Mamie Walton
Mamie Oglesby Walton, 1910 - 2004
On April 10 2004, my family lost our matriarch, my great-grandmother, Mamie Oglesby Walton. Grandma Walton was born on May 13, 1910. She died in Lexington on Saturday, not long after my ailing grandmother visited her for the last time. She was buried on Tuesday, next to Grandpa Bert, in the shadow of the mountain popularly called Walton's Mountain, not far from the little red house overlooking the crooked creek.
It is impossible to imagine the life Grandma lived. Born into an era, and area, where farm labor was a sun-up to sun-down endeavor, just to have enough food to feed the four daughters she and Grandpa Bert had. She suffered the hardships of that life, much beyond what any of us "whippersnappers" could probably endure. She loved her four daughters (and all of their offspring), but always pondered the life of her infant son who died so young. She saw Grandpa Bert pass away long before she did, and continued on with a different, yet still rich, life.
She was brilliant without much formal education. She was an artisan in arts long neglected or forgotten. Her kindness and simple faith molded all that she did. And, as her granddaughter Detra mentioned in her eulogy, Grandma Walton possessed a beauty beyond the physical qualities we now associate with "beauty queens."
One side effect of a life lived into her 90th year is that she left behind five generations of offspring. And because she remained so vibrant for so many years, all of those offspring are left not only with great memories of her, but we are also left with a void. So say a prayer for those of us left behind. For her daughters. For her grandchildren. Her great-grandchildren. Her great-great grandchildren, and, yes, even her great-great-great grandchildren. We'll all miss her.
esw - April 2004
It is soon to be three years later, and I still miss Grandma Walton. I hate that there was so much she had experienced that I never got to hear about; all the things I could have learned from her.
There are days when I still can feel the sunshine the same way I felt it while playing in her yard there next to the crooked creek. Funny how memory can be triggered by the warmth of the sun, even. But that seems appropriate; to have fond memories of Grandma Walton triggered by warmth and beauty.
esw - Monday, March 19, 2007