggie is very special to so many.

Mrs. Maggie is a great example for many who wonder how they should speak to those of the younger generations. She is also exemplary in her family connections and community involvement. Many have followed in her footsteps and have looked to her as a mentor. She is gentle with her actions and words, yet her results are strong and inviting. Many see strength in her gentleness, which causes them to wonder. They want to learn how to develop those qualities in themselves.

Mrs. Maggie’s strong belief in God is evident. She takes note of her surroundings and gives thought to it. Her whole life has been an unselfish effort to reach out to others to make their living a good experience. As she does these things for others, she says a quiet prayer and perhaps gains some satisfaction and achieves a bit of personal growth, hoping that the other person will pass the love and kindness on to someone else.

Here we also meet two young girls, Leslie and Melba. When they were ages five and three, they played together at church. Tag, you’re it was their favorite game. Run, chase, hide, and run again was what they did. When they became school age, they rode the same bus to school and sat together. Each knew where the other lived, and they would sometimes visit and play together. What a friendship. They would later spend many hours together with Mrs. Maggie, sometimes bringing a friend along to share their love of learning. They receive knowledge, confidence, and comfort from their bond with Mrs. Maggie. For nearly a century, there have been a countless number of people, younger, older, male, female, who have come to Mrs. Maggie and learned much, as well as teaching much to her. Through formal and informal teachings, observations, experiences, and experimenting, Mrs. Maggie has garnered a great deal of wisdom to pass on to others. She is a natural at sharing, explaining, and making it very easy for her young listeners to forget the time as she pours insight into their minds and hearts.

Not many in her town are her peers. Yes, Mrs. Maggie is one of the oldest, healthiest, most active, and most loving people to be found. The town she lives in is neither urban nor rural, but it is stable and close-knit. All the neighbors know each other and help each other. There are public schools, religious schools, stores catering to everyone’s shopping needs, churches, a small public library, the postal service, a large hospital and several medical clinics, and a recreation center