Category: My Big Family Stories

Take Her Or Leave Her

One of my mother’s nurses at Holy Name of Jesus Hospital in Gadsden, Alabama, was a 20-year-old woman named Mary Sigrest Harrison.  A few

Mary Stith
Mary nursed my mother

days before Mother died, in June 1947, Ms. Harrison stopped by her room while my 21-year-old brother, John F. Stith Jr., was visiting.  Mother introduced them.

John and Mary Stith
John and Mary Stith

“Mary, this is John,” Mother said.  “John, this is Mary.  Take her or leave her.”

And John replied, “I’ll take her.”

John and Mary went on their first date, to a movie, on June 22, 1947. They were married one year later, to the day, and stayed married until John’s death on March 1, 1987,  almost 40 years later.

Coming Friday: Where Does It End?

Vintage Jack Hyland

Take a long, careful, look at this picture of Jack and Nell Hyland, my wife’s parents. You see what I see?

In the fall of 1963 Jack and Nell drove from Charlotte to Chapel Hill, N.C., for their first overnight visit with their newly-wed daughter and her husband.

Jack and Nell Hyland
Jack and Nell Hyland

We grilled on the patio at our apartment on Airport Road and Donna, my wife, took pictures — doesn’t she always?   This picture of that happy occasion puzzled me for years.  Why did Jack look like the picture of health while Nell looked like, well, white as a corpse.

Back then the color on colored photographs was quirky, which could explain why Nell’s face looked washed out.  But his face wasn’t washed out.  He looked just fine.

Jack Hyland: He love to laugh, and make other laugh.
Jack  loved to laugh, and make others laugh.

How could that be?

It was a long time before I noticed Jack’s hand.  It looked just like Nell’s face, washed out.

This is so Jack Hyland.  He loved to play jokes. He had been holding his breath, forcing blood to his face, making himself look healthy — and his wife look dead.

Coming Monday: “You’re Fired!”