Aug 29
In memory of Eileen “Grandma” Jones Feb. 26, 1920 - Aug. 23, 2007
Eileen “Grandma” JonesI called her Ma. My siblings preferred Mom. All our own kids and later our grandkids called her Grandma Jones. I’ve been told she was called Grandma Jones by many folks, young and old, here in McLean, Illinois, which in the last few decades of her wonder life became her own adopted hometown, a community of good, caring people she deeply loved.
She had such a strong sense of community, love and sharing with the many friends she made here that she refused to leave her home, even during the past several months when we thought her welfare might be best served elsewhere. We even offered to open our own homes to her, but she insisted that her tiny home in this community was where she wanted to be. She would have it no other way.
To me, my brother and my sisters, Ma’s life was a song. At the least, her 87-year-journey through her earthly home could be measured in song. She loved music, especially the simple country melodies she heard in her childhood, and the old-time hymns she learned from her own mother and the songs of praise that stuck with her like glue from her early days in church.
Those simple melodies often sang the praises of an equally simple life with few luxuries. Little wonder that this was our mother’s chosen music. She, herself, was the stripped-down model of simplicity.
Ma came into this world on Feb. 26 in humble surroundings. She was born in a farm house on the rich prairie soil north of Hopedale, Illinois. Her dad was a hard-working farm hand. The house of my mother’s birth was part of his wages.
Her mom, our beloved Grandma Gant, fit the bill of the farm hand’s wife in those days when the living was as hard as the black dirt could get when it was parched by a hot summer sun. Grandma Gant’s life was one of intense labor with simple but ample rewards of raising and feeding a family, doing what was necessary to raise a large family on a farm hand’s meager wages. Grandma Gant’s life served as the model of our own mom’s life.
The year Ma was born was also the year Wall Street collapsed, which started The Great Depression. Our mother was very much a child of that era, an FDR Democrat all her life, who reminded us often of the hardships of those days, especially if we dared complain about our own simplistic lifestyle as we grew up.
Our friends at school would talk about their shiny new bicycles. I myself learned to ride a hand-me-down, rusty bicycle that had no seat. (Later, when I got a bike that had a seat, I had to learn how to ride all over again.)
Our schoolmates would talk about the television programs they watched . Our family, instead, listened to the radio, especially on Friday and Saturday nights when the WLS Barn Dance from Chicago, or the far-away Grand Ole Opry from Nashville, Tennessee, would magically come drifting into our house over the airwaves.
Ma would often sing along with those radio performers, especially when her hero, Roy Acuff, would appear on the Opry. We, too, would soon learn the words to the songs and Saturday nights would turn into sing-a-longs, long before Mitch Miller became an American buzz-word.
Here’s something that may surprise you who came to know our mother only in her later years. She could play guitar. She owned one of those five-dollar Gene Autry guitars that came from the Sears catalogue. She bought it as a teenager, back when five bucks was something to be found only at the end of a rainbow.
I remember so vividly the summer nights we would gather around in the backyard as Ma would strum her guitar and lead us kids in singing the songs she loved. Carter Family tunes. Ballads about some tragic romance. Funny songs from the Appalachian Hills. And yes, the old Gospel songs. It was where I first learned “I’ll Fly Away,” an old hymn that remains a favorite of our family.
Sad songs also emerged from our mother’s simple life. Her first step into motherhood ended in tragedy with the infant’s death shortly after birth. Later, she would endure much pain as she watched her first husband — the father of three of her four children — suffer and eventually die from a heart ailment that in those days had no cure. We all vividly remember the horrible struggle of her living without a husband and us without a father, in the rural Hopedale countryside where we grew up. Later in life she remarried, a union that produced Ma’s fourth offspring. That marriage, too, would end with death’s sorrowful song.
But Ma endured through all her heartaches. With her simple, undying faith that always was a rock for us to lean on, she guided us through the hard times. In retrospect, there is no mistaking she knew this was her responsibility to shoulder, to keep us strong and always moving forward. After all, we, her children, were her treasures. We, in turn, gave her more treasurers with our spouses and then with her grandchildren, and now, great grandchildren. That’s all she ever wanted in life — someone to love — and the more there were to love, the better.
She never wanted anything for Christmas or her birthday — anything, that is, except having our family together to share these special days. That was her constant song of joy, having her family with her. Today, our family gathers around her one more time, a final time — surely to mourn her tragic passing but also to celebrate her unique, wonderful life and the riches beyond she certainly has earned.
Our mom was indeed unique, especially in these modern times. She was a simple country woman with simple needs and joys. Never was she fazed by the worldly items that have come into our own lives. She departs this world with nothing in terms of wealth or riches. We, who came from her womb, are spared the possibility of bickering over our inheritance.
Instead, we are left with the most simple of things. Our inheritance is a wealth of untold memories and the strong lessons learned of morality, spirituality and yes, the value of simplicity. These lessons gives rise to songs of joy, melodies such as “I’ll Fly Away” that still run deep through my recollection of those warm summer nights of my childhood.
From all of us, thanks, Ma, for the riches, the lessons — I failed to mention the best food you could ever hope for — and, yes Ma, thanks for the songs.
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I also vividly remember Aunt Eileen and my big sis Marjorie Prince sitting around singing the old songs while “Einey” played the guitar. Eileen was my mother’s baby sister. I was raised on the same music that Danny enjoyed. I think kids nowadays are cheated out of some great experiences.