Maggie

Mama went down that hill every morning and disappeared behind the mill gate. She wasnt the only woman who did. Many others went in the same gate and left children to get ready for school on their own but there was a difference. Most of them went home at night to a family with a daddy at the head of the supper table. Mama didnt. We didnt have a daddy. Maybe there had been one at some time in the past but I didnt know him. Now only Margie (my oldest sister) Elvie (the middle sister) Mama and I lived in our house. So I just answered the teachers question the best way I knew how.Mama always said we were so lucky to have the mill right down the hill because it gives so many people work. It looked like a giant warehouse. It was built of brick and had tall windows that stayed open much of the time. Someone said that with all the machinery running the mill sounded like the ocean. We had never heard the ocean so we didnt understand but we knew the sound of the mill.People were talking about a war in hushed voices but Margie and Elvie didnt seem worried and Mama never mentioned it so what was it to me? A war...in Concord North Carolina? Sometimes somebody in my grade said their daddy went away that day to war. Everyone praised that classmate and he was special all day. Sometimes they cried in class because their daddy wouldnt be home that night. I would have cried if Mama wouldnt have been home that night but I never had one of those daddies so it was okay. Mama was all we had and all we needed.The story of Maggie begins in 1916 during WWI. Women primarily took care of the daily household responsibilities and they were not allowed to vote. Maggie becomes a single mother of three daughters. Through deep faith and persistence she raises and educates her daughters. Her life is founded on faith and persistence and she passes on this foundation to family generations that follow.