My mother died yesterday, it wasn't the day before,
and this is not a retelling, or to use the Hollywood parlance, retooling, of
Albert Camus’ famous work, but she actually did pass away yesterday. For some it will seem morbid, my writing,
what must seem like mechanically, about her death so suddenly after the fact,
however for me, that is what I am, a writer, and in order to fully process what
every person must process each time they confront death, I must write about it,
write about her, Mother. I never called
her Mother, not usually, sometimes, when trying to be funny or sarcastic, I
would address her as such, but for all my life the term that I used was Mom. Mother was a 19th Century, an 18th
Century term, very rarely used, especially at the end of the 20th
Century, after the Great Depression and World Wars, the Nuclear Family resigned
the term Mother to the past and ushered in the term Mom. Today I hear young people call their mothers
things like “old lady” or “grandma” (way before the term even applies), a
lackadaisical attitude, what I see as a lack of respect for their position in
the family.
If
you want to know about a person then read their obituary, it was something I
had learned while studying genealogy. Obituaries,
more so than census records, told you about a person, of course, they told you
the who, the what, and most specifically, then when and whens. When was the person born, and when did the
person die. Census records may have told
you how many were in the home, who they were, what they did for a living, at
that specific time in history, but an obituary told you who they were. Some would talk about their careers, the
organizations they belonged to, the church they attended, any military service,
any vocation or avocation, any hobby or passing interest. An obituary told you who they were. Today, however, and I long suspected, but was
truly told, the newspaper only wants 100 words, anything more and they charge
you extra. Charge you extra?!? For a few words about a person’s life, a
person’s whole existence comes down to thirty-five cents a word extra? So the obituary I had written about my own
mother’s passing had to be whittled down, it had already been a paltry
184-words originally, the first paragraph of this work you are reading contains
more than a 184-words, but whittled it down I did to beneath the 100-word
limit. Gone was the name of the
step-father that had raised her from a five-year-old until she ran off to get
married, gone were the names of her children’s spouses and the names of the
places they live, gone was any explanation of how she lived her life, where she
had lived her life, with whom she had lived her life. Out of that word limit the name of her final
husband of 33 years survived, as well as the names of her children, but her
grandchildren & great-grandchildren and even great-great-grandchild was
reduced to just numbers. The obituary is
functional today, in the 21st Century, but functional to a sterility
that scares me about the future, if we are this careless, and only interested
in profit that a full obituary cannot be ran, free of charge, for a person’s
life, a life that extended over seven decades, then the future is
hopeless.
With
no proper obituary to tell you of Mom’s life, I will take to the 21st
Century’s other option for immortalizing others, the digital highway. The digital world where immortality can
finally be gained, but where also it can be lost in the blinding amount of Ones
and Zeros hurtling through wires, cables, and airwaves, but at least for this
moment in time, I can attempt to tell who she was, how she came into this
world, how she lived, and was raised….I can tell the story of her triumphs and
her defeats, her ups and downs. No
longer will I have to save some stories forever, in hopes of not upsetting
people’s opinions or slanting their viewpoints, now I can tell what I hope is
her story to my satisfaction, if only for my children, and their children, and
if there are people who read and disagree, have disparaging viewpoints, or
opinions, great…bless you, and I hope that you feel as strongly about your
opinions and professions as I obviously feel about mine, however I can tell you
that as her son I feel my opinions and professions are just as valid as most
everyone else’s. I have 8 brothers and
sisters who each have their own, unique opinions on the matters, and may posses
information of events or specific instances in her life that I do not, and that
is wonderful as well, for they posses something I will never, not even if they
share it, which most have shared stories, even while not in our parents’ or
fellow siblings presences, but nevertheless, they can hold very differing
opinions themselves with me on mine, and again, this does not trouble me, move
me, or effect me, or my opinions or stories any. Most of what I will be telling you is
correct, at least in my mind, and if not, well that’s just too bad, it’s the
story I am telling, and if you are willing to come along, I will tell you the
tale of my mother, and how she got to be that way, as my way of immortalizing
her and remembering her, properly, to me.
My Mother, my Mom, was
born Patrechia JoAnn Beck to Alfonse Beck and Edith Mae Hampton in the small
mining town of Desloge, Missouri. I
never knew much about her father, I never met the man when he lived. I served as a pallbearer at his funeral, the
only time I saw the man and only time I met my mother’s only brother. Her parents had divorced when she was very
young and relations between her and her biological father were strained, to say
the least. She would tell me about
visiting him in his final days, how he was mostly blind and an attempt at
reconciliation came on his part. She
never was able to tell me much about him, my attempts to find out more
information stymied by inaccurate records, and again by obituaries that lack
substantial information. The facts I do
know are sparse; Alfonse was born in 1901, although the place of birth is
unknown to me. There are rumors that he
was born in Illinois to German immigrant parents, or grandparents. Other rumors suggest that when he was a young
man there was trouble with another family after Alfonse became involved with
one of their daughters. He came to
Missouri to avoid legal troubles in Illinois, was the story. His bride to be, Edith Mae Hampton, was the daughter
of John Newton Hampton and Ida Mae LaRose, whose family were from Ste.
Genevieve County, Missouri. She was one
of five daughters; Alma, Sadie, Audrey, and Nellie. Little Alma Hampton died in infancy and the
four Hampton sisters survived into adulthood.
Edith had been born in 1905, and sometime before 1929 she married the
German from Illinois.
Their first child, John
Henry Beck, was born on February 3rd, 1929 but it would be over ten
years before another child was born. I
do not profess to know about the state of the marriage between Alfonse and
Edith, suffice to say that within five years of the birth of my mother in
August of 1939, the marriage would be dissolved and Edith would marry
another. On March 11th, 1945
Edith Hampton Beck married Grover Jones; she was his second wife. Grover had six children with his first wife,
Carrie Blackwell, who passed away in 1940.
Grover and Carrie had been married since 1915, a thirty-five year
marriage before her passing. He was 12
years older than Edith and took her, and her children in as his own. Most of Grover’s six previous children were
raised, and gone from the home, when he married Edith. He was a miner, as many people in the
Leadbelt Area were then, and provided a good home for the two children of his
new wife. The two remained married for
the rest of their lives, with Grover passing away in 1966 and Edith in
1969. Another two grandparents I never
got to meet and never got to know.
Suffice to say that Patrechia and John Henry were raised in a well-to-do
manner, little Patsy, as she was called, was spoiled, to say the least.
John Henry left home
and joined the military. He may have
returned home to Desloge, Missouri to visit family in the early days, I’m not
certain, but it is known he lived the Army life, transferring from duty station
to duty station and eventually retiring to Lexington, Kentucky as a full
Colonel in the U.S. Army. He never
returned to Missouri to live and lived out the remainder of his life in
Kentucky. Patrechia, on the other hand,
continued to live in Missouri, off and on, the rest of her life, and what a
life it was, filled with happiness but also with a huge amount of sadness.
At some point Patrechia
married or at least I believe she married as I can find no record of the
marriage at all. What is known is that
she gave birth to her first child, Elizabeth, in 1956 at the age of 17, the
father being a man named Gene Christopher.
A second daughter, Pamela, was born in 1958, only fourteen months later,
when Patrechia was still only 18. Both
of those daughters, who survive her, also brought forth children at the tender
ages of 17. Nothing else is known about
Gene Christopher, other than he was a vicious man who would beat his young
bride, a drunkard that was nothing but a swindler and cheat his remaining
days. The marriage, if in fact there
ever was one, did not last long, as Pamela was born in February of 1958 and by
1959 she was remarried to Donald Joseph Hamm and pregnant with their first
child, Donald, Junior who was born in 1960.
During this entire time, Patrechia continued to live in Missouri. Her two eldest daughters had been taken in by
her parents; Grover and Edith, to be raised as their own, some paperwork
indicates that the two were adopted by Grover and Edith. My sisters are my own aunts, great way to
start life.
Eventually, after the
death of Grover and Edith, the two elder daughters were taken in by one of Edith’s
sisters, but that did not last long and eventually they were kept in the
Presbyterian Home for Children in nearby Farmington, Missouri. To say their upbringing was difficult is an
understatement, both had been brought into their grandparents’ home to live,
and mostly probably spoiled a bit, but upon the death of their grandparents
that lifestyle changed. It’s been stated
to me, personally, by members of Grover’s family, descendants of his children
with his first wife, that Edith was unstable, mentally. Mother had always told stories about members
of her family that were that way, unstable, mentally. It’s no surprise then, that Edith’s sisters
were also unstable, attempting on at least one occasion, according to my
sister-aunts, to kill the young children by trying to drown them in a
bathtub. The two girls eventually found
men to take care of them; Pamela marrying Stanley Williford, of Elvins,
Missouri, a fine man that worked hard for his family. Those two remain married to this day. They had two children, but lost their son,
Stanley, Junior several years ago. They
have two grandchildren from their son and three grandchildren from their
daughter, Lori Philbert. Their life as
also been marked with happiness and a fair amount of sadness. Elizabeth never could find happiness, albeit
it could be argued that she may have not found it with one particular man (she
has been married three times; George Morgan, Darrell Abney, and Jason Barlow)
but instead in being a mother, having had two daughters, Shannon and Nicole,
with her first husband George and five children with her second husband
Darrell. Her oldest daughter with
Darrell, Samantha Charlene Abney, passed away in late 2011, while her other
children still survive; Darrell Patrick Abney, Casey Lynn Abney, Michael Eugene
Abney, and Jayme Lynn Abney.
Patrechia’s second
child from her second marriage was named after her mother, Edith Margaret Hamm,
and born in Los Angeles, California. Her
third, and final child with Donald Hamm (known to friends and family as “Doke”),
was Harold Lee Hamm and he was also born locally in Missouri. This began her travels in life, from what I
can tell. She was still just only 20
when her son, Donald “Joe” Hamm, Junior, and had never known life outside of
Missouri. Doke had taken her to
California, certainly to look for work, but that was short-lived, as was the
marriage. The final child, Harold, was
born in 1963 and by 1968 she was divorced again. She was not yet 30 years old, twice divorced
and the mother of five children.
She would meet her third
and final husband in 1968 or 1969. Gene
Bannister was born in 1931 in Farmington, Missouri, the son of Richard William
Bannister and the former Ruby Lee Zolman, daughter of the local Justice of the
Peace, John Philip Zolman. Richard came
from working stock, his father Edward had been a miner in nearby Bonne Terre,
Missouri. Gene was the third child for
Richard and Ruby and it being the Great Depression they were unable to afford
to raise him alongside his older brothers Richard, Junior and Lynn Z.
Bannister. Instead, Gene was raised
until the age of 8 or 9 by his maternal grandmother and her second husband, Mary
Leota Level and Henry Mitchell. In fact,
on one of his early school report cards, his name was given as Gene
Mitchell. Eventually, with World War Two
on the horizon, Gene came back to live at home.
His two older brothers left to join the military, Richard “Bill” Junior
to the Army and Lynn “Buddy” to the Navy.
Bill was injured during basic training, having been shot in the eye
during live fire exercises; however Buddy rode out the war as an electrician
aboard the USS San Juan, a career he continued throughout his life. Back at the Bannister home, Gene was joined
by his youngest brother, Roger Dale Bannister, in 1940. He too didn’t stay home long and his first
marriage resulted in two daughters, Dianna in 1951 (when he was 20) and Rebecca
in 1953. That marriage did not last
long, as Gene had a propensity for trouble and was in and out of jail and
prison in his youth.
There were rumors of a
third child born to the marriage, a child conceived while Gene was in prison
and basically bartered away via the Sheriff to a good family wanting a
child. Another child, by the first wife,
was rumored to be Gene’s as well, but on his deathbed he confessed that the
child was not his. The marriage did not
last and Gene did not remarry for all of the 1950s and most of the 1960s,
although a search of local obituaries show a woman named Emma Mae Bannister passing
away in late 1967. The obituary names
Gene as her husband, but in talking with him during his lifetime, he confessed
that he never married the woman but allowed her to be buried with his name, as
they had lived as husband and wife. She
was 11 years his senior, having been born in 1920, but, according to my father,
passed away at the young age of 47 after having fallen down some stairs at a
St. Louis restaurant. He told how they
were driving down to Farmington from St. Louis when she just slumped over in
the passenger seat and passed away. It
was thought a blood clot had done her in, from the fall, but suffices to say
that left Gene a divorced widower at the age of 36 years-old. His eldest daughter, Dianna (known forever to
family as “Pixie”) was being raised by his parents, Richard and Ruby, and the
younger daughter, Becky, was with her mother.
The divorce decree had given each parent sole custody of one child, so
that neither had to pay the other child support.
My mother once told me
the story of how her and my father had met.
According to her, a friend of hers had set her up on a blind date with a
man, and that man was not my father. He
had come along with his friend, a sort of wing man to the blind date, but after
several drinks it was obvious that Patrechia and Gene were destined to be
together. One time, while travelling
together from Florida to Missouri, my father told me something about those
early days. They had gone out to a place
in what was known as the Stockyards, a company town for the St. Louis National
Stockyards Company, where cattle was sold, by the late-1960s, the Stockyards
was a rough and tumble place, eventually absorbed by nearby Fairmount City,
Illinois. My father confessed that at
first, the arrangement between him and my mother was an arrangement of convenience;
he needed a place to live, she needed a place to live. They both had children from previous
marriages and possibly could raise them together. He told me, that sunny day as he drove, that
he did not love my mother, at first, but came to love her. The two remained married the rest of their
lives, despite how it began, those two remained a married couple, raising their
children together.
Married in 1969,
Patrechia and Gene welcomed a son in June of 1970, Eugene Junior, and in 1972 had
a second, and final, child, Jeffery Lynn Bannister. I was born in Jefferson City, Missouri and
celebrated my first birthday at a roadside park with a Hostess Cupcake for a
birthday cake. Within the year,
Patrechia’s children by her second husband were living with her and her new
husband. The family moved, as Gene
reached out to the network of friends and family connections around the country
looking for work, making their homes in Houston, Texas, Mobile, Alabama, and
Albuquerque, New Mexico by 1972, where Jeff was born. After New Mexico, they moved on to California,
living in the Los Angeles suburb of Pomona, Gene had worked for the L.A. County
Fair in the early 1960s and was able to find work there again. Patrechia’s eldest daughter, Elizabeth,
eventually was also living close by with her husband, George, and their two
daughters. I remember Liz babysitting me
as an infant, some from actual memories and others from word of mouth. In 1975, I was all set to begin school in
California, doing a kindergarten screening there, but that was not to be. By August of 1975 we were living in Illinois,
moving another dozen times between then and 1988 but always staying within a
10-20 mile radius.
Gene’s brother, Buddy,
came to live with the family in 1976. He
had taken his little brother in and tried to teach him the electricity business
in the 1950s and 1960s, having Gene help him with his business, even assisting
on celebrity electrical jobs. Buddy had
been married three times and his final wife, Elaine, had died earlier. He came to live with Gene, who was living
only a few miles from his youngest brother, Roger, in Illinois. He got a job at a local trucking company,
doing electrical work, and suffered a heart attack and passed away in February
of 1977. Gene was devastated. His older brother had been his role model,
that picture perfect man that he tried to live up to. Buddy was a champion bowler, a great hand at
a pool stick, and quite the ladies man.
Gene floundered in guilt and grief, but it was his wife, Patrechia that
pulled him out of it, insisting that he find something to do. He had been unemployed at the time, and his
unemployment benefits were wearing thin.
The push from my mother was just the thing, and within a few months,
Gene had begun selling watermelons on his front lawn.
The town of Breese,
Illinois, where we lived at the time, was a stopping point on Highway 50. People heading to nearby Carlyle Lake would
stop and buy a watermelon for their summer picnics. The front yard sales didn’t last long, and by
August of 1977 they had converted an old gas station at the four-way stop in
town to a produce market. I remember
riding my bicycle to the market to tell my mother that her idol, Elvis Presley,
had died. The market grew and grew; soon
it was not just watermelons but tomatoes, potatoes, onions, lettuce, and all
sorts of other produce that they were selling.
Business was good and all of the children were expected to pitch in and
help. Pat, as she was known to her husband and
friends, was in charge of the books in those early days and the business grew
from just produce to within a couple years they had leased the next door
building and were opening a bakery.
With assistance from
his son-in-law, David “O’Dell” Clinton (husband of his eldest daughter Dianna),
Gene’s Bakery was opened. O’Dell was a
baker by trade, having worked for various grocery stores and eventually
Wal-Mart in Farmington, and his knowledge of the business helped set the family
up in a new venture. The bakery did not
last long and eventually was turned into a restaurant, in order to capitalize
on the large bar business in the community.
Many people were looking for a place to eat before going home from the
bars. A local restaurant known as Wally’s
Drive-In was catty-corner across from the Produce market, but Gene’s Café did
not work to compete with Wally, instead whereas Wally focused on hamburgers,
fries, and shakes, Gene’s Café focused on home-made meals; biscuits and gravy,
beef tips and noddles, lasagna, and other family-style food. Eventually this business too fell and a third
business was opened in the same location, Gene’s Thrift Store. All the while, during each business venture,
the produce market remained operational.
With all the various
business interests, and with a climbing list of clients that included local
restaurants and even the local grocery store, Gene decided to hire an outside
accountant, and that’s when trouble began.
Within a few years, the unscrupulous accountant had failed to pay income
taxes on the family’s behalf, pocketing payments and running off with the cash
to avoid prosecution. The Internal
Revenue Service come calling and by 1983, the family’s luck in Breese, Illinois
had run out. By the summer of 1983 the
family had relocated to Lebanon, Illinois and continued their business venture,
with the same name, almost, but with a new owner, my elder sister, Edith
Margaret. Everything was put in her
name, to avoid problems with the IRS and the business name was changed from “Gene’s
Farm Fresh Fruits & Vegetables” to just the shortened “Gene’s Produce”. The business continued there until the
late-1980s, when the family transplanted again.
While I was gone to
serve in the U.S. Army, a dream my father had had as a young man and which say
realization in me, the family moved to Missouri. Missouri had always been the “family home” in
my youth. My grandparents, my father’s
parents, lived there. My sisters from my
father’s side and my two oldest sisters from my mother’s side, all lived in
Missouri. We would visit them, during
the holidays or on special occasions, but it was unknown and foreign to
me. Upon my release from the military, I
tried to forge my own way in North Carolina, but the call of family was too
hard to ignore. I moved to Missouri on Election
Day 1992, once again living under the roof of my parents until I could get my
own place. It was strange, and
wonderful, to once again be back with family.
My parents were not getting any younger, with Dad being 61 and Mom being
53, and I was determined to be there for them when they were no longer able to
care for themselves. My grandfather,
Richard, had passed away in 1985 and my Mother’s father, Alfonse, in 1986. I served as pallbearer for both men, although
I barely knew Richard and had no memories of Alfonse. I was determined that any children I had
would know their grandparents.
I was able to marry and
have my own children; Kayla, Jacob and Gina.
Kayla was old enough to know her grandfather Bannister and her
grandmother. Jacob and Gina,
regrettably, only have sparse memories, if any, of either of them. After Dad passed away in 2002, Patrechia
lived on her own for a while. The family
home, the same home Richard and Ruby had lived most of their married lives in,
had been lost in the wake of Dad’s death to foreclosure. Within a couple years, though, she was no
longer allowed to live on her own and it began a series of moves between
Retirement Communities, before she came to live at Brookside Manor in
Farmington in 2007. My family, my wife
and children, were always short on funds and it made visiting, with the rising
cost of fuel, difficult, but we made certain we visited on Thanksgiving and
Christmas, we would visit on her birthday and Mother’s Day, but other than
that, visits were reserved for once a month, maybe. My children never got to know their
grandparents, it’s a shame, but perhaps one day they can read this and get to
know them, somewhat.
I’ve laid out the
details of my mother’s life before you, trying to leave out some of the
scandals and skeletons from the closet.
Our family, like most, has not so much skeletons in the closet but full
graveyards full of skeletons to hide.
Towards the end, my father got involved in selling prescription
medication to people. A business man his
entire life, trying to be the big shot and trying to be the head honcho, it got
him, and my mother, in trouble with the law.
When he was younger, according to my father, he was in trouble so much
with local law enforcement authorities that when he would come home to visit,
local police officers were waiting for him to disembark the Greyhound bus and
would warn him to make his visit a short one.
As a 70 year-old man, he was still fighting authorities. He died before he could ever be brought to
trial, but not so my mother. She stood
trial for the charges, being an accessory and willing participant in the activities,
which resulted in five-years probation for the 65 year-old grandmother and
great-grandmother.
But do not let that
paint a picture of my parents as criminals or persons of shady reputation. For over 25 years my parents were productive
members of society, business people that provided jobs to many young people in
Illinois and a few here in Missouri at their various businesses. In the early-1990s my parents ran a thrift
store in downtown Flat River, Missouri (now known as Park Hills) and a produce
market in Elvins, Missouri (now also part of Park Hills). In the mid-1990s my brother, Jeff, my father
and I went into business together, once again attempting to recapture the
family glory with a produce business in Park Hills, but mismanagement of
finances led to another failed business venture, my parents’ final
venture. What you should know about my
mother was her thirst for knowledge.
Neither Patrechia, nor my father, finished high school, not surprisingly
when you have your first child at 17 years-old, but each one completed their
GED in 1986, while living in Illinois and in the 1990s, Pat went to college at
over 55 years-old and completed her Associate’s Degree in Criminal
Justice. She crocheted most of her life;
creating afghans, pot-holder, toilet tissue cozies, and various other yarn
creations, creations that will continue well past her life in the hands of her
children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and complete strangers.
She loved music,
Patrechia did, her favorite artists being Elvis Presley and Barry White. She loved to read and work puzzle books; word
searches and crosswords. She smoked most
of her life, something that resulted in her having COPD and emphysema, but in
her final years she had given up the habit, but it was too late. The depression from losing her husband of
thirty-three years was too much for her, resulting in her opening her home and
her arms to a few less-than-reputable characters, which continued until she was
forced to live in a retirement community.
She had always been searching for love and acceptance.
Her children can
complain about her as a parent all they want, as I have stated before they are
each entitled to their opinions. To me,
she was always friendly, helpful, she was supportive and encouraging, and loved
her grandchildren. The early
circumstances of her life are easy to picture.
A young child, divided from her family and brought into another, raised
in affluence but running and searching for love caused her to rush into the
arms of a mean, violent drunk. A mother
as a teenager, ill prepared to raise a child, forced to give her children to
her parents to be raised. Elizabeth and
Pam can have ill feelings towards her, however they would not be the women they
are today, good or bad, if it had not been for the decisions Pat had made for
them. She was trying to do the best she
could, the best she knew, despite being a child still herself. I am sure her own mother, and aunts, were in
her ear, lending advice to the young women.
Her other set of children; Joe, Margie, and Harold, can also have bad
feelings but I don’t see how, she raised them in a secure, stable household,
albeit one filled with work and little tenderness. Joe would go on to have his own child, and
grandchild. Margie would have two sons
of her own. Harold, on the other hand,
is the missing element. A drifter
beginning early in life, running away to join the Army and later just plain
running away, not much has been heard or seen from Harold in almost ten
years.
When it comes down to
it, a person’s life is so much more than 100 words. As you can see from all of this, a person’s
life is much, much more. At over 5000
words, this barely covers my mother’s life.
There are plenty of stories that will not be told her, but could
be. The day she stood up to my grade
school Principal, who stood an enormous six foot-four inches tall, compared to
my mother’s small five foot-three. I had
been accused of some minor infraction, and my mother, upon speaking to me and
learning I was not the culprit, stood toe-to-toe to the Principal sticking her
finger in his face, arguing for her son.
That’s how I will always see her, standing there against the giant
defending her child. For those that
argue that Patrechia Bannister was not a great woman, I’d have to disagree.
