Making a Way

iUniverse, Inc.

Chapter One

It was in the fourth month of the year, on the fourth day of the month, and on the fourth day of the week that I came into this world at six pounds three ounces. The more you know about me, the more you will find that it was only fitting that I should be born during the decade that is known as the "Roaring Twenties"! My birth in 1923 had another unusual aspect, because I was born in a hospital. Most babies born at that time were delivered at home. This was about the time that the medical profession believed that having a baby was a medical procedure, and that opinion didn't change for a very long time. I'm sure they probably thought it would improve the maternal and infant mortality rates, and perhaps it did. But why they ever believed that strapping a woman down to a table with her legs strapped up in the air and asking her to do what is necessary to get a child into the world is still puzzling to me after having five babies myself. Things always happen in cycles, and that cycle has now changed somewhat since many pregnant women today are choosing to have their babies at home with a nurse midwife in attendance. Ecclesiastes says, "There's nothing new under the sun," and I can believe that!

Whether it is a book or a ballgame, you have to know the characters in order to understand what the whole thing is about. The first character is my father, Roland Wheeler, who for forty-five years was a firefighter for the city of Columbia, South Carolina. Roland was born in 1885 in Newberry County, South Carolina, about thirty-five miles from Columbia, in an area settled by German immigrants in the 1700s. They were a tight-knit group of farmers who settled there as a buffer between the Indians in the North and the French settlers in Charleston, South Carolina. They were hard- working people, and all of them were Lutherans. Only Germans would have settled in the white clay and rocky soil there to make a living farming.

Roland was number six of seven children. I learned early on that he was his mother's favorite and that he was born on her birthday, February 27. The other children always knew he was the favorite, and I can remember the youngest, Claire, making an issue of that even after my grandparents were both dead. Roland was a quiet man—well, in some ways; perhaps it's better to say he was a man of few words. Of course, he was spoiled and used to having his own way all the time. He had a limited education, no more than a few years; I'm not sure how many. However, his claim to fame was that he could climb a fire ladder better than any man, no matter how much younger the man was. He still said that when he was over fifty.

He had no sense of humor, which did not bode well, since my mother was gifted with a great sense of humor. The other firefighters liked to tease him, and Mother and I did the same. My father taught me several things that have served me well. First, he did not teach me patience—far from it; he had none. When he became angry, he would screw up his face, grit his teeth, and yell so loudly that anyone several miles away could hear him. He never struck me, but he did shake me several times. What he did teach me was the value of work. You were never to stop to rest until a job was done. Your work always had to be the very best, and your word was your bond. This strong work ethic does have its limits. He would go for years without missing a day of work, always taking pride in his accomplishments even if it was a very simple task.

I grew up in a segregated society, and my father respected every person, no matter the color of their skin. His philosophy was, live and let live. He kept to himself, and I never heard him criticize anyone. Last, and certainly not the least, my father was the ultimate example of self-discipline. You did what you had to do, no matter what! You had the responsibility to be in charge of your own life and to make it the best it could be. But the greatest gift of all came from his genes. He had a fantastic memory, and my mother always said he had a memory like an elephant. I did inherit his memory, and, at my age, people often comment about it.

My father always raised chickens, and he would sit for hours at a time just watching the chickens pecking at the ground the way people today look at birds at their feeders. We always had a large vegetable garden, and when I was small, he raised flowers and even had them shown at the state fair.

When Daddy was in the house, he would sit in his rocking chair, which was comfortable for his back, and read the daily paper and The Sporting News when baseball was king. I don't think he'd ever played, but he knew all the statistics from as far back as his birth, I do believe. In his later years, I gave him a subscription each year for his Christmas gift. He would hold the papers in front of him for hours at a time, but I'm not sure how much of that time he was reading.

One example of Roland's self-discipline always amazed others. He smoked cigarettes, rolled his own, and smoked exactly two cigarettes each day—no more, no less. Not many smokers can do that.

Most daughters have a close relationship with their fathers, but my relationship was different. He did pay me two compliments. It was so rare for him that I still remember each one. The first had to do with a vegetable garden I had in my backyard in 1952. I had planted a row of okra. I urged him to come outside to see my garden. He did and said, "That's the prettiest row of okra I have ever seen!" Wow! I was thrilled to death!

The other compliment came when I was sixteen years old. Our family made a trip to Tennessee and Kentucky. I did all of the driving, and my father said, "You are a very good driver!" This statement came from a man who, at an earlier time, had driven a fire truck. Can you imagine how thrilled I was when he told me that? It takes so little sometimes to please others.

My father was a frugal man; however, my daughter corrects me by saying, "He wasn't frugal; he was stingy!" Maybe so, but in his day there were no credit cards and very few forms of credit. If you wanted something, you saved for it. There was no instant gratification. There was very little money flowing in those days, but more on that later. My father died in a nursing home in 1973, at eighty-eight years old.

I know very little about my paternal grandparents. I know their house in the country burned down, and they lost everything. Then they moved to Columbia to live with their oldest daughter. In Columbia, my grandmother ran a boardinghouse, and she was an excellent cook! Jacob Isaiah Wheeler died in 1932, and Rachel Loretta Feagle Wheeler died in 1935.

You need to meet Kate Stammel, my mother, who was born in Henry County, Tennessee, on July 16, 1893. She was the greatest influence in my life. Her mother was Flora Ann Hawkins McCullough from English/French descent. Her father was John Frederick Stammel, a German butcher. Flora Ann was married first to Ashton McCullough, who was a prominent citizen in the Tennessee frontier. I believe he was a Methodist preacher at one time as well. When he died, he left behind his wife and a number of children.

Subsequently, Flora married John Stammel, who was a German butcher. When I learned this, I was surprised that she, a very refined, educated lady, had married a butcher. I was reminded that a butcher at that time was a very important job; there was no refrigeration, and meat was always in demand. I felt rather bad that I had even thought the way I did. I'm not sure how old he was. Mother always said that he fought the Indians on the western frontier. However, my cousin who was into genealogy told me there was no record of his ever fighting in any battles. But he did serve, and he died in The Old Soldiers Home in Danville, Illinois, in 1922. He is buried in the Veterans' Cemetery in Danville. My husband and I visited his grave some years ago.

Mother told me about going to her father's funeral in Illinois. She was riding on the train from Columbia and was pregnant with me. She was extremely nauseated and sick from the fumes on the train. She was wearing a rust-colored dress made from a shiny fabric, and she was never able to wear that color ever again!

My grandmother, Flora Ann, died soon after her second daughter, Lizzie, was born. I don't know how old she was. Minnie was the oldest of the McCullough children and was married and had children of her own. She took Lizzie into her home and reared her with her other children. Aunt Lizzie always called her Momma.

This left Kate with her father, and he was unable to care for her. He took her to Louisville, Kentucky, to live with his sister, Emily Arney. Aunt Emily had been married at one time, but no one seems to know what happened to her husband. I have run into this before. In the early years of this country, if a marriage did not work out for whatever reason, the husband just left, and no one ever knew what became of him. I guess it was one of the family secrets. This happened to Aunt Emily, and the same thing happened to one of my father's sisters.

During all my early years I heard about Aunt Emily. You must know by now that I was her namesake. She was almost totally blind from cataracts, and she was a very strict German lady, especially in regards to child rearing. Mother said that Aunt Emily would braid her hair so tightly that she felt her eyes would pop out. There were so many things she told me, things like this, that happened because of her blindness.

Kate was a pretty little girl with honey-colored hair. She was also exceptionally bright. She attended school in Louisville. It was a small school with only two teachers, Miss Lizzie and Miss Linnie Bach. Both were "old maids," totally dedicated to teaching children. What I remember most was their penmanship. What beautiful script they had! It was a very far cry from the handwriting of today, very far!

The girls wore dresses to school but wore aprons over them. Each child had a slate for writing in class. Mother said the boys always cleaned their slates with spit, and the smell was just terrible. They had small tin lunch buckets they carried to school each day. When she would tell me about the school, she recalled that they learned poetry much of the time. She remembered so many verses. When I was growing up, she used to recite all these verses she had learned in school over and over, and I still do the same today.

This section of Louisville was settled by German immigrants. Most of them knew one another, and they did many things together. They drank a lot of beer and would sit around talking and drinking beer until late at night. They had neighborhood parties. Mother said sometimes she would be sent to the "store" with an empty bucket and bring it back full of beer for all those gathered for the party.

Things went on like this until Kate was twelve years old. She had always wanted a beautiful girl doll with real hair. At Christmas that year, one of her uncles gave her the doll of her dreams. Shortly thereafter, Aunt Emily took the doll away from her and told her she was too old to have a doll. She emphasized that now that she was twelve, it was time for her to work for her keep. Her life changed drastically. Aunt Emily explained to Kate that she was an orphan and would have to make her own way. There would be no more school for her.

Mother told me she would go live with some distant cousin, or the like, and clean house, cook, and help with the children. She was treated like a servant. The children of the home would go ice skating, and, of course, Mother was not allowed to go. On one occasion, she told me, she put dirty dishes in the oven so she could at least go outside. You could tell she was still thinking like a little girl who wanted to play. It was very hard for her to accept these arrangements, but, of course, she had no choice.

When Kate was about fifteen years old, she went to stay with a different family. There was a young son in the family, and he became smitten with Kate's beauty. The two fell in love and wanted to get married. The boy's mother told Kate she was trash, low-class, certainly unfit for her son. She also told her to leave immediately.

At the time, Kate's half-brother, Ashton McCullough (everyone called him Mack), was working for the telephone company, stringing wire near Columbia, South Carolina. Mack went to Louisville, picked up Kate, and brought her to Columbia, where she went to work for the telephone company as well. The telephone company was a place where women could work, and it was considered all right for them to leave their homes.

I don't have a timetable for these years, but Kate had always loved to learn and did well in school. At this point, she decided she wanted to become a nurse so she could continue her education. She went into nursing at the Columbia Hospital School of Nursing. The training of nurses involved study and work in the hospital, as well as very strict regulations. They were furnished food and housing.

One story Mother told me took place when she was working night duty in the hospital as a student. Students were supposed to sleep every day after working the night before. Mother was caught going out instead of sleeping, and she was punished for the violation. She had always been on her own, and this made her very angry. She quit nursing on the spot and went back to work at the telephone company.

But the education bug had grabbed her, and, later, she went back into nursing at the South Carolina Hospital for the Insane. This hospital had an affiliation with St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C., where the students received their practice in a general hospital.

Kate said she felt she had found a home at the state hospital. There were parties and dances for the patients, so she had friends, even if they were different. Finally she had a social life.

I think about this situation often. At that time, when patients were admitted to the state hospital, they knew they would be there for life. There were no medications like we have today, and I'm sure lots of them would be on the street in today's world. So it wasn't as bad as you might think for the patients. Of course, some were very bad, and Mother liked to tell me about her experiences. But she was happy there.

The way my mother talked about nursing, I thought it was the most wonderful job in the world. She was so proud of her experiences. Later, she was one of the first public health nurses to be hired by the City of Columbia.

Kate graduated from the State Hospital School of Nursing with the highest grade of any student who had graduated up until that time. When I looked at her textbooks later, I found them to be about the same as the ones I studied when I went into nursing in 1941. Not much change took place in nursing until after World War II. She had educated herself, and she never stopped learning. She was reading world history when she was a patient in a nursing home.

My mother reared me to be strong, because she said I would need it to be a woman in a man's world. She made sure I was well educated. I was given violin lessons at a young age, later piano lessons, and later voice lessons. It was very interesting to me that though my mother was a wonderful cook and seamstress. When I would ask her to teach me either skill she would say, "You will be in my way." I think she wanted me to marry a rich man and run a large household, but I missed that. She gave me cultural things instead.

My mother set quite a pattern for me. She read all the time, and she loved history and politics. Since my father didn't talk much, she would talk to me. I remember her coming into the bedroom when I was small to tell me about something in the headlines of the paper. One morning she came in all excited and woke me up to tell me, "Wake up! The Lindbergh baby has been kidnapped!"

Kate always regretted that she did not have her mother to rear her. But she did her best to prepare me to face the world and be successful.

Kate Stammel Wheeler died December 5, 1975, from complications brought on by polycythemia, a blood disease that causes an overabundance of red cells in the blood. She is buried in Elmwood Cemetery in Columbia, South Carolina.

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Excerpted from Making a Wayby Emily Davenport Copyright © 2010 by Emily Davenport. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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