Remembering
Mayda
“There’s
no way to be a perfect [grand]mother, and a million ways to be a good one.”
Jill
Churchill
Today is Mother’s Day. I
have written a lot about my mother, and her mother, so today, I will write
about my dad’s mother—the pianist. Her name was Mayda Alston Mallonee, and she
was born in 1892. Her family were landed people “down east,” in Wilcox County,
North Carolina. She came to Murphy because her father was a sculptor of marble,
and there was a quarry nearby. She graduated from the Georgia Conservatory of
Music around 1908, but because her father wouldn’t allow it, didn’t marry until
the “spinster age” of 26. Always a musician, for the silent movies, for
community theater, and for her Methodist church, Mayda had a theatrical
presence and dramatic temperament. I can’t remember her ever being without
earrings and makeup and “done” hair—even at home.
She, like many high-brow
southern women of her time, did not drive a car and could not cook anything you’d
want to eat (trust me!)—except butter mints. The thing that always impressed me
about Mayda was, even though she was bred to be served, she managed somehow to
rise to the occasion when circumstances demanded it. She and her husband,
Elbert, lost everything in the Great Depression, including the home they had
built. For a while, they ran a boarding house, and after he died at the age of
47, she went to work in a department store selling lady’s lingerie.
The term “steel magnolia”
applies to this grandmother—she was not a woman of the soil, like my other
grandmother. She managed to stay refined to the end. When I see her now in my
mind’s eye, she is wearing a pink sheath dress and white pumps (after Easter
and before Labor Day, only), white “bobs” on her ears, and her hair is robin’s
egg blue. I never saw her without silk stockings.
When I was nine years
old, my dad bought her an old, black upright piano for Christmas, and right
before our eyes, the demure grandmother we knew transformed into a bawdy,
rocking, saloon player! Mama Mayda, the classically trained pianist, played
ragtime, pop-tunes, and what we kids called “ditty-wah-ditty!” She would make
you dance with her spirited rendition of “the King of Ragtime,” Scott Joplin’s
Maple Leaf Rag.
Mama Mayda lived with my
family from the time I was five years old until she died in her 80’s. Her music
was a bright spot in my life, and while we were not emotionally close, it was she
who brought lightness and joy to this child in need of both. Thank you, Mama
Mayda, for being the music for me.
And Happy Mother’s Day to
ALL women, who simply have creativity woven into their DNA, and are, therefore,
mothers to the world. I salute you!
In the Spirit,
Jane
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