Betty Jane Bailey Arnn- best known as Mammaw

My Mammaw.  I say it as affectionately as my children say "My Momma"...she meant that much to me.  Her life was worth watching and using as an example.  Born in 1923, she was the oldest of five.  They moved from Springtown, AR to Dermott, AR in her school age years and she went to Dermott High School, even at her burial service on Friday there was someone who went to high school with her.  I don't know all the details, although I wish I did, but she worked for a short time during the WWII in Washington D.C. She didn't appreciate the whistles she received walking to work and back from construction men, so she quickly came back home.  She was a modest and hard working woman to say the least.  She married my Papaw at 23 and they had a grocery store where they would deliver goods.  It wasn't a job they were particularly fond of so they began to farm.  She still had 80 acres of farm land the day she left this earth and I have to say it is a beautiful piece of land...more on that later. She had my Aunt Sue and then two years later had my Momma.  She and my Papaw were very frugal and wise with their spending and saving...they managed to send both girls to the private school, Ouachita Baptist where they both came away with college educations.  Something neither of their parents had but I have been told that my Papaw was one very smart man and I saw with my own eyes the wisdom my Mammaw was blessed with.  

I was 3 months old when my Papaw passed away, leaving my Mammaw a widow in her late 50's.  She lived 32 years without him but he took great care of her.  Leaving her a farm that even to this last year of harvest she was able to watch as they planted corn and she marveled at the speed they could do it.  I was told that back in her younger days she was challenged to pick a to hand pick a bale of cotton in one day, which she did. We went to the farm after her burial service was over and it was raining just a little bit as we walked on the road that used to go in front of their house.  The pecan trees loomed large and looked like they had been there forever.  The large oak tree still sits close to the road where their driveway was, the corn rows as far as our eyes could see.  The June weather seemed oddly cool and I couldn't help but think it was a blessing.  

More than anything she instilled in me the importance of knowing and loving God and giving Him back the life He has given us.  Her last days were ones I would love to repeat myself.  God showed His mercy in giving her a peaceful heart and joy in her eyes all the way to the end.  Her eyes still sparkled when I saw her last and that was a week before her passing.  

A little tidbit I want to keep for my own memory sake is something my Aunt Sue told me.  When Mammaw and Papaw lived on the farm they had a code system by honking the horn once he was telling her he needed her to bring out hot coffee (how he could drink hot coffee in the heat I don't know!) and two honks meant he just wanted her to come out and talk to him.  I love the idea, and I have no idea if this is the case, that my Papaw would come up to her heavenly home and honk once and suggest they go for coffee because the fields in heaven just aren't so hard to work it turns out. The fruit of their labor has come and I can't wait to join them one day.