As most of you know I like to drive around Casey County on roads where my passengers and I can look and reminisce. I especially love to go for car rides with my sister-in-law Deva. We like to drive out toward Willow Springs where she grew up. She has shown my sisters and me the old house where she lived when she was young and told us how she walked across the road to the Willow Springs School. In those days, she says she liked most of all to make playhouses with broken pieces of her mom’s dishes. Her early interest seems logical to me. All through her life, Deva has been making a beautiful home in more ways than one, I think.
There were many times that I can recall when Deva did kind things for others. And many for me in my own life. But most of the memories I will relate here concern Deva when I first came to know her just after she and my brother Reed got married.
It was Cleo one afternoon who announced to all of the rest of us, “I guess you know that we’re going to get a new sister- in-law,” and then he talked about Reed and Deva’s plan to get married. I was happy to hear the news. We already had a high opinion of Deva’s family. They were somewhat new to the Mt. Olive community, but they had quickly made friends and become active in our church. We all liked it when Mr. Judd led our singing. They were friendly, good people.
After they were married, the newly weds stayed with us part of the time and with her parents part of the time. I was surprised at just how very nice Deva was. She even acted as though she was interested in David and me. Since he and I were the youngest in our family, I had somehow concluded that we were the least important. Maybe you can remember a time when you were young just how badly you wanted some grownup to like you and take an interest in you. Well, if you were lucky, such a person as Deva came along.
One night we were to have a special event at Ragged Ridge School– a pie supper. I remember that Deva helped me get ready. She ironed my skirt for me and said, “We want you to be the prettiest girl there tonight.” I knew I wouldn’t be the prettiest girl there, but nobody had ever said something like that to me, and I was very happy. But Deva helped me even further. She had bought fresh lemons to make a lemon meringue pie and she also help me cover the pie box with crepe paper and a bow. I felt very proud when I went to the pie supper that night.
Deva’s kindness continued. She started teaching school that summer and fall. Every day she would pack her lunch for the next school day. And every day when she bought a treat for her own lunch, she would also buy a treat for mine and David’s lunches. We couldn’t believe our good luck. I thought, “Deva is still new. Pretty soon she will realize that we are not very important.” But she kept on being nice. It was some time after many similar instances that one day I stopped and thought, “Maybe she actually likes us.”
Some things that happened were not always fun. I remember one major thing that really frightened my new sister-in- law. When Deva went to teach school every day, she drove a small Chevy coupe (’38 model I think) that she and Reed had bought. As she drove home in the afternoons, she had to come down the Salyers hill. The road was not paved then. Near the bottom right at the curve, there was a very rutted, uneven place. One afternoon as she was heading down that hill, her brakes failed. With the car going so fast, Deva could not make the curve. The car turned upside down and hit the ditch. The automobile was totaled, but somehow Deva got herself out, shaken up but okay, and walked all the way, over a mile and a half, to our house. I can remember that day so clearly. Deva was very frightened, of course. Mom and I felt so sorry for her. Maybe because Mom didn’t know anything else to do, I remember she asked Deva if she wanted something to eat. Deva did not feel like eating, as you can imagine, and said no. There didn’t seem to be anything to do except to be quiet and wait for Reed and Dad to come to the house.
It wasn’t long after they married that Reed and Deva moved into the “weaning house”. I was friends with Deva’s sister Gladys by then. She and I loved to spend the night with my brother and her sister. David also remembers that he was always asking Mom if she would let him go spend the night with Reed and Deva. In David’s opinion, Deva could make the very best biscuits and gravy and fried chicken! The “weaning house” was such a small place, but there was never a cuter house than those four rooms. Deva was already resourceful and a hard worker, as was Reed. They were on their way to a lifetime commitment to each other and a future family.
Last evening when I called Deva to wish her a happy birthday, we talked about more stories that she remembers. There are some very unique and interesting stories about her mom that need to be written down. We also talked about how we liked to go riding out toward Willow Springs. We plan to go again.
