Nondus (Lowe) Dawson

Click here to return to the Dawson Biographies and Stories menu | Click here to return to the home page

Nondus, with her beautiful red hair, is remembered as
...witty, fun-loving, a fiery lady
...a good mother and a hard worker
...gardening, weeding
...adventurous enough to turn a car over
...had a Victrola player which was a real attraction for visiting cousins

Excerpts written for Nondus Dawson on Mother's Day 1973, nine years before her death
by Berniece Dawson Lemmons

Dear Mom

I have a poem which begins:

Love your Mother while she lives
Don't wait for her to die --
To show how much you cared for her
With mourners standing by.

There are probably few families who have a more profound love for each other than ours; yet few who express it verbally
less than we. --Perhaps this is not all bad. Those who know our family, either casually or well, are aware of the unusual
closeness. . . . It may be that feeling is more genuine than it were voiced glibly on one hand -- and then, either by action
or inference, we caused other members of the family or those outsiders who look on to question the depth of love. . . I think
we "live our love" rather than "talk" it.

In hopes that it will bring some pleasant memories, let me reminisce and recall some things from the childhood of each
of your seven children.

Well, Clyde just burned the barn down. No, it wasn't arson-- he just burned the barn down! Clyde would strut around saying
"I'm little C.C. --- I'm little C.C."

Now Pearle probably led the "quiet life." I recall you thought perhaps you neglected her because she was so good! I guess
the most cruel thing she ever did was squeeze a baby chicken around the neck--until it died!

Then there was Vernon! Trying to be Mom's Little Helper and take some things off the clothesline, he stood on the sharp
edge of the plow, fell and cut a jagged three cornered gash in his forearm.

Dorothy was the "House-Cleaner." Dad never could find his things because Dorothy cleaned the house so well. She
also was the part-time hairdresser. Remember when she curled my hair for school? By the time I got to school I had
the "stiffest" curls in school. She had used water on it that turned out to be Sugar Syrup!

And then there was me!! I seemed to be the calamity Jane-- like leaping toward the bed and landing on someone's buried
treasure---yes, a piece of burnt and gnarled glass. Now I had a scar to match Vernon's.

Paul caused and received his share of excitement. Remember his ride to town on the black pony to get you a bucket of lard?
On the way home, a noisy truck frightened the pony and Paul got home with no Pony and only the bail of the bucket. Didn't
make many pies, did it?

And then, there was Eileen! In a first grade music contest she sang "I Have a Little Shadow that Goes In and Out with Me"
and won second place. We all were as proud as though she had won first place.

It seems rather strange! But all down through the Seven--if anyone "picked on" any of the Seven---they better be "A good
fighter" or "A Good Runner."

Love You
Berniece