Grandma Thelma

Curtis Clough

   Every family has a story. I think if you knocked on every door in your neighborhood and asked the family who lived there to tell your their story, it would make a great book.  I grew up in a family of story tellers.  I didn't think much about it until I was older and would be talking with my friends. I was shocked to learn that many of my friends didn't know their lineage - couldn't even tell me their grandmother's maiden names.  I realized how lucky I was to know my family's history.  I want to share a few of our stories.  

   My family has had it's share of tragedy and heartache.  Having grown up in a family that has endured great suffering, but persevered, has shaped me into the person that I am. I was brought up to accept and never question.   Some might perceive us as being cold or aloof but that is not the case.  We are survivors.

Thelma Elizabeth Brantley

   I will begin this series of stories with my maternal grandmother.  This is a hard story to tell.  My maternal grandmother, Thelma Elizabeth Brantley and her twin brother, Elmer, were born Feb. 23, 1913  in the Brantley Bend community which is located on the Buffalo River in north Arkansas. Besides, Elmer, she had six brothers and sisters.  Their family was poor and they would be what we now call "a highly mobile family“ or "migrant workers.”  They would travel to Oklahoma or Washington to make a little money then return to the Buffalo River area until the money ran out.  When Grandma was 18 the family was living in Okmulgee, Oklahoma.  My grandmother met Curtis Clough.  He lived a few miles away in Wanette, Oklahoma. He was the son of a Baptist preacher, and by all accounts, they were a good family.  Grandpa Curtis had learned to play the fiddle and unbeknownst to his parents, Brother Mel and Mattie Clough, he would play the fiddle at local dances to make a little extra money.  We believe that is how he met Grandma Thelma.  He and my grandma got married and she became pregnant with her first child.  They traveled to Overton, Texas because his brother lived there and he could provide work for my Grandpa Curtis.  The baby, Maxine, was born but failed to thrive and she died at age two weeks. Grandma Thelma told me that the baby wouldn't nurse.  She is buried in Overton, Texas and I don’t believe her grave is marked. They eventually came back to Wanette and three years later my mom, Lou Ann, was born.  When Mom was four months old my grandfather got appendicitis.  He was taken to the hospital in Shawnee but gangrene had set in and he died.  My grandmother was in her early twenties, had a baby, no job and no money.  A family member brought her and Mom to Rush, Arkansas so that they could live with Grandma Thelma's parents.  She got a job in town.  Back then poor people didn’t have cars so she would ride the mail car to town and board there and come home when she could – usually on the mail car again.  She met a young man named Paul Brown.  He was working for the CCC and they decided to marry.  Mom was about four.  After the CCC work on Buffalo Park was completed Paul went to work at the local sawmills.  They had a little boy named James Earl. When he was three months old he died of pneumonia.  He is buried in what is now the Buffalo River National Park.  Next came Jimmy.  All was well until he was 18 months old and he got, what was then called infantile paralysis (polio).  He was hospitalized in Little Rock for many weeks.  They were told that he would probably die there.  Paul and Grandma moved to Picher, Oklahoma so he could work in the mines.  Jimmy was still in Little Rock. Grandma was pregnant again and had a little girl name Pauline.  Mom never saw Pauline.  She had stayed in Arkansas with her grandparents.  Jimmy made it and someone went to get him and took him to Grandma and Paul.  When Pauline was six months old she hemorrhaged to death.  No autopsy was done back then so the cause of the hemorrhaging was never known.  Pauline is buried in the GAR cemetery in Miami, Oklahoma.  Grandma had another baby, Paul Roy, who was stillborn and shortly afterward Paul was killed in a mine cave in.  They are both buried in GAR cemetery in Miami, OK.  Grandma now had just Mom and Jimmy, who was crippled.  How did she go on?  I don’t know.  She was in her early thirties and had lost four children and two husbands.  What was it inside her mind that kept her from going insane?  You would never have known what she endured if you were around her.  She later married again to a very bad man. Mom has asked me not to tell the story of this part of her life. It is too painful for her to talk about.  Jimmy lived until he was 18.  He is buried in Cowan Barrens cemetery in north Arkansas next to his grandparents.  Grandma and her third husband moved to the West Coast and stayed there until he died. Grandma then came to live with us.  She had never learned to drive and so she relied on Mom and Dad to help her.  She began corresponding with a man she had known in California and she soon returned there to marry him. I think this is probably the only time in her life that things were easy.  They retired to Arkansas and a few years later, this last husband passed away.  Grandma lived alone for a while.  Mom, Dad, and my sister would take Grandma to shop and run errands.  One Christmas we were at Mom and Dad’s and Grandma said that she had a knot on her neck.  Mom took her to the doctor and she was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma.  She passed away on March 26, 1997 and is buried next to Jimmy and her last husband.

Mom and Jimmy

   I often wonder how she managed to keep going.  Life had treated her so cruelly but she kept going.  In her later years she enjoyed being with her great-grandchildren. I would watch her holding them and wonder if she was thinking of her own lost children.  She didn't talk about it and if you asked she would say, "That was so long ago."   Many women would have given up.  Many would have lost their minds.  There was something unbreakable in Grandma.  Was it genetic?  Was it some primal survival instinct?  Was it that she was taught to accept and not question?  It is my hope that she is now in a place of peace where there is no pain or sorrow.

An Open Letter to Christine Leinonen

An Open Letter to Christine Leinonen

   As I sat in my living room watching your tearful pleas for help in finding your beautiful son, Christopher, I wanted to reach though the TV screen, wrap my arms around you and comfort you.  I prayed that Christopher would be found alive and my heart broke for you when I learned that was not the case.

   Christine, I write this as one grieving mother to another. My son died 21 months ago and I won't say that I completely understand and feel the same pain that you are feeling because of the different circumstances surrounding their deaths, but I do know the grief of losing an adult child.

   I don't know your and Christopher's story but I sense that you are a mother who loves her child more than anything and you would gladly have exchanged your life for Christopher's.  I wish I could have gotten in my son's hospital bed and died so that he could live.  I begged God to take me instead, but it wasn't meant to be.  Our sons were beautiful and had so much life left and so much to contribute to society.

   I saw you tell Lester Holt that if you had known that Christopher was lying on the floor in that club you would have gone in and carried him out on your back.  Christine, I would have gone in there with you and helped you carry him out.

   As you begin your journey as a "sister in lost" I hope you can find comfort.  Please do not let bitterness overtake you.  Try to find a way to do good works in Christopher's name, so that it will never be forgotten. 

   I hope you know that this is written out of love and compassion and I pray for strength, comfort, and healing for you.

With deepest love and compassion.

Shelley Ledbetter

The Empty Chair in My Classroom

  

On Tuesday our little school suffered a tragic loss.  A seventh grade boy named Jesse lost his life, along with his dad and step-mom, in a house fire.  No matter how many times, and there have been many, that I have lost a student I have a hard time dealing emotionally with the loss.  I am a “kid lover” and I get very attached to the students.  I learn their moods.  They tell me about their lives and their dreams and I want the best for them.  I pray for them every day on my way to school.  On Tuesday morning I had prayed the same prayer I always pray.  “God, please keep them safe and in your care and guide them as they make life choices.”  As I came down Bulldog Drive I saw many red and blue lights and cars were parked all over the street.  I saw the hulk of a burned out mobile home and my heart jumped into my throat.  Many of our students live in the mobile home park across the street from the school.  My hands were shaking as I unlocked the door to the junior high.  I asked our custodian what was happening but he didn’t know.  It wasn’t long until our principal buzzed me on the intercom and said there was going to be a meeting of the junior high teachers in my room.  I knew it was bad – I just didn’t know which child.  We were told and we took it hard.  Jesse was such a good boy and a bright spot in our day. 

   I went on autopilot.  That’s what I do when tragedy hits. I make a plan. I make lists and I get into that robot like zone.  Many of the kids went home.  The ones who stayed were stoic. It was a mood that I cannot describe.  You see, this was our second loss in a year and a half. Last year in a tragic car accident we lost a seventh grader. We had been down this road before and we didn’t want to go down it again.

   We tried to keep the students on a normal routine for the rest of the week. Keep them busy.  Keep their minds off of it.  But that is hard when there’s an empty chair in the classroom.

      I teach science so I have tables and chairs in my classroom rather than desks.  We are a small school so there are typically two students per table.  I’m not one to re-do seating charts.  Most years the students stay in the same spot all year.  We do a lot of science labs and activities so the students are up and moving around a lot so changing seats isn’t really necessary. The kids are ok with that.

   But now I have this empty chair.  What do I do? I have never felt right about asking another student to sit in the chair of a student that we’ve lost.  If I move the remaining student, the empty table and chairs becomes the elephant in the room.  It is so hard. 

   My students keep science binders in my room.  I have a wall of crates zip tied together and each period has their stack of crates. I had removed Jesse’s binder Tuesday so the kids wouldn’t see it and get upset.  I had forgotten about their pencil boxes on the book case in my room.  During Jesse’s class period I waited until all the pencil boxes were off the shelf and went to get the lone box.  I thought the kids didn’t see me – but they did.  They asked me where his binder was and what I was going to do with his things.  I told them that I didn’t know – because I don’t. 

   I have fish bowls on my desk for each class period.  In the fish bowls are laminated fish with the student’s names written on them.  When I am asking questions or assigning groups for cooperative learning I draw from the fish bowls.  On Thursday I was assigning groups and I pulled out Jesse’s name.  The kids saw it – they always watch to see whose name is being drawn.  I gently laid the fish down on my desk and drew another name.  I put Jesse’s fish in an envelope later with the fish that belong to Alli, the student we lost last year. 

   We had a memorial last night at school and I hope that on Monday we can find a way to move forward – even if it’s baby steps.  Testing begins so being out of the routine may help.  But there’s still that empty chair….

The Clipboard

   Following the death of anyone there are many details that have to be taken care of, such as, hospital and funeral associated items.  In the case of my 38 year-old son Ryan, who had no spouse or children, the responsibility of taking care of his home, business, and personal dealings fell to me. I was in such a state of shock and grief that I was in no way prepared to handle all of this.  In my "normal" life I am a very organized person.  It is the joke at my school that I stack, sort, color code, number and label everything.  I knew that I had to find a way to organize what had to be done so in my "fractured" state of mind I grabbed an old clipboard and starting putting the bills and "to do's" on it.  I would put the most pressing on top and work my way down.  I could only bear to complete one item per day.  Believe me, having to call and cancel your child's driver's license and social security card is not something any parent wants to do.

   Initially the clipboard was so full that I could barely get everything under the clip but as a few weeks then months passed, the stack got smaller.  One of my colleagues asked me how I was going to feel when the clipboard was empty.  That thought created an entirely new round of anxiety!  I realized that I never wanted the clipboard to be empty.  I need things on that clipboard !   I needed things on that clipboard that were positive and would create a lasting legacy for Ryan.

   When Ryan passed away people were so generous. I kept the donated money and began the Ryan Rorie Memorial scholarship.  There were decisions to make about how much, how and who we would award the scholarship to.  The clipboard became full once again until late that first spring when we awarded the first $1000 scholarship.   Panic struck again as the amount of papers on the clipboard dwindled.

   Then Lily's book, "A Fox in the Clouds" was born.  My granddaughter, Lily, is a budding artist and she had struggled with losing her Uncle Ryan.  As part of her grief therapy at school she had used her art to convey her feelings of grief and loss.  At the end of the school year she brought home a manila folder labeled, "my Uncle and me."  It was filled with her drawings of the family's reaction to loss.  We decided that it would be good for Lily and her brothers to put together a book of her artwork.  I headed to my daughter's home in Texas and set about finding out how to self publish books.   My clipboard was filled to capacity once again and I felt a sense of purpose.  We began to market the books with the proceeds going to the Ryan Rorie Memorial scholarship fund.

   Lily's book was followed by Ryan's biography, "My Heart's on the Other Side.  My daughter, Misty, and I worked for months  putting together Ryan's story.  The clipboard bulged with papers once again - notes, pictures, rough drafts, edits, copyright and ISBN number paperwork.    But as before, once the book was printed and our sales program was set up - there wasn't much left on the clipboard.  I was overcome once again with anxiety.

   Ryan was all about art - all kinds of art.  He was an actor, musician, photographer, he painted and sculpted.  He believed that everyone needed some form of self expression in their life.  Creating the Ryan Rorie Foundation, a non-profit charity, came next.   It came out of a memory that I had of a visit to LA a few years back.  While there, Ryan had pointed out to me, a center where youth and young adults could go to participate in art programs. He said that it was for at risk youth and it ran on donated funds.  Ryan was concerned about the number of youth living on the streets in LA and the suicide rate among these youth.  He felt that if these kids could learn an art form it might change their lives.  Pulling on that memory I began to research how to start a non-profit and all that it entails.  This has been one of the most difficult challenges that I have faced.  I have learned that it is not for the weak!  I have typed hundreds of papers to apply for incorporation, to receive 501(c)3 tax exempt status from the IRS, by-laws, indemnity clauses and so on.  My clipboard overflowed.  But as all tasks were completed the clipboard was getting empty.  BUT - our first major fundraiser had to be decided upon and carried out.  In my wildest dreams I never expected that our fundraiser would be so elaborate.  In all honesty, I was thinking of some small sale of some type of item;  making a few hundred dollars.  Not so. Ryan's friends form California do things on a much grander scale.  The Killer Cause event evolved.  Let me clarify something. Ryan's company and his stage name was Killer.  Not because of a murder but because he had met a young woman at an event a few years back whose nickname was Killer.  She was very quiet, seldom said a word, but when she did speak, it was something profound.  For this reason, her friends called her Killer.  Ryan was fascinated with her, hence naming his company Killer.  When throwing around names for our event Ryan's friend and our board member, Christel, came up with Killer Cause.  It was perfect.   We began planning the event and it has grown and grown.  What I once thought would be a   few hundred dollars fundraiser has turned into a few thousand dollars.  We even hired an advertising agency to promote our event!  We have a complete show lined up - a show that Ryan would have wanted to be a part of - and a silent auction that is filled with amazing items.  The people of Los Angeles, Hollywood and West Hollywood have been so generous.  My clipboard won't even fasten now.  It is filled with bid sheets for the auction.  Once the event is over we will be accepting requests from art centers for funding from the Ryan Rorie Foundation.  More items for the clipboard. 

   We have decided that we will make Killer Cause a yearly event.   In addition to this event, we will be hosting a fundraiser in Texas, as well as, a banquet and participation in Texas Giving Day.  My clipboard should be very filled with paperwork for the rest of my time here on Earth.  I will then pass the clipboard on to my daughter, Misty.  That clipboard represents to me Ryan's legacy and it's important to me that it continue on.