Suffertte, hardy a term used to describe my grandmother. She neither suffered nor asked for the vote. Fact is, she didnt ask for anything, she demanded it. Born in Kansas City in 1897, the tenth of fourteen children to immigrant parents who entered the U.S. in 1880, she became a self-made, determined, wealthy woman that commanded a cottage industry that she built, and managed, on her own, never stopping to wait for permission. When she was six years old, her dad, never completely happy with leaving his homeland behind, decided he wanted to return. Her mom, a pillar of strength and most probably the template and role model, refused to abandon her dream. She wanted better for herself and her children. The only amiable solution was for he to take seven of their children back to Lebanon, leaving her with seven children and on her own. The divorce was handled by long distance mail. He was never heard from again. Whatever ties there were to he and the old country, severed. She took on sewing, washing and whatever she needed to do to care for her seven children. Her husband returned to his homeland with the other seven children, my grandmother included. At age eleven, unhappy and miserable, she persisted with the notion of returning to America until her father caved and supplied her with boat passage. Alone, she made the long journey to reconnect with her mother and siblings. Today, we cant imagine an eleven year old crossing the street alone. What she found wasnt what she had imagined. Life was tough, money scarce and there were a lot of mouths to feed. Their struggle for survival continued until at age fifteen, she married an older man and found life could get worse. She endured and secretly hid money she made sewing, planning a way out of her unhappy life. At age twenty, she abandoned the life she was miserable with and moved to a small community just South of Greenville, Mississippi. Its there she realized a dry goods store was needed. With her meager savings she invested everything she had and opened a small store, to an amazing success. She lived in the back of her store. Alone, young, beautiful and an owner of a business, she drew lots of young men. None suited her and according to her, they only wanted a soft living based on her hard work. A customer, passing through Arcola, stopped at her store and told her about the housing opportunities in Greenville. On a pursuit of even better she visited Greenville, noted there was a housing shortage and begun buying older homes built for large families. With a wall here, a bathroom added there, she split the large, homes into three, sometimes four apartments and rented them out. Her business model was a rather simple one. Never use your own money. She would take out a small loan with the lowest interest rate, usually extended to only the very rich. She was a tough negotiator and never compromised. She backed up quite a few bank presidents into her unrelenting terms. In less than five years she owned ten houses that were split into about forty apartments. The rent collected paid off her loans in short order. The dry goods store in Arcola was flourishing. She sold it for an amazing profit and moved closer to her new business in Greenville, buying more homes and restructuring them into apartments. Greenville was on the boom, moving forward and low income families needed a place to live. She supplied the demand. Her empire grew at a fast pace. She never, not once considered failure as her property numbers grew. Before the age of thirty she was a wealthy landlord and had more gentlemen callers than she wanted to deal with. They were consistent in what she called a soft living based on her hard work. She married a few of them only to find her fears were correct. They wanted a free ride and free rides didnt exist in her world. She didnt linger in those doomed relationships. In one such doomed marriage, although her husband was a dynamic businessman, they butt heads often until both were not happy. She had three sons in that marriage, dad, was the middle child. They parted their ways. Much like her doomed marriages and her fear of some guy living off of her, she was careful not to coddle her boys. They earned their way from an early age. She was never what one may call generous. She had hardened over the years because of bad marriages and a string of freeloaders. She demanded her boys have backbone and would not tolerate laziness. Of the many homes she owned one stood out more than the others. It was 831 South Broadway. A three story Victorian home obviously built at the turn of the century by an extremely wealthy man. When she gained ownership, the home was older, needed repair and was promptly turned into six apartments. The roof line was metal and she thought a silver roof was in order. The rest of the home was painted a loud, talk back to you, pink. She called it her pink palace. The carefully made appointments were striking. Hand carved mantel pieces adorning the imported marble fireplaces. Faces and scenes all hand carved to exquisite details. The hand carved staircase was a living piece of art. 831 South Broadway was her dream home. She had arrived and finally bought the home she could almost relax in. Aged at this point, she never slowed down doing roofing, structure rebuilding, slicing one family home into apartments, mostly on her own, doing the heavy lifting. She had hired carpenters, plumbers and handymen, but she oversaw every project, making sure workers were earning their salaries. Often she would fire them and swing a hammer herself, if they moved too slow. At age eighty I recall seeing her on a roof, laying tar paper and setting up the roof to be tiled. She never stopped working, replacing a water heater in her mid-eighties and could still swing a hammer better than most professional carpenters. 831 S. Broadway calmed her, or maybe it was her age, or a combination of both, but she slowed a bit, unless there was a bank president that needed a good talking to, or a plumber that didnt fix the problem. Her younger self emerged when she felt the need. The flames may have been burning lower but the heat from the fire remained white-hot, until the day she left this earth. She was a role model for any woman that wanted better and was willing to take on the mans world. She never blinked. She never backed away. She stood her ground on major as well as minor issues. She never tried to be a man but she never found a man her equal. She didnt believe in hanging on to the past. The past was done and she never looked back. She seldom spoke Lebanese or referenced her family in the old country. They were the past. She broke the ties to the old country and focused her attention to the future. My dad called her a tough old bird. He was right. She came up tough, lived a tough life and remained tough until her last days, never giving in on the most minute of details. She was headstrong, determined and unflinching. Ive seen her sit at a wooden table she built herself and hammer out used nails back to almost straight, to be re-used on one of her remodels. She had a large room in her home that would shame any hardware store, mostly filled with used plumbing, electrical or used wood. She never allowed any waste. In her last years I can remember her sitting at a foot pumped, Singer sewing machine, the very one she used to make a living in her teen years, still sewing her own dresses. She was in her late eighties and refused to buy store bought dresses, even though she could have easily bought every dress store in Greenville...and then some. She was a remarkable woman. Hardened, yes. But if you took an honest, hard, unflinching look at the parents of the Greatest Generation, one gets a better understanding of what made the Greatest Generation, great. She was there. She was front line in Greenvilles formation, along with Jake Stein and other notables that grew Greenville. She was usually, the only woman in the room. She was the unsinkable Miss Mary. Her favorite expression, Make excuses or make money. The Greatest Generation didnt just happen. (Excerpt from Cornbread Memories 2.)
Posted on: Mon, 07 Jul 2014 15:31:50 +0000
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