FOR MOST OF THE CENTURY: LILLIAN AND LUCILLE (PART 59)

Jean Bell Mosley's new autobiography, "For Most of the Century," is only available in serialized form in the Southeast Missourian. Return each week for her continuing story.

With Mama's death that generation on both paternal and maternal sides was gone, folded into history, their pictures completed on the tapestry of time.

By this time my sisters and I had children, hence a fourth generation from the farmstead days was under way. Indeed, a fifth, for Lillian had a grandchild, Beth Ann.

From high school graduation on, Lillian taught school for forty-three years, first in some small rural one-room schools in Madison and St. Francois counties -- Miller's Chapel, Hildebrecht, Burch and then the third grade at Doe Run for many of those years.

It was possible then to take a Teacher's Examination upon high school graduation and, if passed, teach school. Through spring and summer months at Flat River Junior College, Southeast Missouri State University, and a semester at Missouri University, Lillian at length got her B.S. in Education Degree. She was the first of us girls to be employed and was very generous with her money, saving some for college tuition and giving gifts to the rest of the family. A box type Brownie Camera was one of her first gifts to me. It is now a highly prized collectible.

As explained earlier, on account of schooling, Lillian was a year late in coming to the farm, and three of her high school years were spent in Fredericktown with Grandma Casey, it being so difficult to get to our local district high school, five miles away. No school buses then.

The family's favorite story about Lillian was that she was always ready to face the world and its vicissitudes in whatever manner it took. Early example of this was that she always carried a rock in pocket or hand should darkness overtake her as she walked home from school or any other place. Emblematic though it may have been, she was ready to do battle with anything or anyone who meant her harm, including the rumored, dreaded black panther.

Pretty, black-haired, big-blued-eyed Lillian, had some of the rough country edges filed away as she stayed with Grandma Casey and attended an "up-town" school, although she missed many of the farm experiences Lou and I had.

"Now you're the oldest. You must be a leader, set an example," Mama had cautioned her. Therefore, Lou and I never invited Lillian along if, on a hot summer day we felt we would expire if we didn't cool off with a quart of peaches, filched from the cellar and taken to the river to eat, our feet dangling in the water.

"Thou shalt not steal," Lillian would have blazed. Nor did we tell her about our "scenes." "Daydreaming! Fantasizing!" she would have deplored.

But we loved her and stood a little in awe of her uprightness, determination and unselfishness.

After retirement from teaching, Lillian took up oil painting and, at this late date in her teaching career, became very good at it.

After a series of heart attacks, broken hip, a cracked vertebra, installation of a pace-maker and ultimately heart failure, Lillian died in her sleep on February 8, 1994.

Lillian was a collector of many things and a keeper of many things. Her home was a treasure trove. She was good at organizing programs and delighting us all with games she would plan for holidays. She wanted to keep all her loved ones close around her and would have made a good matriarch of a clan. Indeed, she was that.

So, for a short while there were two of us left until Lucille died, Nov. 3, 1995, "And Then There Was One."*

There are some advantages to being the baby in a family of seven ... I, being the baby was supervised and cared for by the six others. That was an asset, I suppose, but somewhat confining. I couldn't wander very far away on my own, exploring the pretty wildflowers, slopes and hollows, although I did manage to get lost twice and had to be hunted for by the six others.

A major advantage of being the youngest is that you can learn from all the others. I watched and learned from Dad and Grandpa how to harness a horse and hitch it to the buggy and amazed them one day when I said, "Let me do that," and did.

I watched the order in which Grandma made her famous hickory nut cake and soon was able to do it all by myself. I watched Mama cut out cloth and make a garment. I did that too. I watched Lillian file her fingernails and copied that, although it seemed tiresome to me, especially since I could cut them with the scissors, at least one hand.

But most of all, I learned from Lou. "Shoot, we can do that," was more or less, her motto. When the waters of the St. Francis River were beginning to overflow the floor boards of our swinging bridge during a spring flood, I balked. "Shoot, we can beat that water," she said and began to limp across where the floor boards were supposed to be. Limped, because she was crippled from polio since infancy.

When we wanted some high heels and Mama said we weren't old enough, shoot, we made 'em. Tied empty thread spools in a most creative manner, to our Red Goose shoes and walked around as sophisticated as our minister's wife.

Perhaps Lou's biggest coup was the little wagon. We wanted one.

"It'll be easier for us to get around and haul our sassafras roots," I said, kicking at one of the wagon hubs Dad had brought to the farm from his Elvins Blacksmith Shop and Livery Stable.

We watched the hub roll down a slight incline. "Shoot, let's make one," Lou said. And we did, with the aid of broom stick axles stuck through four hubs and a wooden box for a wagon bed. When finished, we sat in it, gave it a boost and rolled all the way down through the orchard, across the slanting meadow and into the river. It didn't steer easily and we didn't want to abandon our masterpiece.

Ability to get around, cover space, that was the thing, so after many braces, crutches and operations, in the mid-80s, she bought an electric scooter, her pride and joy.

One by one, they went. Grandma first, then Grandpa, Dad, Mama, Lillian, until there was only Lou and me.

"Shoot," Lou said to me the last time we talked, "I'm not goin' to be here much longer either, but I know where I'm goin'." Then, to light the moment, she added, "You turn out the lights and shut the door." It was a variation of our old farm days' caution to "Blow out the lamps and shut the door" should we all be leaving the house after dark.

"Go slowly, so I can catch up," I started to say, but looking at her smaller and shorter leg which always slowed her gait, it didn't seem the right thing to say, so I, stumblingly, changed it to "I imagine they have special gates for scooters." And that was our last talk about that subject.

So, now she has gone and it is down to one, me. Being the baby isn't always an advantage. Sometimes you have to go through all the passings, one by one. But, shoot, I know, by this time, how to "turn out the lights and shut the door."

* Southeast Missourian, Nov. 12, 1995

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime resident of Cape Girardeau.