the satisfaction. It was all Jesse Carl could do not to strike her. Sending her off to live with relatives was believed in her best interest, although being cut off from the rest of the family must have hurt her deeply. As more children were born, Jessie came back, sharing a bed with my mother.

My Aunt Jessie is perhaps the only other blood relative that I truly count as family that I actually came to know. How could I not? Not only did they share a bed as teenagers. Once my half-brother and I came into being, the two sisters never lived more than ten miles apart and were joined in each others lives for five decades. They are buried in adjoining graves to this day.

At this time in their lives, they were more sisters than friends, young and jealous each of the other, my mother following her big sister's lead if only to keep up with her — Jessie craving her father's love and attention, Eva longing for his respect. In 1929, another daughter, Ruth, arrived. Seven years later, at the age of 40, my grandmother gave birth to twins, a boy and a girl. In those very lean times, my grandfather was laid off from his brakeman job for the railroad, and he made a mod-

est living repairing clocks and maintaining a barbershop in the back of their house.

Everyone in the family worked, brother Tommy part time with the Civilian Conservation Corps while he attended high school, my mother helping with the twins and occasionally working in a nearby candy factory, and Jessie studying full time in high school and helping with the housework.

As difficult a family as they were, they had a common interest in music. Both my grandparents played piano, my grandfather by sight, and my grandmother by ear. Both older sisters learned piano by sight, and all the family members had excellent singing voices. They sang in choirs; and for a time — until his drinking got the best of him — my grandfather was choirmaster of his church.

I’d heard it said that despite his temper and his drinking, my grandfather was fundamentally a good man, a good provider,   a biblical scholar who had taught himself Greek and Hebrew in order to better understand the gospel. At the same time, he was opinionated, jealous, and confrontational.