A Strong and Courageous Woman

Tough life, too many hardships, always loving

I once knew a strong and courageous woman.

Her name was Mary Kathleen Bennett. She was my maternal Nana.

Yes, I think she’s gorgeous, too. Behind the smile was a lot of pain.

I was a teenager when she died. I wished I had more time with her.

This is me as a kid.

I liked to play outside, read books, write stories, and daydream. That’s pretty much all I do now, too.

I could not know then that later I would write a book titled Ten Kids, Two Lovebirds, and a Singing Mermaid and I would put her steely strength, her kindness, and her sense of style and spirit into one of my main characters.

I started writing this story last August during an incredibly sad/frustrating time in my life. You could say I channeled my Nana.

This book was inspired by my childhood in Huntington Beach, California. I remember my sweet Nana at our house often. There is a lot of humor in it so if you need a laugh…

As a child, I saw my Nana’s warm smile and felt the gentle hugs, and I loved the way she made her sweet potatoes with extra brown sugar at Christmas. I smelled the cigarettes she smoked, the scent mixing with her perfume and Jergen’s lotion.

Mary Kathleen Bennett was born in 1908 in Texas. Her mother was pregnant with her brother when she was two years old. A week after her brother was born, Mary Kathleen’s mother died of “blood poisoning.”

Mary Estelle was in her twenties. Mary Estelle’s husband, Carl, decided it would be best if he ran off into the great blue yonder and abandoned his children, and so he did, and Mary Kathleen never saw her father again.

Let’s pause on this. Sweet Mary Kathleen was two years old.

Her mother died.

Then her father left. He is the one on the left. I don’t know why he made the decision he did.

Mary Kathleen and her new baby brother were passed off to this relative and that relative around and about Texas and they never felt wanted or loved, which was probably why Mary Kathleen’s brother became an alcoholic and died too young. Loneliness and aloneness can bring you down until you can hardly get up, as some of us know.

But Mary Kathleen had the courage of a Texas steel magnolia and classic Southern manners and she kept a smile on her face. She didn’t like to talk about what had happened to her. Stiff upper lip, don’t complain about your problems, no whining, count your blessings, that sort of thing.

She found my grandpa, Thomas Cecil. He, too, came from a tough background. 11 kids. Poor farm boy from Arkansas. 8th grade education.

My Grandpa is on the left, seen here with his brothers. Many became home builders in Los Angeles. Their father was a sheriff and farmer in Arkansas. The 11 kids worked endlessly and scraped by - barely.

Thomas Cecil’s mother died when he was four years old. I imagine that was why he suffered from a black depression that soared in and out like doom his whole life. That loss, the longing one would feel for one’s mother, would always sit right in your heart, carving out a hole.

Two lonely, adventurous hearts came together.

My grandparents on the right. We don’t know who the handsome fellow is on the left. It’s a family mystery. He does look like a movie star though, doesn’t he?

Mary Kathleen was pregnant with a baby boy, then there was the terrible miscarriage. Next she had my mother. There were no more babies, which was heartbreaking for my Nana.

At the time, my grandpa was flipping the homes they lived in and building houses in Los Angeles, Simi Valley, and Bakersfield with his brothers. My mother and Nana moved all the time as my grandpa chased one home profit after another.

You see, my Grandpa had to chase the profits. He was born so poor. For those of you who were poor as children, you know that desperate feeling never quite leaves you. It didn’t with my Grandpa. He felt like poverty was always right around the corner, lurking, waiting to pounce. He had to outrun the deprivation of his childhood.

He made money when they sold a home, but moving all the time mimicked all the moving my nana did when she felt like an unwanted guest in Texas as a child. It would have been a sad trigger, but she put her chin up and did it. She had to. There were no other options.

My Nana took care of my mother, but she also took care of my grandpa. My grandpa had a temper - but not with my Nana or my mother. He would level the electricians and plumbers and concrete layers who worked for him if they did not do the job right and on time. He would yell and threaten and swear up a storm. He was a fighter from Arkansas so this came pretty easy to him.

If my grandpa’s temper erupted on the phone with some hapless fellow, he would hang up when he was done, shake it off, then gently ask my Nana how she had made such a delicious casserole for dinner. She would share with him the recipe, including all ingredients, a teaspoon of vanilla and a tablespoon of parsley, a shake and a pinch of cinnamon or salt, and he would listen and smile. She calmed him down. He loved her.

Mary Kathleen had too much hardship in her life, but she was gracious and kind and smart, and in another era she would have had choices - about her education and her career and her life. She had her secrets, though, I could sense it as a kid and I knew it as an adult.

I always sensed the secrets…she certainly was not one to share everything.

I gave my Nana’s strength and courage to Annie O’Brien, the mother in Ten Kids, Two Lovebirds, and a Singing Mermaid. Annie O’Brien has her own challenges in 1979 in Huntington Beach, California, but she is not going to let them get her down. At least not for long. She has responsibilities. She has children who depend on her. She will rise to the occasion.

Just like my Nana.

Cheers to all of the women in our lives who have shown us what true strength and courage looks like as they rise.

Wishing you a good day.