For a recent song and story evening at Bethany, Dana Beth suggested I tell stories about Mamaw. I did share a couple and then realized that without writing them down I probably did not do justice to my memory of this beautiful lady. So, in memory of Elizabeth Conley Stiltner....
Imagine if you will a part of Appalachia where in the small gap between 2 mountains there runs a creek, cold and rocky. Alongside the creek a paved road has been cut that is traveled day and night by coal trucks rumbling through, spitting bits of coal here and there as it goes over the uneven patches of pavement, spewing coal dust and exhaust fumes into the air to eventually land coating everything with a layer of black. The mountains’ height and closeness block out much of the sun increasing the dingy, dark feel of the place. Daddy pulls off to the side of the road where a swinging bridge crosses the creek. I get out with my bag of clothes and he tells me to be careful. I hold on to the rope sides of the bridge and gently make my way over the gap that separates paved road from the foot trodden dirt path.
As I make my way up the side of the mountain I pass scattered homes where children play, women hang laundry out to dry and men sit and smoke. Some look up and greet me with a smile or a wave of a hand; some just stare, wondering who I am. As I turn a curve, my eye sees a long dark line stretched across the path ahead. I stop to focus and get a better look. It is a snake. We both freeze. Waiting to see who will make the first move. We stay like that for what seems to be hours when finally a man, carrying groceries in one hand and a walking stick in the other comes up behind me. “Girl, are you ok?” he asks. I slowly raise my hand and point at the snake that has stopped my progress. “Yeah, it’s a copperhead. I killed it on my way down about an hour or so ago,” he responds as he flicks it off the path into the weeds with his stick. Embarrassed by my lack of observation and angry at his not having removed the snake from the path earlier, I continue.
A while later, I come to a place on the path I know very well. I always hesitate right before I get to this place in my walk, take a deep breath and pray that it has not rained recently and the ruts in the middle of the path aren’t filled with mud. If they are I have 2 choices. I can either walk in the weeks on the lower side of the path chancing a snake greeting me there or, I can walk closer to the upper side. It may not sound like too bad of a choice except that on the upper side, there is a split log structure where one of the men living along the path boards a boar. As soon as the boar senses someone near, he begins to snort, squeal and bang up against the walls of his home…walls that I am sure will come tumbling down just as I pass by. Luckily, there is no mud and I run past the frightening animal in his unstable hut.
A bit further on, I come to a point where I can see it…the wide point in the path that signals the site where Mamaw lives. The first thing I can see is her garden. Mamaw has cleared a spot behind her house where she plants beans, potatoes, onions and tomatoes. If it is late summer or fall, I can also see saw horses set out where she will layer slices of apples between 2 layers of screen in order to dry them for dried apple pies. Where the path runs beside her house, there is a stone wall. At the top of the wall Mamaw plants flowers, Johnny jump ups, daisies, violets and more. I often wonder how her garden and flower bed do so well when it always seems so dark here.
Vegetables and bed flowers are not all she has growing. Growing alongside stone steps leading higher up on the mountain to my aunt Stellie and uncle Ott’s house are beautiful rose bushes. Old heritage roses spread their branches out stretching all over the side of the mountain scattering various shades of red and yellow blooms. The roses not only bring beauty to the dark mountain side, they also provide pollen for the bees living in the dozens of bee hives nearby owned by my uncle Ott…bees that always supplied honeycomb to chew and honey for Mamaw’s homemade biscuits or cornbread.
Before I can get to the porch I have to pass the pump house…a small structure seemingly built into the side of the mountain that houses the pump that brings water from the creek to Mamaw’s house. The roof of the pump house is covered with dark tarry shingles and is ground level at the back making for a wonderful oven for mud pies.
I turn toward the house and step up onto the porch. A broad covered porch with a swing on one end and rocking chairs at the other. In the middle is the front door through which I can see Mamaw coming into the living room. There she is, small, thin, hair pulled tightly back into a bun. She shuffles across the floor with her feet in slippers and an apron tied around her waist to protect her dress. Her smile brightens, her hand flies up in the air as she greets me, “W-a-e-l, upon my honor!” She opens the door and takes me into her arms. She feels small and fragile as I wrap my arms around her and I hug her tenderly. I know, though, that this woman is anything but small and anything but fragile.
I spend the week with Mamaw, learning how to knit, creek stomping with cousins, picking daisies for her kitchen table, swinging on the front porch swing reading or listening to the crickets and bees, watching the hummingbirds as they search the roses for nectar. I sleep in the back bedroom and pray for rain at night. It feels so good to go to sleep to the sound of rain on the tin roof all snuggled down into the feather mattress.
If it is winter, Mamaw will have a fire in the coal stove in the living room. It sits in the center of the room, its pipe extending through the roof. While it provided much appreciated heat, the stove was a bit of a scary thing to me. Hot embers could pop out when Mamaw went to stir them and add more coal and just walking around the thing was hazardous when it was hot! It didn’t help my relationship with the beast much when I learned that Mamaw had thrown in some birthday cards and envelopes to burn and afterwards discovered that she had also thrown in cash that someone had placed inside one of the cards.
Mamaw was always doing for others. I tell people she is where I really learned how to be Brethren, though she wasn’t. She always saw good in others and could not figure out why someone would do another harm. I recall when Mamaw would come and stay the winter with us. Daddy and I liked to watch western movies together in the family room downstairs where Mamaw would always have her quilting racks set up with a quilt in progress. Though she wasn’t much for television, she would always end up turning around or even moving to a more comfortable chair to watch with us. When the inevitable shootout would come along, Mamaw would always say, “Now why would he want to do that?!”
I have heard many stories where strangers would pass by Mamaw and Papaw’s home and stop to ask for a drink of water, directions or permission to sleep outside. Mamaw would always fix a full meal, wash their clothes and give them a warm place to sleep. I hear that their hospitality was widely known.
Mamaw’s service extended throughout her family. As a child herself after the death of her mother she scrounged for food and rags with which to clothe her brothers and sisters while her daddy worked. She raised a grandson as her own when he needed a place to be. She took care of grandchildren and great grandchildren when she made her rounds visiting her son and 7 daughters. She stitched the silky binding onto my own daughter’s baby blanket so many times that Dana Beth said no one could do it but Mamaw Stiltner.
Mamaw delighted in her children, grand and great grandchildren. She had 9 of her own and was gladdened with each birth that followed. When at the age 22 I called her to tell her I was pregnant with our first child, she said, “It’s about time!” She loved to cook for the children, to watch them play and always made sure they were cared for. Toward the end of her life, Mamaw experienced some forgetfulness…small things at first but it progressed. When my youngest, Leah, was a few months old, we took a trip to Kentucky to introduce her to the family there. As Leah grew tired, I spread a blanket on the floor and lay her down in hopes she would go to sleep. Leah was so tired, however, that lying down just wasn’t enough and she grew fussier and fussier. Mamaw, sitting nearby, grew agitated and said, “whose baby is that?! Why aren’t they taking care of it?!” She didn’t remember that I had told her just a little bit earlier that this was my baby. All she knew is that this baby wasn’t happy and to her, that just wasn’t right.
One evening in November 1987, Rob’s parents were staying at our house with the girls while we went out. When we got back, his mother told me I had a phone call from my mother about Mamaw. I knew that Mamaw had not been doing too good. She had been in and out of the hospital with pneumonia and had ended up staying with one of my mother’s sisters. For months Mother had gone back and forth to Kentucky to help care for Mamaw, giving her sisters who lived there a much need break from the care giving. I had a feeling the phone call wasn’t a good thing. It wasn’t. Mamaw had died.
For months following Mamaw’s death, I grieved. Rob would wake me up at night saying I was crying and calling out for her. “I want my Mamaw!” I would say. “I know, but she’s gone,” he would reply. One night, I had a dream that Mamaw was talking to me. There she was, larger than life and strong, hair pulled back into a bun, apron over her dress. “Don’t worry about me honey,” she said. “I’m fine now. I am here with your Papaw and God and everything is good. Don’t worry about me. Don’t cry for me anymore.” I awoke from the dream feeling so different from the dreams of her in the past few months. I wasn’t crying for her anymore.
There are many stories her children have told about my mother’s mother, my Mamaw. Some may be stretching the truth a bit, some may be wishful thinking, and some may be nostalgic wonderings. My story about Mamaw, in a nutshell, however, is pure truth. In the dingy darkness of Appalachia, through the dingy, dark times of my life and into what may seem to be a dingy, dark future Elizabeth Conley Stiltner, my Mamaw, brought and continues to bring warmth and light. Whenever I walk across a swinging bridge, eat dried apple pies, work with yarn and needles, hear bees or eat their honey; whenever I smell the sweet scent of roses, care for a child or extend hospitality I remember Mamaw and that sweet, gentle, loving light.
