OCTOBER 19, 1935-How a Georgia Woman, Widowed and Broke at 50, Made Good
THE WASHINGTON DAILY NEWS — SATURDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1935
How a Georgia Woman, Widowed and Broke at 50, Made Good
By ERNIE PYLE
There has just been told to me the story of a woman in Georgia. She is dead now, and it seems to me that maybe "Woman of Georgia" would be a fitting epitaph for her tomb.
She was the mother of seven children. She and her husband were in what ordinarily would be called moderate circumstances, but being the parents of seven children almost automatically reduces "moderate" to "just getting along" circumstances.
She was a good mother, so good that she had devoted her entire life to caring for her family, and she knew how to do nothing whatever except raise children, cook and sew.
And then, when she was 50, her husband went to bed one cold February night, and in an hour he was dead. He left her $2500 insurance, and just to make things come out even, $2500 in debts. And four children to raise. Three of the seven had already married and gone; the four remaining ran from 4 up to 17 years.
She lost no time in mourning. There were things to be done. The only thing she knew how to do was cook. So she started cooking, and cooking for sale. In other words, she started a boarding house. It was her first business venture, and she was so successful at it that at the end of the first year she had lost the $2500 in cash and still owed the $2500 debt.
Well, that couldn't go on. But she was learning, and she had an idea. She decided she lived on the wrong side of the railroad tracks to attract boarders.
So she moved to the other side of town, rented a nicer house and paid more for it, and hung out her "Board and Room" shingle again. Her idea worked—at least, it showed she was on the right track. For she lost only $500 the second year. And still managed to hold on to her $2500 debt.
So she figured that if moving uptown did some good, moving farther would do more good. So she moved again, into a bigger house in a still finer section, and hung out her sign and boosted the ante, incidentally.
From then on she went scooting up the ladder of success. The details would be repetitious. But here are the results:
At 50—suddenly widowed, a business babe in the woods, with four children to support, and finances at zero.
At 65—debts paid off, children put thru high school and business school and all "successfully" married, one daughter sent on a tour abroad; living in a house that cost $350 a month rent; a fine car and butlers.
She gave it up when she was 66, after 16 years of it. But she didn't give herself up. She wouldn't even go live with any of her children. She said she would get herself a large apartment, rent parts of it out to two or three couples, and if any of her married children and in-laws wanted to be one of the couples that was all right, but they'd have to pay the regular price. In other words, they'd be living in her house, not she in theirs.
And so she lived for the rest of her life, until she died last spring at 74. She read the newspapers every day, and the leading magazines, she went to the theaters and was an authority on the latest books. She never went to school a day in her life—but she was the daughter of a college professor who was also a Methodist minister. He believed children should be educated at home, and out of his vast library and his own able mind, he gave her a splendid education.
From the day she was widowed at 50 to the very day she died at 74, she absolutely refused to talk of the past. She was always looking forward. She wouldn’t even think in the past tense.
Her son told me about her the other day. He thinks she is the most remarkable woman he has ever known. He says he would think that even if she weren't his mother.
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