Posted on by rjonakait

Sweet Home Ashland, Alabama

The spouse and I differ on the route we took on my first trip to Ashland, the tiny town in Alabama where the spouse’s grandmother, “Mom,” lived and where the spouse spent childhood summers. (See post by spouse on January 15, 2021.) I thought we had driven through the Midwest visiting friends in Columbus, Ohio, and Peoria, Illinois, and then headed south. The spouse remembers heading south first down the eastern seaboard and heading west after camping in Georgia, on what we refer to as the “demented locals” experience, but that is another story. Part of the reason our memories don’t coincide is that we went to Ashland several times and did not always take the same route.

 Similarly, I can’t say on what trip certain impressions and experiences occurred, but on each and every trip to Ashland, I felt that I was in the South, capital S. Before going to Alabama, I had only been south of Washington, D.C., to Miami, and while that felt different from what I had experienced in Illinois and Wisconsin, it was not The South that had resonated in my mind. Ashland, however, was in that region I had read about in William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, and Eudora Welty. It was the South I had seen on television when watching scenes of Selma and Greensboro. It was the South of broadcast televangelists.

Ashland physically fit my image of a small southern town. Its population was about 2,000, and I gather that it remains about that size. There was a town square, and a courthouse was at the center of that square, and that courthouse itself was a square. When I first went there, after going up a few steps to an entrance, I had to step over a dog sleeping in the sun on the landing outside the door, and I had to walk past a Dr. Pepper machine to get in. I almost laughed. I thought maybe the southerners were laying on the clichés to play with this northern boy. I took a picture of the courthouse because it looked just like an old southern courthouse ought to look. I enlarged and framed the picture, and for a long time it hung at the top of the steps in my house, but somehow I have lost it.

I think of that building as the courthouse, but it was probably more than that. Ashland is the county seat, and no doubt the structure held county offices in addition to courtrooms and judicial chambers. The jurisdiction is Clay County, and I was struck driving into town by the red clay landscape. For a moment I wondered if that gave the county its name, but then I put Clay and Ashland together and realized that the county was named after Henry Clay and the town after his Kentucky home, Ashland. But if there is a memorial to that early American leader in Ashland, Alabama, I never saw it.

I never saw a memorial either to the town’s most famous native son, Hugo Black, the Supreme Court Justice. Born just outside of town, Black was raised in Ashland and had his first law office on the town square before moving to Birmingham. But at least during his lifetime, Ashland did not want to claim the justice. Hugo Black wrote Court decision after Court decision upholding civil liberties and equal rights and most important to many Alabamans is that Black was on the Supreme Court that ordered the desegregation of public schools and other public facilities. The spouse’s grandmother told us years after Brown v. Board of Education that Hugo Black on a visit to Alabama picked a flight that had a layover in Birmingham so that he could see his son who lived and practiced law there. The son got word to his father, “Don’t even get off the plane; it will be too dangerous for you.” (A famous KKK leader of the 1920s and 1930s was born in Ashland, but as far as I know, there is no memorial to him either.)

The spouse, however, noted some racial changes since her childhood days. We spotted a Black state trooper, Blacks at the public swimming pool, and a Black man in a spirited tennis game against a white opponent. The spouse said these sightings would not have occurred in the Clay County of her youth.

Signs of the old South, however, still lingered. Looking out the window early one morning, I saw a wagon being pulled by a mule as a Black man was going to tend fields. I felt as if I had seen this scene before in a picture from the South of the 1920s or 1930s. And then there was the time that we stopped to get gas at a one-pump station and waited for someone to come to fill the tank. I had only seen Stepin Fetchit’s shuffle in the movies, but now I saw it for myself as it seemed to take five minutes for an old Black man to make it from the building to our Dodge Dart twenty feet away. I understood the walk’s origins, but I wanted to shout, “You don’t have to do that. We are white, but we aren’t from here.” However, some remnants of the old South benefited us. The wife’s metal leg brace had cracked, and we asked the gas station attendant if he knew of a welder and explained the problem. He immediately said that the blacksmith could help and told us where the smithy was. We went there, and the man in an old, old shop did a creditable repair, not charging us much money.

Ashland was also different from other places I had known. This was hammered home when we were driving into the town with the spouse’s mother in the back seat (why we had the mother-in-law with us remains a mystery to me). She commanded, with an uncharacteristic urgency, that we pull over to a small store. It was the last place to get alcohol before arriving in Ashland. Clay County was dry.

(concluded Feb. 17)

Posted on by rjonakait · 1 Comment

Which South?

(Guest Post by the Spouse)

Devil in the Grove by Gilbert King is a must-read–a disturbing but gripping non-fiction account of a series of horrific racial injustices (among many) that took place in central Florida in the 1940’s and 50’s. It also catalogs the work that Thurgood Marshall and the NAACP did in trying to remedy them. The book resonates deeply with me because I once lived in Gainesville, Florida, some 70 miles north of the incidents in the book. Furthermore, my aunt and uncle and three cousins lived within 2-5 miles of the occurrences. Until reading this book, I was completely unaware of these dreadful events. I was a child at the time they occurred, but never heard of them as I grew older. The book makes me ashamed of my southern roots.

But there is another South counterpoised to that one. This is a South that I like to remember–a South that is epitomized by my maternal grandmother. We called her “Mom.” Mom lived in a postage-stamp-sized town in Alabama called Ashland. Small though it was, it was the county seat of Clay County, complete with an antique courthouse centered in what was euphemistically called “downtown.”

My most vivid childhood memories of Mom are linked to warm summer days in Ashland when my sister and I would most often come to visit. My grandfather was a livestock trader and managed always to have a horse in between trades when we arrived. My sister became quite a horsewoman as a result. I, on the other hand, was too small and besides, I was afraid of those big beasts. So while my sister went riding, I had those lazy summer mornings alone. I often spent them doing nothing in Mom’s front yard. In her front yard was the first time I investigated the mysteries of green moss. Out in front was also a set of mysterious concrete steps that lead down to the curb and stopped. I often puzzled over the existence of those steps leading nowhere. But I used to sit on them and watch the Ashland of seventy years ago go by. Somebody on horseback or in a mule-drawn wagon might come along – quite a spectacle for a little girl coming from a northern city. Often when people would come to visit Mom, they would drive their cars – or more usually their trucks – right up onto the front yard. Sometimes it seemed their vehicles would go right up onto her wrap-around front porch.

You could crawl under Mom’s front porch and under her house, too, if you dared. One day somebody drove up in one of those pick-up trucks, crawled under the porch and killed a snake. Much of the exotic trivia of my youth comes from Ashland.

Mom was a staunch Baptist, and the First Baptist Church of Ashland was right across the street from her house. Because of Mom’s love and concern for her church, it isn’t surprising that many of my Ashland memories are of that church. Sometimes on those long summer days I would go across the street to the old church building and play the piano. I was about ten or eleven then and not a very good piano player, but the church was naturally cool on hot summer days, and I would play “I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair” and sing along.

And on Sundays, we’d go to church wearing white elastic mesh gloves, black patent-leather shoes, and crinolines that we had brought along for the occasion. I had a little straw hat with daisies around the brim that I thought was quite fetching. And I would sing the hymns and, before air conditioning, examine carefully the peaceful scenes on the hand-held fans.

Late on those summer afternoons we would come home to Mom’s from a day at the swimming pool or an afternoon at the twenty-five-cent movie (air conditioned!), and Mom would be there feeding the chickens or bustling around the kitchen making fried chicken, biscuits, lemon meringue pie. Mom’s lemon meringue pie! She kept on making it until she was in her 80’s because she knew we loved it so. And then we’d have the chicken and the biscuits and sip pink lemonade through silver straws that my father had brought from Mexico.

I remember the warm – no, hot – summer nights. Mom’s magic porch held a magic bench swing. We would sit out there on that swing and do nothing. Tell ghost stories maybe. Play jacks by the light of the door. When my sister got older, boys would come by.

Mom was like those warm summer nights: tranquil, accepting, at peace. Mom had a rare capacity for acceptance. She never railed against the fates, even when she lost a brother to typhus, a son to war (see ajsdad.blog, November 11, 2020), and then a husband to cancer. She accepted what life in God’s wisdom had offered her. I know that she didn’t always approve of what we did or how we ran our lives. But she never criticized. She accepted us and loved us for what we gave and what we were. She never rejected us for what we didn’t give or what we weren’t.

Mom knew and was disturbed by the treatment of Blacks in her town. She knew that their schools were inferior, that Blacks were not welcomed into her church, that they had segregated seating upstairs in the movie theater, that their swimming pool was a clay-contaminated water hole in a culvert, that they lived under oppressive Jim Crow “laws.” She was horrified by Alabama’s Governor George Wallace and his segregationist vitriol. To offset some of these injustices, she went out of her way to treat black people whom she encountered in Ashland with dignity and respect. In 1950’s Ashland, that was more than others did.

I sort of lost touch with Mom as I busied through college and graduate school. After my grandfather died, she was always part of my life, always part of my Christmas, always part of my school vacations, but I was too busy to notice. And then I finally grew up and married and was fortunate enough to marry a man who realized, and helped me realize again, the treasure that our family had living with us, sitting quietly in her room reading. It was Mom in her 80’s who knew when Henry Aaron was trying to beat Babe Ruth’s home-run record. Mom who read Oliver Twist before we went to see the movie. Mom who read things that would dismay or rattle a less accepting human being. Mom who read all of the richness and brutality of life, took it in, and accepted it for its window to the world.

After she died, I was going through her papers and found a quotation she had cut out of the newspaper. I see why she cut it out. It’s the way she lived her life: “I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. The longer I live the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.”

Mom gave to my life a living model of peace in a hectic and brutish world. She believed in and lived in “the peace of God that passeth all understanding.” Her legacy to me was her quiet goodness and the fundamental decency of her life. I cherish her memory for being a calm and loving presence in my life, and continue to wish for her all the peace and tranquility of those warm summer nights.

Posted on by rjonakait · 1 Comment

We Called Her Mom

I’m not entirely certain why reminiscences of my grandmother have come up this week. They preceded finding a copy of my eulogy written for her in May 1988. She was 97 when she died. We called her “Mom.” She lived in a tiny southern town — Ashland, Alabama — where my sister and I had visited many times. Here’s the eulogy:

My most vivid childhood memories of Mom are, naturally enough, linked to warm summer days in Ashland when my sister and I would most often come to visit. Those were lazy summer mornings for me. I often spent them doing nothing in Mom’s front yard. In her front yard was the first time I investigated the mysteries of green moss. Out in front was also a set of mysterious concrete steps down to the curb leading to the street. I often puzzled over the existence of those steps leading nowhere. But I used to sit on them for hours and watch the Ashland of thirty [now more than sixty] years ago go by. Somebody on horseback or in a mule-drawn wagon might come along – quite a spectacle for a little girl raised in the city. Sometimes people would come to visit Mom, and they would drive their cars – or more usually their trucks – right up onto the front yard. Sometimes it seemed they would drive right up onto the front porch!

You could crawl under Mom’s front porch and under her house, too, if you dared. One day somebody drove up in one of those pick-up trucks, crawled under the porch and killed a snake under there! Much of the exotic trivia of my youth comes from Ashland.

Because of Mom’s love and concern for this church [the Baptist Church across the street from her house], it isn’t surprising that many of my Ashland memories are of this church. Sometimes on those long summer days I would go across the street to the old church building and play the piano. I was about ten or eleven then and not a very good piano player, but the church was cool on hot summer days, and I would play “I Dream of Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair” and sing along.

And on Sunday, we’d go to church in white elastic mesh gloves and black patent-leather shoes and crinolines that we had brought along…special. I had a little straw hat with daisies around the brim. And I would sing the hymns and, before air conditioning, I would examine carefully the peaceful scenes on the fans.

Late on those summer afternoons we would come home to Mom’s from a day at the swimming pool or an afternoon at the five-cent movie, and Mom would be there busy: feeding the chickens or bustling around the kitchen making fried chicken, biscuit, lemon meringue pie. Oh! Mom’s lemon meringue pie! She kept on making it until she was in her 80’s because she knew we loved it so. And then we’d have the chicken and the biscuit and sip pink lemonade through silver straws that my father had brought from Mexico.

I remember the warm – no, hot – summer nights. Mom’s magic porch held a magic bench swing. We would sit out there on that swing and do nothing. Tell ghost stories maybe. Play jacks by the light of the door. When my sister got older, boys would come by.

Mom was like those warm summer nights: tranquil, accepting, at peace. Mom had a rare capacity for acceptance. She never railed against the fates, even when she lost a brother to typhus, a son to war (see blog post, November 11, 2020), and then a husband to cancer. She accepted what life in God’s wisdom had offered her. I know that she didn’t always approve of what we did or how we ran our lives. But she never criticized. She accepted us and loved us for what we gave and what we were. She never rejected us for what we didn’t give or what we weren’t.

I sort of lost touch with Mom as I busied through college and graduate school. After my grandfather died, she was always part of my life, always part of my Christmas, always part of my school vacations, but I was too busy to notice. And then I finally grew up and married and was fortunate enough to marry a man who realized, and helped me realize again, the treasure that our family had living with us, sitting quietly in her room reading. It was Mom in her 80’s who knew when Hank Aaron was trying to beat Babe Ruth’s home-run record. Mom who read Oliver Twist before we went to see the movie. Mom who read things that would dismay or rattle a less accepting human being. Mom who read all of the richness of life, took it in, and accepted it for its window to the world.

Going through her papers this week we came across a quotation she had cut out of the newspaper. I see why she saved it; It’s the way she lived her life:

I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see. The longer I live the more my mind dwells upon the beauty and the wonder of the world.

Mom gave to my life a living model of peace in a hectic world. She believed in and lived in the peace of God that passeth all understanding. Her legacy to me was her quiet goodness and the fundamental decency of her life. My sister and I have both commented that it was like Mom to leave this world in the brilliance of spring and in the peace of her sleep.

I thank her belatedly for being a calm and loving presence in my life and wish her now all the peace and tranquility of those warm summer nights.

Posted on by rjonakait · 1 Comment

My Personal Story for Veterans’ Day

(Guest Post from the Spouse)

My namesake was James Miller Herren, Jr. – make that Lt. Col. James Miller Herren, Jr. The beloved baby son of my grandmother and the darling baby brother of my mother, “Mill” was a champion horseman, flying ace, the all ‘round perfect baby-faced charmer of the family…whose P-51 Mustang fell out of the sky over Celle, Germany, on October 30, 1944. He was 28. 

Cleaning out the basement recently, we came upon a treasure trove of letters, medals (including two Air Medals and the Distinguished Flying Cross) and military “jewelry” that were from or about Mill. Through this stash, we have learned or confirmed some of his military history.  

While we don’t know exactly when Mill enlisted, by the fall of 1942 he was training pilots in Panama. He writes regularly over the next year that he is very, very busy (and often exhausted) training young men fresh out of high school to be fighter pilots. “They can think up more ways to wreck an airplane,” he writes, commenting more than once on their youth. At the time he himself is only 26 but a Captain in the Army Air Force. By August of 1943, he is a Major preparing his pilots for combat in Europe. 

His letters are hand-written on air mail parchment. They are sent from the 24th Fighter Squadron in Panama through an APO address in New Orleans to his parents in Ashland, Alabama. The ink may have been blue or black, but age has turned it sepia. They start “My dears,” or “My pets,” and always send love and sweetness…and often money. They conclude “Devotedly” or “Love to all.” He begs for letters from home. “I’m really gonna quit you,” he writes, “if you don’t sit right down and talk to me a while.” He buys a car; an old girlfriend marries someone else (he’s okay with it); he flies some buddies to Costa Rica for a little R&R; he meets the president of Guatemala at a reception. He works and works and works. He sounds content and extremely proud of his squadron. 

There is the suggestion from some earlier letters (undated, but probably around 1937 or 38 while he was a student at Auburn) that there had been a major disturbance in the family equilibrium…disturbing enough that my grandmother kept letters about it. “My dearest,” he writes to his mother. “It isn’t you that has failed us – if anything it’s I that has done the failing. I’ve realized for so long what was wrong at our house but I’ve rationalized to the point where I thought things would surely improve. If when realizing it I had done something maybe it would have helped, but it hurt me so much that I just couldn’t believe it was really happening.” He continues his profuse apologies and vows to leave school if his father remains set against him. “Mother darling,” he writes. “Words can’t express what you mean to me so please don’t give me up as a bad job.” We know my grandfather drank heavily and think he may have hurt Mill’s mother. This would have led to a major, unspecified confrontation. Subsequent letters arriving from Panama, however, do not address this incident and, in fact, send love, presents (a unique fountain pen), and offers of money to his father to help his struggling business ventures.  

Sometime around the late summer or early fall of 1943 Mill is promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and his unit is incorporated into the newly-formed VIII Air Force stationed in Los Angeles. He became the commander of one of three (the 434th) Fighter Squadrons in the 479th Fighter Group of the VIII Air Force in the European theater sometime before February 1944. The 479th was moved from California to England in May of 1944, in time for the 434th to patrol the beachhead in the Normandy invasion on D-Day. “I wouldn’t take anything for being in on this deal,” writes Mill on June 8, 1944. “The scope of the thing is darn near too much to believe, even when you see it.” 

The most moving letter comes from Col. Hubert Zemke, who, as commander of the 479th, was Mill’s commanding officer on October 30, 1944. The letter is dated 31 July 1945 and arrives in Ashland from Missoula, Montana. “As you probably know,” types Col. Zemke in an almost typo-free letter, “the mission that Miller and I went down on was to be my very last. [They were escorting B-24 bombers in a mission to take out an oil refinery north of Hannover.] Since it was my last I wanted to lead the best squadron in the Group so I chose Miller’s squadron. This automatically placed Miller on the ground that day. Of course this didn’t please him too much as he had been having a tremendous amount of success and the day’s prospects looked quite good. Miller was always that way. Perhaps too overeager.” So he lets Mill command a section of the squadron. 

Taking flak over Hannover, they turned east, running into a “terrific thunder cloud, which none of us knew existed.” At a radioed suggestion from Mill, they turn around, only, says Zemke, to enter “into the roughest flying condition that I’ve ever encountered.” His plane bounced around, iced up and started spinning. Zemke pulls out of the spin only to realize that he is in a “terrific dive,” severe enough that his wings snapped off. Somehow he is thrown from the plane; somehow his parachute opens; he lands “with a thud into a swamp.” The local village is aroused. Zemke is “overtaken by about twenty hunters armed with every sort of weapon. Their reaction towards me was of curiosity. In no way did they harm me and they went as far as washing the blood off my face at a farmhouse I was taken to.” Later two Luftwaffe Officers came and took him to their station in Celle. “While enroute there one of the two officers told me another American officer had been found near the spot where I had been taken but he had lived only an hour or two….It was later found that this flyer was Miller.” What happened to Zemke between October 1944 and July 1945 is left unanswered in this letter, but he tells that story in a book he wrote in 1991 entitled Zemke’s Stalag: The Final Days of World War II. 

The horror was that my grandmother received word in October 1944 that Mill was missing but waited in anxious hope for another six months until having his death confirmed in March 1945. 26,000 members of the VIII Army Air Force were killed in World War II. Mill’s story was, tragically, not uncommon. 

Gene Miller Jonakait (née Knopf) was born May 15, 1946. She is honored to be known as “Mill.”