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“This is the place to
settle,” Rod and I believed. Casual days filled with uneventful routine
filled our world. I had to get the children to school, clean, be involved
with small community projects and attend meetings.
My senses were alert to
what was a different world to me. It was nothing to see Mrs. Donahoe
flying over the dusty fields in her tractor. True the machine had an
air-conditioned cab that protected her but when she was up on the tractor
before entering it the wind was tugging and jerking her hair and dress in
a wild way. Something about this scene magnified the woman’s spirit the
most. I even did a painting of her tractor running determinedly before a
storm. The dark clouds and ominous looking clouds told the story.
This is the type of Tractor Mrs. Danahoe was
driving
Once in a while, weeds
close to the road were missed by the tractor and Mrs. Donahoe could be
seen at these edges with a hand held, hoe. I put this on canvas, too. The
Dallas skyline in the distance with her in brown made the woman a part of
the earth it seemed.
An early morning while
breakfast was being readied for my kids I looked up to see Mr. and Mrs.
Donahoe stringing a wire fence across the field for a bull pasture. Her
clean house dress was always matched with a bonnet with staves in it like
the pioneer women wore. The shade of that hat kept the hot sun off her
skin, she said and I remembered my grandmother who often told me the same
thing. Those were the days when the women worried about keeping their skin
from aging. There was no worry about the sun that day because the two
finished up the job in what to me was record time. Building fence back
home was a big deal and here these two elderly persons were out there
pulling up a sturdy looking stretch of barb wire.
On one occasion I had a
small coffee party for just the few of us, mostly the Donahoe’s and one
other lady. The eighty year old Mrs. Donahoe came in a soft, delicate pink
dress. She had arranged her hair in a neat fashion and the beauty of her
clear skin made me believe she must have once been a lovely, young woman,
as well.
Not a day passed without me
sharing time with the woman who was priceless as fine china. She was a
wealth of wisdom, too, and had a way of sharing with a person so no
offense could be taken nor did she have a preachy way about her. We picked
food from the great acreage of her sprawling lands until all my cabinets
and freezer was stocked full of wonderful, fresh vegetables.
“We will leave the frontage
for the folks who come by on the road so they can pick there.” Mrs.
Donahoe told me as we headed to the back of the field. In other ways her
deep spiritual side could be seen, too.
“I must apologize for
bringing this okra to you on the Sabbath but it was ready and I didn’t
want to leave it another day.” She grinned in a secretive way and I knew
why. There was no okra in fields that she owned.
The gentle, caring woman
grieved over the fact that so much produce was not used because it was
unacceptable to the big chain stores either it was too big, too small or
not standard shapes. When the vegetables were dumped in the feed lots for
the cattle she always called and told me where they were being unloaded.
It was incredible to see. One year I went by a stash of cantaloupe, picked
them up and brought a trunk load home to Oklahoma. Folks talked about
those cantaloupes for years, how sweet and good they were. |
