My Amazing Life

Copyright © 2015 Cathy Burch.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

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ISBN: 978-1-5127-0696-3 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-0697-0 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5127-0698-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015912586

WestBow Press rev. date: 08/11/2015

Contents

My Beginning

My Prayer Answered

The Tornado

Dating Walter

The Wedding

Our First Christmas

Patricia Ann

My First Turkey

My Graduation

Maurice Jr.

Our First Home and First Son

First Christmas in New Home

Hurricane Camille

Our Second Son-Richard

My True Salvation

Day Of The Crab

Hurricane Frederic

The Dove and the Stroke

By The Grace Of God…

Mike, Bright, and Light

Never Give Up!

I Can Communicate!

A Healing

Hurricane Katrina

A Peacock Tale

Sandra Gray

Hurricane Isaac

911

My Final Thoughts for You

This book is dedicated

to my husband,

Walter

Miracles

Some people believe in them and some don’t. For those who don’t, here I stand a living miracle by the grace of a Holy God!

My Beginning

I was born Mabel Cathan Stringer in Birmingham, Al., on January 10, 1945, on one of the coldest days of that year. My parents were devout Christians, and with my birth I joined a big brother in the family. He was only 14 months old at the time. My first true miracle was being born into this Christian family. I claim it as a miracle because in all of my future trials, being in a Christian family would prepare me to be able to cope with them.

My father was a chemist for the steel industry in Birmingham during World War II, but as the soldiers began returning home after the war, he lost his job. So we moved in with my grandparents, who were farmers, Ode and Zettie Stringer of Taylorsville, Ms., where my father was raised. I was only six weeks old at the time. We lived with my grandparents for about three weeks before moving to Ellisville, Ms. My father secured work at Jones County Junior College in Ellisville as an organic chemistry teacher. My mother, returning to her original vocation before marriage, became an elementary school teacher and later a librarian. Both of my parents loved to read and taught me early on a deep appreciation for all of the adventures found just lying in wait between the pages of books.

When my father was very young, one of his sisters nearly died right after she was born because she was deathly allergic to cow’s milk, so his father bought a goat for her. My father and that goat became more than friends; they became buddies. They spent many hours of fun playing together. Daddy even had a small pull-cart the goat could pull him around the barnyard in. One Sunday while the family was at church, the goat made a terrible mistake. She jumped onto a woodpile by a shuttered window and proceeded to jump through that window and into the house. After exploring the house, made evident by a small trail of minor disarray, she entered my grandparents’ bedroom, where she made her big mistake! She jumped up on the top of their bed and then promptly pooped!

Upon returning home from church, my grandparents were exceedingly angry at the goat. My daddy’s father got his shotgun, grabbed the goat, took it outside of the house, and shot it. When the goat was later cooked, Daddy would have nothing to do with eating any of it.

On one of many visits to my grandparents’ farm when I was only three years old, I became a little too curious for my own good. I was fascinated by the swishing of the tail of a mule near the barn. Not being noticed by my father, who was nearby talking to some other men, I walked directly toward the back of the mule. Mother noticed the danger to me and began hollering at me to stop. She came running to me from the porch of the house. She quickly grabbed me up in her arms just before the mule kicked. Praise Jesus!

Maw Maw Stringer had a very intelligent female border collie named Shep. I was captivated by how talented and skilled she was. All Maw Maw would have to do was open the gate to the pasture located across the highway in front of their house in the mornings. Shep would dutifully drive their cattle across the highway, through the gate, and into the pasture. Then Shep would stand in the center of the opening of the gate until it was closed. She would repeat the same in the evening, only in reverse! What an amazing dog she was.

That summer I spent a week with Maw Maw. During that week, I spent a day and a night with my aunt, Homer Lee Boykin, one of Maw Maw’s three daughters. My Aunt Homer Lee’s home was about two hundred yards south on the highway from my Maw Maw Stringer’s. Their homes were on opposite sides of the highway. Both families were hard-working farmers living a few miles north of Taylorsville, Ms. Homer Lee and her husband had a very successful produce stand, providing the many different vegetables from the crops they planted and harvested for sale to the local community. On one particular night, I could not sleep because of the loud, constant crowing of one of Aunt Homer Lee’s roosters. On and on the rooster crowed until I finally got up and dressed. It was about two or three o’clock in the morning, and I decided to walk up the highway to my Maw Maw Stringer’s house. That’s where my Aunt Homer Lee found me the next morning, after she had made a thorough search of her house. I don’t like any loud roosters when I’m trying to sleep!

It is interesting how my aunt Homer Lee Stringer Boykin got her unusual first and middle names. At the age of 17, Homer Lee Nichols, Maw Maw’s brother, was accidently shot and killed. It happened as he was walking across some railroad tracks near the Mobile River in Mobile, Alabama. My grandmother named her daughter Homer Lee in memory of her brother.

Paw Paw Stringer was a very successful farmer with several head of cattle, many hogs, and chickens. He also had a mule from about the time my father was a teenager. Paw Paw farmed several acres of land, some of which he planted with different crops. Other acres were pasture land, with some acres of timber. He grew sugar cane and made his own syrup. Paw Paw Stringer even tried his hand at pond-raised catfish in two ponds he had dug for that purpose. He also held an important position as a timber estimator in Taylorsville.

My father was born with a fused spine and had a very serious accident as a toddler. He fell off of a front porch that was about three feet above the ground. This resulted in Daddy having one of his legs a few inches longer than the other leg. These two medical conditions would seriously hinder him from doing any strenuous labor or intensive types of work. His father expected Daddy—because he was the only son in the family—to remain at home and work the farm. However, my father was not physically able to do so.

Aunt Homer Lee and her husband, Billy Ray Boykin, bought a tractor to use on their portion of the land. But Paw Paw preferred to keep using his large mule to do all of his plowing of the fields and large gardens they planted every year. My husband, Walter, once was witness to a funny incident that involved Daddy and Paw Paw’s mule. One day when all of my family, Walter, and I were visiting the grandparents, Daddy decided he was going to help his father by hitching up the mule and plowing one of the smaller fields. Walter went with Daddy to see how plowing was done with a mule. Walter had once worked on a large commercial farm, plowing huge fields with large tractors, as a teenager in Indiana.

Paw Paw and that mule had plowed many fields for years together and had developed a certain way of getting the work done. Daddy, the mule, and Walter crossed the highway, entering the field to be plowed a few yards south of Paw Paw’s house. Daddy promptly set the plow to earth and gave the command for the mule to move forward. As they reached the end of the field, Daddy gave the command and pulled on the reins for the mule to turn left. That’s when things became funny to Walter. He said that huge mule balked, snorted, and turned his head back, looking toward Daddy. The expression on the mule’s face, as well as the look in his eyes, seemed to clearly say, Hey! Who’s plowing this field anyway? Daddy attempted repeatedly to get the mule to turn to the left with no success at all. Later that day Daddy asked his father about what had happened earlier with mule. Paw Paw, who was a man of few words, replied, Son, the mule and I always turn to the right when plowing.

My Aunt Polly purchased a window air conditioner for my grandparents. She had the unit placed in their bedroom window on the same wall where the fireplace was located. Being used to living all of their lives in high temperatures and humidity, my grandparents never even turned the air conditioner on.

My grandparents on my mother’s side of the family were Jessie Edmund and Carrie Mabel Chapman. They lived in a small dogtrot house in the Chapel Hill community, approximately six miles from Utica, Ms., which is 30 miles from Jackson, Ms. He had a small farm. He was a proud justice of the peace in Utica for several years. Later he had to resign from that position he loved because of his health. At that time, my mother, who was single and teaching school, was a very good daughter. She was always constantly concerned about her parents’ immediate needs. She provided for them a car, a refrigerator, fresh food, and freshly canned vegetables.

Maw Maw Chapman will always remain a saint in my eyes! Her mother died of a heart attack after giving birth six weeks before to a baby boy. Maw Maw’s mother was in a rocking chair with the baby when she had the heart attack. My grandmother’s father remarried a few years later. The stepmother had several children also. Maw Maw was required by her father at the age of eight, while she was in the third grade, to quit school. She was tasked with taking care of all the many siblings. Her very early contact with books in the short