services for my great aunt.
Aunt Vera was 94 and never married. She lived most of her life with her sister Beatrice who was widowed after about a year of marriage in the late 20's. After their father passed away, my great-grandmother moved in with them and shared their home until her death.
Aunt Vera taught 1st grade and kindergarten with a couple of years of 2nd grade in there for about 55 years. She taught childrens Sunday School, VBS, and whatever other children's classes were needed, again focusing on the kindergarten-3rd grade range at her church, Salem Baptist Church, for about 60 years. I think that the former student who delivered her eulogy put it best when he said this lady had a vision for her church and for herself. And her vision was that every child had the potential to spread the word of God. For a little lady (barely 5 feet tall) who seldom left Itawamba County, Vera Johnson has spread her God's message far and wide. The man delivering this eulogy is a retired missionary who spend his entire adult life as a missionary in West Africa. He retired and moved back to Itawamba a couple of years ago.
Aunt Vera's most recent outreach effort was the donation of 15 acres of her land to be used as a Baptist retreat. She saw kids living in town and was concerned that the distractions of daily life made it hard for them to hear...really hear...God's word. Her vision was a place for children to come and learn about God in the quiet splendor of His nature. I drove out their after we visited the gravesite today and they have built a couple of buildings, but it's mostly walking trails through virgin hardwood forrest. Do you know how hard it's getting to find untouched hardwood forrest these days? I hope the kids appreciate it, but if nothing else, they get to see a part of their environmental heritage that is disappearing quickly.
My dad dropped out of dental school for a quarter to grade cotton, and at the time, was trying to decide if he should go back. He was having to work a quarter to save money to pay for a couple of quarters. At that time, if you dropped out or flunked out three quarters, you were kicked out for good. My Papaw farmed and drove a road-grater for the state. They helped how they could, but pretty much, if Daddy wanted to go to school, it was up to him to figure out how. Aunt Vera drove out in the cotton fields one day and gave him a check book and told him to be back up to school. Daddy tried to tell her that she didn't understand how expensive dental school was and how much it cost to live in Memphis. She just told him not to worry that there was plenty in there. So my Dad went back and finished dental school, then paid Aunt Vera back in 3 years.
She was quite a character. She loved cattle and always kept a few cows around up until she couldn't take care of them. If it was dairy cows, she's let them eat green onions and nobody would drink the milk. If it was beef cattle, she got too attached to them to slaughter them. She loved her catfish pond and liked to take us kids down there to throw out bread and watch the fish come up, but she didn't care for fried catfish, so rarely fished out of the pond.
What has always impressed me most about Aunt Vera was that she put her whole heart into everything she did. Here was a young unmarried lady who went out and got herself an education. She managed and improved about 90 acres of farmland. She participated wholeheartedly in her church, and as age and finances allowed, she directed that church toward growth and improvement when demographics would have indicated that that church should have been aging and diminishing.
And she loved with her whole heart. And I will miss her.
