Memories of my Mother ILA MAE FARRINGTON
Ila Mae Farrington was born on October 9th, 1920 in Greensboro, North Carolina, to Cora Grace McCandless and John Alexander Farrington. She was the second child born to them, but the oldest daughter. She was one of 12 children born to the Farrington's. She grew up on the family farm located between Greensboro and High Point, North Carolina, right next to the Deep River. To earn a living, the Farrington family raised tobacco - but they also grew vegetables, fruit, and the animals needed to feed their family. The family home was always bustling with family, friends, and even foster children.
I remember her telling me once about how she had to wear black cotton stockings to school that she did not like. So, she said that they would go down to the school bus stop at the bottom of the hill and take them off, hide them, and then go on to school.
When she was 15, she married Woodrow Wilson Smith in Martinsville, Virginia, and they had four children - Jean (Norma Jean), Larry (Larry Wilson, later changed to Lawrence Wilson), Billy (Billie Bruce), and Lynne (Karen Lynne). I mainly grew up with two brothers as my sister Lynne was a special gift to our family when I was just starting my teen years. Later in life Ila Mae married James Henry Bryant in Richmond, Virginia.
While their children were growing up, the Smith family lived in North Carolina, Maryland, back to North Carolina, and then to Virginia.
The memories I want to share with you today are from that period of time. And from each of these memories, I learned lessons that affect my life even today.
I remember coming home from school to a house that smelled of my Mom's cooking. That ranged from the great smell of chili to the not so great smell of collard greens. My favorite was her homemade chili. She was a good cook and I am still trying to measure up today. She baked cakes and pies - like her fresh coconut cake. I also remember making Ice-box Fruitcake as a family at Christmas. I had one brother who had an enormous sweet tooth and one time when he was young, he started getting into the sugar. Mama told him to stay out of it. So he filled the salt shaker with sugar so that he could use it as much as he wanted. Well, my Aunt Betty happened to visit one day and my Mom had made a pot of pinto beans. Betty was eating a bowl of beans and said - I swear, the more salt I add to these beans, the sweeter they get! Larry's secret was out!
Education was important to my parents. I can remember her sitting and reading - something I love to do today. And before we were even old enough to go to school, she was trying to teach us to read. We lived next to a school and she got some of these word strips and would work with us to help us learn those words.
I can remember fun family activities - the community swimming pool in Sandston, Pocahontas State Park -.Mama loved to swim. She had grown up on the river and liked to go there with her brothers and sisters and friends to swim. She told me about a certain tree that they used to dive out of into the river.
Our family also made trips to the beach and to the mountains. I have thought about writing a book about experiences with my siblings on these trips - like drawing invisible lines on the back seat and daring each other to cross them. Of course, that was an open invitation to war. I'm sure my parents wondered why they bothered to take family trips sometimes.
And our door was always open to relatives to visit.
I can also remember my Mom going for a bike ride with us kids when we lived in the Lewis Gardens Apartments - and how we had to carry her home after she had a major crash on a gravel road and got all scraped up.
Another memory I have of my Mom is her sitting in a chair in the living room crocheting. She was always crocheting. She has made lots of doilies and she has made afghans. I remember the doilies with the white centers and the pansies around the edges. I even still have a dress she crocheted for me when I was just a baby.
In raising her young family, my Mom was a caring mother. she took care of me when I had rheumatic fever as a child. But I can also remember those perms she gave me when I didn't want to leave the house for a week because of the ''frizzies''! Another incident sticks in my mind too. As I said, we lived next to a school in North Carolina and I think my brother Billy was in about first grade. A little boy ran out in front of a school bus and go hit right in front of our house. He had on little blue shorts and a white shirt just like my brother had worn to school that day. My Mom was watching from the kitchen window and I was standing in the front yard. She came running out of the house and jumped a rose bush about four feet tall (to me it looked six feet tall at the time!) to get to the accident. Now that was some feat - I was impressed! Luckily, it wasn't my brother in the accident.
Honesty was another trait I learned. She would drive back to a store to return even a few pennies if she was overpaid and she would have .Y§ return to the store if we had been given too much change. Honesty in whatever we did was emphasized in our home as children.
My Mom had a good sense of humor too. I'm sure her brothers and sisters could share experiences about this, but here is one I remember. One Halloween, she dressed up in a costume and went trick-or-treating with us. She only went up to the door when it was someone she knew. And when the person would start to put candy in her bag, she would say - I'm only taking canned foods! I think she ended up with 2 or 3 cans of food. Now there is a new way to get your food storage!
I remember my Mom as being a compassionate person. She worked in the cafeteria at school and would use her own money to buy lunch for a kid who did not have lunch - this was in the days before other help was available for them. I also remember one little boy who came from a bad home situation and came to school without bathing. One day she took him home from school - made him get in the bathtub and washed his clothes while he was soaking and then she called his Mom. I thought she was really going to get into trouble - but she didn't. She went in and scrubbed the little boy, put his clean clothes back on him and drove him home. His Mom was actually grateful and the little boy came to school clean after that.
When I was growing up, my parents were religious and that was a part of our daily lives. We were taught to say our prayers each night and at meals. At one time we even had a little lesson once a week from a little book called The Upper Room. We were brought up in the Quaker church. I can remember lots of fun time at the Springfield Friends Church, like ice cream suppers, playing in the cemetery behind the church while parents were in meetings or talking to the other grownups, the museum they had there, etc.
I can remember singing with my brother at my grandparents church in North Carolina - Bundy's Chapel. Billy, remember the song - The Little Church in the Wildwood? And I can remember one Christmas morning when my Mom was suppose to go to church and play Mary in the annual Christmas program - and she woke up with the mumps!
Later, after some of us had left home, my parents joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This too set an example for us as to the meaning of Christ in all of our lives.
Each person in our lives touches us in a special way. We are here to learn from each other, to support each other, and to love each other. The Lord uses us in that way because He cannot be here himself. In each of our lives, Ila Mae Farrington - Mom, 'has played a different role and made a different contribution, ...-.
May we treasure those positive memories and use them to help us to be the children of our Heavenly Father that He wants us to be and to use these memories to reach out to other and affect their lives in a positive way.
I love each of you and I say this in the name of Jesus Christ.
Talk given at the funeral of Ila Mae Farrington Smith Bryant 25 September 1996 by N. Jean Smith Ward
