Legacy

The roses covering this arbor are Peggy Martin Roses, also called the Katrina Rose, because this rose was the only one of hundreds owned by Peggy Martin and her husband before the flooding and destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina.  Surviving after being submerged under 20 feet of salt water, this plant endured.  It reminds me of the quality of endurance I consider my legacy exhibited in my great grandmother's story.


    I have included stories about my great grandmother, Ernestine Curley, in past blog posts, but recently wrote this poem.  I believe her legacy of  deep faith, strength, perserverance, and fortitude showed in both my grandmother and mother.  I am thankful for them all.


 Legacy of Endurance

Clara and Bienvenue Paschal Augier boarded a ship in the south of France

Sailed with their children to the port of New Orleans,

 Charles, Josephine Antoinette and little Ernestine Matilde

who began to speak English when she was three

Her mama never learned

Her papa was a saddle maker

trapped in a burning building

he jumped to his death

then the family moved -

 Old Finn Castle, Henderson County in Texas

Ernestine went to school

with a handsome boy named Matthew

October 30, 1872 they were married.

Six children were born

William, Charles, Ozark and Osro who were twins

Othinet Josephine they called Jessie,

Matthew Ann

this youngest a baby girl with a boy's name

December 1979, Matthew, shot

while on a hunting trip by his best friend,

never saw his youngest.

His dying request was that the baby

Ernestine carried be given his name,

and, if born a girl, to be given to

his sister Victoria.

Young, widowed, with

6 little children

Ernestine married again

a man rumored to have been

a fugitive from justice

Three more babies conceived

When James Curley died

six years later, once more

Ernestine again buried her husband

 while preparing to birth another child.

Two husbands, neither of whom lived

to see their last child born.

She moved the the

five living children from her first marriage

and three children of second, pregnant again,

to her sister's home.

She knew about endurance.

While these battles happened in her life,

she witnessed  traumas of her adopted country:

 the Civil War,

 Reconstruction

the Spanish American War

World War I

Hitler's invasion of Europe

Ernestine's strength and goodness shone

One son said she was the best woman

he ever knew

With so many children, there were

many grandchildren.

She was present at the birth of every one.

Bringing hand stitched caps and blankets.

When Ernestine could no longer live alone,

she moved in with her youngest daughter, Clyde

She knelt at her prie dieu everyday

Treasured a tiny holy water font

She patched and mended pants, shirts, and socks

turning collars and darning heels

Her tiny stitches could hardly be seen.

She taught her granddaughter Opal to say

Yes Ma'am and No Sir

She rocked her great granddaughter Mary Ann.