Mary

So you think you believe in Christian education?  Let me tell you about a lady who is the champion of all champion Christian education believers.  Come along with me...(her own words)
"My great, great, grandmother, Nancy Jane, was half sister of David Lipscomb.  You probably recognize that name.  Nashville, Tennessee, David Lipscomb University."  She says, "When my sister Nan and I went there, when it was a two year school called David Lipscomb College, we decided we wouldn't tell the other students of our ancestry, it might be considered bragging."  But we are getting ahead of the story.

Born in Belvedere, Franklin County, Tennessee on May 2, 1916.  She was the oldest of the children.  Her Sister Nan and she were the "big uns" and her sister Frances and brother Felix were the "little uns".  Her mother passed away when she was only 8 years old.  Her Dad, Felix Caskey Ray,  worked as a young man at the mill in Belvedere, Tennessee, an operation run by her great grandfather.  They would grind meal and chicken feed and flour.  There was another mill nearby which was run by her other grandfather on her mother's side.  By the time she remembers that mill  was no longer operational but the kids would swim there and picnic around the area.

When she was eleven her father remarried and she had a mother again.   Mama Grace, who had a sister who had nine children.  She,  her sisters and brother had so many new friends.  They were never without someone to play with.  It was a happy time.  She loved visiting her Grandma and Granddaddy in Belvedere.  They got to take off their shoes and do what every came to mind.  They never played in the house.  That was for when you were sick, or it was raining so hard you couldn't go out.  If it was only sprinkling they did play outside which was nice especially if it had been really hot.

Again, in her own words, "Grandma took care of the house and chickens, and the yard.  The chickens were tame because she petted them.  When I was about 2 years old Grandma said to catch a chicken to take home and I came around the corner with one under each arm."  Before they  had Mama Grace and her relatives, there were only  four of them  and Felix,  the only boy,  pretty much spoiled by Granddaddy.  Every day Felix would run to Granddaddy and ask where his nickel was and every day Granddaddy would give him a nickel.  "During the Great Depression, we knew we were poor, and Grandma told us not ask for a nickel.  There were none to spare."

One of the fun things to do when we were growing up was to go swimming in the cattle trough.  We could jump in just as we were, clothes and all.  They would dry when we got out.  We didn't know anything about swimming suits.  No one did.  You just went swimming in your clothes."

Once a year the kids would get to go to the County fair and they would get in free with their mother's friend Miss Lizzie  She entered all sorts of things, like pear preserves and chickens and pickles in competition at the Fair   Each of the children got a whole Dollar to spend and they knew it came from their Daddy who worked for Aetna Insurance Company and was off inspecting property that had burned and was insured.  They would eat a hot dog and a pickle and those things costs a nickle.  So they were rich for the entire day, but had not learned how to save and spent the entire Dollar in the day's visit at the fair, eating and riding all the rides.

In her words about childhood:   "Another place we would go would be to Aunt Lemas or Aunt Tullias for a week at a time.  Nan and I, since were were the 'big un' would go together.  Aunt Lema was an old school teacher and she was pretty strict.  One day she sent us to the store to sell cream from her cows,  it was a  quarter of a mile on a gravel road.  Each of us had a tin bucket of cream.  Nan spilled hers and we were mighty scared what she might do to us but we went on to the store and sold the rest.  In the meantime the store lady called and told Aunt Lema on us.  We got the money and went back home and told her what happened. We were surprised that she didn't scold us.    Instead she told us how proud she was that we told the truth."  She later told about her sister Frances taking a friend and going to Aunt Lema's house for a week and according to Frances, the aunt had saved up dishes for a week for them to have to wash.  "From then on Frances never wanted to go back to Aunt Lemas."However Mary loved going because they would sit on the porch in the swing and the Aunt would ask school questions.  Playing school was one of the ways they got educated.

She has few memories of her mother, Mary Dixie.  They lived in Nashville, and she remembers walking to Church with her   She says, "I remember her calling us in when she was about to die and she hugged and kissed all four of us, starting with me and Nan. Then she looked over at Frances and Felix and wondered aloud, who was going to take care of the babies."

Later after her mother died, everyone gathered at the grandparents' house.  The kids were on the porch and could hear everything that was said.  Mary recalls,  "I was Aunt Lema's favorite so it hurt when she offered to take Frances instead of me.

Her Grandmother Ray was laid up in bed from a fall and she overheard the conversation and called everyone into the bedroom and proclaimed that "These children will not be separated.  Felix can hire somebody to do the work, and we will oversee the children.  They are all staying here with us."  That is exactly what happened until Mama Grace came into their lives, and they moved to Nashville.

Even after moving to Nashville, the children spent the entire summer at the grandparents home which was their second home,  They would go immediately when school was out, take off their shoes, and run and play the entire summer, but also work with whatever Grandma had for us to do which she always made fun.  When summer was over they would put the shoes back on and back to Nashville they went.

She tells, "All summer long we studied the Bible and went to Church.  It was then we would put the shoes back on.  Our Bible class was in a corner of the auditorium.  Since we had already learned the lesson at home, I would listen to the grown up lesson,  It was more interesting than my class.  Granddaddy was the teacher."  She goes on to explain, "Even when it wasn't Sunday we would wake up hearing Grandma and Granddaddy discussing the Bible.  They might disagree on what the Bible said and they would look it up to see who was right".

When their Dad married it was an adjustment for the children.  Mary explains, "For instance, Mama Grace didn't know how to cook, so she would buy groceries and put up a schedule  of who was to cook and who was to do the dishes.  Grandma had taught each of us girls to bake our own birthday cake and make our first outfits by the time we were 9 years old so we pitched in and cooked and cleaned up.

Mary attended Hume Fogg High School in Nashville  She remains friends with Geraldine "Gerry" Blair,  There were 350 members of her Senior class.  Dinah Shore a national singing star who later had her own television show sponsored by Chevrolet, was a year ahead of her in school.  She was very active in the school talent shows and activities,  One year she was in a program and sang "Throw Another Log on the Fire."   Mary remembers that the audience liked her so much that she came back for encore after encore, proceeding to throw another log on that fire  On their way home after the program, Mama grace said she thought Dinah was never going to get that fire built.

While they lived in Nashville with  Daddy and Mama Grace,  they went to church at the Hillsboro congregation which began in some one's basement.  The first paid preacher was J.P. Sanders who had come from Sherman, Texas to attend school at Vanderbilt.  He heard of a new school opening in California and asked Nan along with some other students to go to the new college, Pepperdine.  Nan was already his secretary and she would continue in that job in California.  Mary says, "I begged Daddy to let her go."   No one had ever been that far from home.  It was like going to a whole other country.  The worse part was the first Christmas.  It was too far to come home.  But they did get to talk to Nan on the phone and Mary remembers everyone crying that Christmas.  It was the first time the entire family had been apart on that Holiday.

Finally some friends of one of the students were going to drive to California and they had a brand new car.  Mary didn't know them but they heard that Margaret, one of her friends and her wanted to go so they offered them a ride.  Mary and Margaret bought the gas for the trip and paid for their own lodging and food.  Mary says,   "Jesse, who owned the car was a tightwad and he would wait to see what we had on our plates and ask for some of our food and that way he didn't always order for himself."

Nan had met Everette and they married,  After that they rode out on the bus to see them. Nan wouldn't go to the store until it was time to start the meal and she would never buy ahead.  This highly aggravated Mary who took over the kitchen in its entirety and that was part of her rent.  Finally a man at Church told her that if she was going to stay she should find a job  According to Mary, "He offered me a job at his insurance office and then I paid Nan and Everette board and rent.  Everette was preaching at Santa Rosa and would practice in front of Nan.  He wanted me to sit in and listen and tell him whether it was good or bad, but I told him, no thanks, hearing it one time was enough for me."  This was her only other job until her kids got old enough to go to junior high school.

"I went to David Liscomb College as I said and I met my future husband there,  J.E. 'Buddy' Ryan. Then when I went to California to stay with Nan and Everette, I knew I had a really big crush on him.  I got so homesick for the South that I went back home but before I did, I sent a note to Buddy Ryan.  After I got home he came to call on New Years.  In less than 2 months we married and were married 53 years til he passed away.    We first lived in an apartment  in Russellville, Kentucky.  I remember that Buddy didn't care much for our first landlady and called her Miss Fussbudget.  We lost our first son, Edmund Ray at that time.  Buddy's sister Clair had the first grandchild, a girl named Jane.  Everyone was at the hospital and no one had mentioned it was Thanksgiving.  I didn't know that the Rays didn't celebrate Thanksgiving at all, they just went to the field and on with work as usual.  So since I was home, I killed a hen, made a full blown Thanksgiving Dinner for everyone and from that time on it was a big celebration for the Ray family."

"Buddy and I had our second son, Timothy Edmond Ray when we lived in Middleton and it flooded so that Buddy had to ride a boat to go back and forth to work so we moved back to Russellville.  There we had our third child, Ruth Jeannette and we moved into a new house with a new baby girl. "

Life for the Rays with two sweet children and with Buddy working as a tobacco agent was ideal.  Buddy was an Elder in the Church and life was good.    "I don't ever remember going without, or not having enough to eat or clothes for the children.  Buddy was a good provider.  When the kids got old enough to go to junior high school, I wanted them to go to David Lipscomb where there was then a junior high, high school and two year college. My mother's dream was for all her children to get a Christian education.  Nothing was more important.  I never forgot that.  So to afford the cost I went back to work for David at the school where I stayed for several years"

"My name was Mary Ella and while I was in college the teachers nicknamed me Mella.  I have never given up using that name and it is what most people call me today."

Finally she ended up with us  in Wichita Falls, Texas.  We feel blessed that she did.  However, she will be quick to tell you that there is no place on earth prettier or more wonderful than Tennessee, especially Franklin County, Tennessee.  She is in relatively good health and is able to be self sufficient.  She resides in a cute little permanent trailer, right outside her daughter's back door, which means that she has all her own "stuff" but where she also has someone to fuss over and to fuss over her.  She eats at least one meal a day with her family, and is close to them, especially her grandchildren.  She did what the woman in Proverbs did and God in his wisdom will "give her the reward she has earned and let her works bring her praise at the city gate".

Thank you Steve and Ruth Kizer and thank you  Lord that you brought Mella into our lives.