Newspaper Page Text
The Red and Black. Thursday. September 19, 1974 Page 7
Mattie Lou Bradbury, a resident of Lanier Cardens,
a senior citizens high rise complex, works on cloth
books for retarded children. The books are one of
many community projects worked on by the residents
regularly.
pays what."
I A typical site is the one in Winder, in a dance studio that is donated to the local
group. Site coordinator Sue Channel estimates that they serve 39 meals a day to a
countless number of local residents.
During lunchtime, the center is as boisterous as a high school cafeteria, with every
one catching up on the latest news about so-and-so’s grandchildren, gardens and latest
illness Afterwards, everyone clears the tables and congregates in a corner to sing
some old hymns One lady has brought along a harmonica for accompaniment and for
a while the place is really rolling with the sound of old voices.
IN ANOTHER corner sits Mrs. Emma Huff. She is 93 years old and she has been to
the center every day since it opened. She smiles broadly and nods her head slightly
with the beat of the music. "You don’t get prettier music than that nowadays,” she
i sayd.
"I been singing that song since I was a kid. I can’t sing nowadays, though, so
mostly I sing to myself and only when I’m along.
"I don’t get around too good no more," she continues. "My legs got the rheumatiz,
but I do pretty good otherwise, considering I been around so long.’’
She remembers the largest number of her years as if they had all happened last
week.
"My daddy owned a big ole farm when I was a little girl. That must have been in
the 1880’s sometime — I used to have to chop cotton and plow ’cause we planted an
awful lot of corn. And I used to have to get up at 4:30 in the morning just to go milk a
cow. Can you imagine that nowadays?" She laughs and winks. That’s what is so
distinctive about her, her laugh. The rich laugh that only blacks have, that show a
wealth of living and enjoying every minute of it.
She is short, with the spread of age and bearing six children showing across her
hips. Cataract-covered eyes look out from behind a pair of glasses with a curious
combination of innocence and wisdom that seems to come only in older people. Her
grey-streaked hair is covered with a green net and she characteristically plucks at it
with a tiny wrinkled hand. Her soft voice seems to hush all around her, a gentle
sound, punctuated with "Yes, ma’ams” that should rightfully be returned to her
rather than showered on the white youngster next to her
She will talk about her life in short bits and pieces. She will talk about her children.
* And she will especially talk about her husband
"He was a farmer, just like my daddy. We met in church and kind of got to know
each other thataway. One day he went and asked for me from my momma and my
daddy but he wouldn't let me go. So he just come by my house one night and we ran
off and got married." She pauses and giggles at some thought. "They was so mad;
and then when we come back, they wanted us to live with them, but we wouldn't."
She can’t remember the year she got married, just that it was sometime around the
1890’s because her first child was born in 1894
She stretches out an arm. "He just had his 80th birthday. I just couldn’t believe
having a boy that old." And then the laugh, accompanied by a slap on her chair arm.
Five other sons followed that one, but only two are alive today. Emma is the last of
her own family; what remains now are her sons, their children and the countless
great grandchildren that spread pretty much all over the state.
"I guess you could say it was pretty wild around home with six boys like that I
don’t rightly know we kept up with all of them. I guess there just wasn't much for
them to get into around home.”
In 1930. her husband and youngest son decided that Winder was the best place to sit
out the oncoming depression and so they packed up and moved there. They lived as
tenant farmers on a local farm and for 15 more years, until her husband died, they
worked the land, chopping more cotton and planting more corn and milking more
. , cows.
"The Lord was awful good in bringing me a man like that." she says. "Times was
hard on us. but we made out pretty good ”
She moved to Athens to live with her son Later, in 1960, she returned to Winder,
where she now shares an apartment with *» friend.
"I used to just sit at home all day long before the center opened," she says. "My
family's so scattered and busy they can’t take me around This way I get to see so
many people I knew a long time ago but never got a chance to see because I couldn't
get around."
She turns back to some of her friends and begins asking them about their families
and when she’s going to see them again By any standard, she is alert with a memory
Wrinkled, idle hands are not necessarily weak hands.
They can be and want to be productive.
rarely matched, and slightly handicapped mobility. Think of what would happen if she
remained at home, cut off from her old friends and from the rest of the world. Think
of what would happen if she had no place to go except an institution, where she would
sit all day long with only memories of the days gone by to occupy her.
Obviously, the government is on the right track as far as senior citizens are
concerned. They are now aware that people who have reached age 65 are still useful,
that they can be contributing members of society for many years to come.
The problem now is with society, with the social stigma that age 65 marks the end
of life. We are still isolating the older American into his own group, still forcing him
to relate to his own kind rather than absorbing him into society. These programs'
success will depend, not on how the aged accept them or how they are funded, but
rather how the rest of the population responds. These programs' success will not
matter at all if the people in society refuse to accept the senior citizen into their own
ranks
At the Winder Wheels to Meals program- going
counterclockwise- Iva Rainy plays gospel music on her
harmonica while others sing; Emma Huff visits friends
and relives memories; Harold Martin and Paul
-