My Mother died of Stage IV pancreatic cancer at 8:49 p.m. on January 26, 2023, less than three months after her diagnosis.
For the first 10 weeks after learning the news she felt better than she had in years. Then 10 days before she died all of a sudden the cancer made itself known, and she started on the morphine and it was never enough. I gave her a double dose when the 0.25 milligrams wasn’t helping, and the hospice nurse called the social worker on me, fearing perhaps that I was trying to kill her. No, the cancer was killing her. I was trying to stop the pain.
I guess it’s good that it happened so swiftly. But there wasn’t time for me to adjust. When she first got the diagnosis she was doing so well that it seemed as if we’d have a long time to be together still, and plenty of time for final words. By the time I flew home for her last few days, the medicine meant she was either in too much pain for conversation, her mind too muddled to think clearly, or asleep.
It seems like every day something happens and I think, “I’ll call Mom.” To brag about her granddaughter’s grad school grads. To share with her grandson’s photo standing beside the fourth grade class he teaches. To ask which of the three chicken spaghetti recipes she gave me is the one she likes the best. To find out what it was like, to be home with me all day when I was three and she had left her full-time job to stay at home when no babysitting options seemed to work. I go to pick up the phone and then it hits me that she won’t be on the other end of the line. My Dad answers the phone now, and wants to talk. Which is weird, because he’s always been anxious to get off the phone — “Here’s your Mom,” he’d say as quickly as he could, passing the call to her. Now the silence makes him anxious to talk, instead of to hand off the phone. But he doesn’t know anything about the chicken spaghetti, or how it was with me and Mom, since he was at work all day. I still brag to him about the grandkids, but it isn’t the same.
I’ve “released” before or, at least, I’ve tried. I’ve written down what no longer serves me on a tiny slip of paper, folded it up and burnt it in the fire. I’ve even publicly announced what I’m releasing in ceremonies designed to help us release what’s holding us back, and for the moment, I felt a weight off my shoulders.
But it’s still there the next day or the next week or the next time I find myself repeating my familiar habit — the very one I had seen burn to ashes in a fire but had made its way back inside anyway. Now, perhaps, angry with me for trying to rid myself of it, so more determined than ever to stick around. I suppose I should be flattered, that it likes me so.
Either I haven’t yet fully learned its lessons or I just am really, really bad at letting go.
My Mom will die this year, her doctor tells us. He called to tell her she had Stage IV pancreatic cancer that had spread to her liver, her test results leaving no hope for any cure, unable to be stopped by any treatment. Oddly, the first two months after her “six months to live” diagnosis have been her healthiest in years, which has messed with my head. I was prepared to be there — flying in for long visits to help care for her — but I fly in and find her happier and more awake than she’s been at least since she broke her hip just as the pandemic began in early March of 2020. So I welcome this time with my healthier but somehow deathly ill mother, assuming that either the doctor is very, very wrong or having been told, finally, what has been making her feel bad has enabled her to feel better. I think she will live longer than six months, but she is resigned to ready and I believe 2023 will be the year I let go of my mother.
I’m definitely planning to work on letting go of the mother that has taken up residency in my head for as long as I can remember. The voice that tells me not to be a lazy-ass when I want to take a well-deserved break. The voice I carry around who is never satisfied with who I am, the one who feels more comfortable living small, the one who doesn’t feel she deserves to take up space. This year, I will take up space. I will try new things, I will let go of my tightly held reins.
This month, I will let go of my need for wine with every dinner. I didn’t drink growing up. It was seen as a sin, and so even when my high school boyfriend tried everything he could think of to get me to drink, I refused. I was no rule-breaker, and drinking alcohol was against the rules. I was also no fun.
So in college I came to a decision. First, I was going to have sex before I got married (another rule I had been determined not to break). And if I was going to do that, I would have to first be well-fortified with alcohol. Second, I wanted to have fun, and the only way I could figure out how to do that was with a glass of Everclear and Hawaiian Punch. I didn’t like the taste of cheap beer or cheap wine, but I liked trashcan punch and I drank way, way too much of it.
In my 20s I replaced Everclear with whiskey sours and Kir Royale (thank the good lord) and assorted other cocktails. By my 40s I had settled into a routine of a glass of wine (or two) with dinner. And now it’s an ingrained habit it’s hard to stop, even when I want to lose weight or sleep well or just go a night without it. So it’s Dry January for me. I cheated last night and finished off the last of the champagne I had celebrated the end of 2022 with — finding it too hard to let those 4 ounces of nice French champagne go to waste. So, semi-Dry January, it seems?
Release, let go, get into flow … that’s this year’s motto. This month, it’s alcohol I’m letting go, and my need for it. Check back to see if releasing what no longer serves me works better this time around!
Brené Brown gave a talk a few night’s ago to discuss her new book, Atlas of the Heart. Her research and thoughts on Joy vs. Happiness were interesting to me, as it’s a distinction my husband is often asked about, since he started Made for Joy.
Brown defines Joy, based on her research, as “an intense feeling of deep spiritual connection, pleasure, and appreciation,” as contrasted with Happiness, where her data suggests is defined as “feeling pleasure often related to the immediate environment or current circumstances.” What struck me most was her belief that Joy is associated with connection — connection to others, to God, to nature, to the Universe — it’s more internal, she believes, whereas happiness is more external and circumstantial.
And the clearest path to deeper and more frequent Joy is through Gratitude. I know that, yet do I have a daily Gratitude practice? No, I do not. Are my bookshelves lined with Gratitude Journals begun and abandoned? Yes, they are. My best efforts lasted only days before they were forgotten in the press of work or errands or cooking or reading or any of the dozens of items that appear on my daily “To Do” list. Just five minutes is all a Gratitude Practice requires, and yet it’s five minutes that I cannot seem to find. And yet, Brown’s findings that being grateful adds to and deepens our Joy makes complete sense.
You’ve probably heard that as humans we tend to have a genetic set point of happiness that momentary ups and downs quickly modulate back to as baseline. But Brown’s research leads her to believe that practicing gratitude can extract more from our best moments. Yes, the “newness” and excitement of that car, house, dress, shoe, spouse will fade, but if we take the time to appreciate it, the feelings of joy and happiness derived from it will be deeper, and perhaps longer-lasting.
Foreboding Joy (sounds scary!)
One other take-away on Joy that spoke to me, Brown calls “foreboding Joy.” Never heard of it, but definitely have experienced it. It’s when “you’re afraid to lean into good news, wonderful moments, and joy.” You are afraid that if you lean into it, fully experience and embrace it, you’ll only end up hurt more in the end. You wait for the other shoe to drop, as surely it will, and by protecting yourself from that assumed inevitability you also shield yourself from truly feeling deep joy. Truly experiencing Joy, Brown says, is an act of vulnerability. Her research found that everyone who showed a deep capacity for joy also practice gratitude. There’s that Gratitude word again. Pursuing me, relentlessly. Demanding that I pay attention if I want to truly live my fullest, my best life.
My Life Lesson
The lesson I got from reading Brown’s thoughts on Joy and Happiness? Be grateful for each joyful moment life brings me. Soak it in — smell, taste, touch, feel and embrace it fully. It’s not going to last forever, and surely some obstacle or challenge or depressing or sad or horrible thing also lies ahead, but at least by embracing the moments of joy that equally await I will have the resilience, strength and courage to take on whatever life may bring. The best way to do that?
If not a perfectionist, I am pretty darn close. I grew up needing the nice perfect 100% in red atop my test. A 98% meant failure. I needed to be named the very top student, not one of a group of the top 15. It’s paralyzing. It’s exhausting. It sucks.
Who knows why I grew up that way. My assumption is that I felt it necessary in order to feel worthy, or in an effort to feel loved. Certainly I was trying to live up to my parent’s expectations. If I made the very highest grade then clearly I could not have done better. Anything less and just as clearly a little more effort or smarts on my part would have led to the better result.
Elizabeth Scott, MS, in her article “Perfectionist Traits: Do These Sound Familiar,” from VeryWellMind.com, which you can read at: https://www.verywellmind.com/signs-you-may-be-a-perfectionist-3145233, gives some hints on how to tell if you are a high achiever (awesome!) or a perfectionist (not so great). Do you focus on your mistakes and imperfections, or on lessons learned and the fun you had along the way? Is “almost perfect” a failure? Does a goal pull you toward it because it sounds so alluring, or does fear push you towards it because you’re afraid you won’t reach it and must? Do you tend to wallow in self-criticism and disappointment if you fail to reach your aim, or bounce back and on to the next objective? Are your goals so high as to be unrealistic? Can you enjoy the steps along the way, or is it only finally meeting the goal that will satisfy you?
If the rather miserable sounding situation described for perfectionists above wasn’t enough to convince you to change your ways, then perhaps this will do the trick — Scott says that perfectionists generally achieve less and stress more than high achievers. This is in part because procrastination is a huge part of perfectionism. Fear of failure often means you fail to try at all.
From “Breaking the Perfectionism–Procrastination Infinite Loop” by Denise R. Jacobs (link below)
And, for another take on the issue, check out Diana Renner and Steven D’Souza’s book, “Not Doing: The Art of Effortless Action.” In it, they point out that “doing nothing” — finding time to sit in silence and solitude, to slow down and let go of the need to know, to treat yourself to some time to simply be — can counteract the busy, stressful, go-go-go feeling so frequently found in perfectionists. Perfectionists have a flawless version of ourselves that never allow us to accept failure, so that even when a goal is reached we cannot be fully satisfied.
As someone who has grown up as a perfectionist, with my self-worth accompanied by impossibly high standards, I’ve also been driven by the inner voice drilled into me as a child by a mother who often warned me not to be “a lazy-ass” if she caught me not completing to her satisfaction some chore I’d been assigned, or completing my homework quickly enough, or if for any reason I was “wasting” time. I’ve always felt as if I am never working hard enough. As a single mother of two, I worked full time as a senior associate and then Of Counsel trying to make Partner at one of the largest law firms in the world and refused to hire a nanny or any help because then I’d spend even more time at work. It’s hard to remember much about those years, because feeling as if it would be selfish and lazy and undeserved to spend a hot minute taking a breath or a nap or a day to relax meant missing out on many beautiful moments of life, especially rested and mindful moments with my children when they were small. I may have been around as much as possible, but my mind was often elsewhere or simply too exhausted to be fully present with them. But I didn’t know any better. The thought of slowing down simply didn’t seem a viable option.
So, among the other advice on overcoming perfectionism, the authors urge you to consider spending some time in silence and solitude, to listen to the small still voice in your heart — the one that often cannot be heard over the loud chattering the inner critic in your mind. Stop listening to the doing voice for a moment and simply be. And maybe you’ll find a better way of being than being perfect. Maybe how you are and who you are is good enough, even if it isn’t the absolute best you could be. In fact, I’m sure of it. Be you, in all your messy, less-than-perfect, sometimes lazy, glory. Thank you inner critic for all of his or her hard work on your behalf, and give them a well-deserved vacation. Hey, go crazy and take one yourself, even if it’s just 30 undisturbed minutes in a hot bathtub with bubbles and the refreshment of your choice, a long walk in nature, or the luxury of a nap. Enjoy this one wild and precious life you’ve been given, even if neither it — nor you–is perfect.
Who am I if I’m not “crazy busy”? Productivity was drilled into me, and unconsciously I felt that I was only worthy of taking up space in the world if I was being busy doing something. Relaxing was being lazy, not self-care. For 30 years I’ve billed by the hour as an attorney whose income and value to the firm is driven largely by how much of my one wild and precious life I spend working. Then there’s the unpaid work of a mother’s daily life.
A friend mentioned that the world should rediscover the “lost art of doing nothing,” and I was immediately intrigued. Does “doing nothing” mean lying on a hammock, watching the world go by, 24/7? To find out, I picked up Diana Renner and Steven D’Souza’s book, “Not Doing: The Art of Effortless Action,” and I was hooked.
A quick read, it was filled with stories of learning to widen your view of how to get things done. Its stories show that “trying harder” isn’t always the best way, and trying less may be. Busyness can actually keep you from doing a good job — limiting creativity and foreclosing strategic thinking in lieu of doing, doing and doing some more.
The book reminds us that Martin Luther and John Calvin conceptualized hard work, self-denial and discipline as Christian duties, with hard work being considered a source of personal value. Soon, hard work became an end in itself. And that, my friends, is no way to live.
The first Fling Reunion was held June 18, 1950 at Loves Lookout in Jacksonville, TX, with 60 members present. The picnic lunch celebrated Charles R. Fling’s 67th birthday. Someone suggested the family hold a reunion annually, and Granddaddy invited the Family to be his guests at Starke Park in Sequin, TX July 4, 1951. These annual reunions are one reason the Fling family have remained close throughout the years.
Sparta, Cherry Creek and Dug Hill, TN
The map above shows Sparta, TN as well as Cherry Creek and Dug Hill (discussed below).
These are the stories of Loucinda Carrick, known to family as Granny Lou, mother to Mama Fling, and her family.
Loucinda Carrick was born in or near Sparta, in White County, Tennessee to George Dawson Carrick and Martha Glenn Sims. Her mother’s parents were William Gilmore Sims and Lucinda Mae Glenn. William Sim’s first cousin, also named William Gilmore Simms (but who added an extra “M” in his last name), was a famous Southern author of the 1800s, and his portrait hangs in the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.
William Gilmore Simms
(first cousin to Loucinda’s maternal grandfather)
William Gilmore Simms
Left motherless at two, this William was raised by his maternal grandmother as his father fought the Creek tribe of Native Americans and served under Andrew Jackson in the War of 1812’s famous Battle of New Orleans. His grandmother told him stories of the Revolutionary War, which she had lived through, and those stories inspired his love of history. William began writing poetry by age eight, and ultimately became a prolific writer specializing in books about the South. Edgar Allen Poe considered him a friend, and called him the best novelist American had yet produced. Simms’s “History of South Carolina” was used as the textbook for that state’s history courses for most of the 20th century. He collected perhaps the finest library of historic manuscripts in the South, with Revolutionary War-era manuscripts and more than 10,000 books — but all were lost when stragglers from Sherman’s Army burned down Simms’ plantation home and everything in it. Impoverished after the war, he was not forgotten. Most of his books have been digitized and are available through print-on-demand.
Lucinda Mae Glenn (Loucinda Carrick’s maternal grandmother)
Lucinda Sim’s house, built 1859, shown years later with her son, Perry
Lucinda Glenn Sim’s husband William died in 1855, when she was 40 years old. He left her well-off, with plenty of land along Cherry Creek in White County, Tennessee. A few years after he died, in 1859, she built the home pictured above. (She left the home to her youngest son, Perry, and it is Perry and his family who are pictured above). One winter day in February 1864, her home was visited by Union soldiers, who requisitioned her horses, carts and wagons to use for the grim business of picking up the bodies of those who had been killed in the Battle of Dug Hill the day before. (Cherry Creek and Dug Hill are both shown in the map above.) Dug Hill was the only official battle of the Civil War fought in Sparta, though fighting, robbery or worse were part of daily life during that time. Middle Tennessee was split between Union and Confederate sympathizers, though after the fall of Nashville then-Colonel Ulysses S. Grant held the area. Despite being under Union control, few men were left in Sparta to protect the residents from guerrillas and bushwhackers from both sides who roamed the area.
From the Heritage of Daniel Haston, by Coral Williams
The guerrillas shot, stole and murdered in these hills and woods with impunity, making every-day life a challenge to all, including for Lucinda and her family.
It came to a head on the afternoon of Feb. 22, 1864, when Military Governor and future president Andrew Johnson sent a Col. Stokes to rid Sparta of Rebels. Stokes loudly asserted that he would do the job, offering no quarter to any Confederates he may find, promising to kill rather than capture the Rebels caught in his snare. Stokes planned to address the citizens of the area in a speech later that day, so he sent out a band of 80-100 soldiers to clear the woods of enemy forces and ensure the festivities would not be interrupted by gunfire. While he was setting up for his address, his soldiers rode straight into an ambush. The Confederate forces in the area had heard Stokes’ plans, and came up with one of their own. They hid out and waited for the Federal soldiers’ path to take them to the area of Dug Out Hill, a narrow road between the Cumberland mountains and CalfKiller River, where immense boulders, scrub cedars and laurels lined the path and created ideal hiding places. As Union Private Clark, with the Advance Guard of the Union’s 5th Tennessee Calvary’s rode near Dug Out Hill, he noticed fresh horse tracks in the road. Looking up, he spotted two Confederate soldiers mounted on fine steeds, guns resting across their saddles.
“Boys,” Clark yelled, “yonder stand two Confederates. Suppose we get ’em”! With that he raised his gun and began shooting. The Rebels started galloping and led the advance guard towards the trap they had set. When the Feds entered the narrow pass, the Rebels emerged from their hiding spots and began firing. The Union soldiers were surrounded, and as the volley of shots rang out from all directions the soldiers were scattering everywhere, Rebels in hot pursuit for any that seemed to be escaping. Riderless horses stampeded in all directions, adding to the chaos. All that were found or surrendered were killed the spot, as the Rebels decided if Stokes would give them no quarter, they would do the same.
Blissfully unaware that his men were even then fighting for their lives, Col. Stokes laid the pages of his speech out on the podium in front of the church, cleared his throat, and was just beginning to speak when a tattered Federal soldier burst through the doors — missing his shoes, hat and coat — and stammered “Colonel, the damn rebels have attacked the regiment and killed them all. I’m the only one left to tell the tale!” That turned out not to be true, as several more survived, but there was such pandemonium each survivor felt sure he was the only one. It does not appear that any of our family fought that day. However, a detachment of the Feds went to the Lucinda’s home (pictured above) and took her horses, carts and wagons to use in carrying away the dead soldiers’ bodies. Despite that, for years after, Sparta residents found skeletons in the nearby woods.
Although the Battle of Dug Hill was the only official battle fought in Sparta, violence was ever-present. Loucinda Carrick’s mother and Lucinda Sim’s daughter — Martha Glenn Sims — had at least one fright of her own. She went with a boy named Jeff Snodgrass (likely a relative, as Martha’s grandmother was Martha Snodgrass) to a meeting at the Cherry Creek Presbyterian church, near the Sim’s house. Several bushwhackers were present, as was one of their sisters, Diana Bradley. Jeff Snodgrass was Diana’s former sweetheart. Diana did not take being rejected by Jeff in favor of Martha well, to say the least. When the meeting was over, Jeff started off with Martha and a friend named Arva Cameron. As they were leaving, Diana called out to him — “Take back what you said about me!” Jeff turned to look back at her and when he did she shot him in the chest and, to make sure he was good and truly dead (or so as not to be shown up by his sister), her brother ran up and shot Jeff again as he fell. Fearing Diana and her brothers meant to kill Martha and Arva as well, they ran away. Before the bushwhackers could go after them, they found trouble of their own. The boy Diana was with that day was shot by another bystander in the neck. Bleeding profusely, Diana rushed him off to try to find a doctor to stop the bleeding and save his life.
In the meantime, with everyone fearing more trouble, no one was brave enough to retrieve Jeff’s body, so it lay there until all day, until an old slave finally was sent to retrieve him and bring his body home. There was essentially no law at this time, so Diana was never arrested for the crime. After the war she went West with the bushwhackers. Martha married another neighbor, George Dawson Carrick, and the rest is history.
Martha’s sister Mary also had at least one story of note to tell during this time. A neighbor, Mrs. Bledsoe, fell sick and feared she didn’t have long to live. She wrote to her son, fighting for the Confederacy, and asked him to come home to see her one last time. Mary knew that the soldier was at the Bledsoe home, and as she was outside near the home she noticed a group of Yankees riding towards the Bledsoe home, no doubt on a mission to capture the Rebel. Mary hitched up her skirt and started running, trying to outrun the horses. Spectators that day say she soon was only a few feet in front of the charging Yankees, and they were sure she would fall under the horses’s feet and be trampled at any time. Mary stayed upright, however, and the commotion warned Bledsoe and gave him time to try to escape. He jumped on his horse and sped off, but, seeing that the Yanks were going to catch up to him, he leapt off his horse and ran into a large briar patch, where he hoped to hide. Instead, he became entangled in the undergrowth and ultimately was killed. It is said that his wife had to pick the briars out of his face before she buried him. [Credit for these stories goes to research conducted by Coral Williams, who wrote “The Heritage of Daniel Haston/Legends & Stories of White County, TN” based on both research and interviews with those in the area.]
George Dawson (Loucinda’s paternal Great-Grandfather)
George Dawson is said to have run “Dawson’s stand” in the early 1810s – 1850s in White County, TN, and he served as Postmaster General at Dawson Store in the area between 1826-1828 and 1837-1843. He and his wife – Nancy Mosby – are the parents not only of Emily Dawson (Loucinda’s paternal grandmother), and Susan Dawson (George Dawson Carrick’s step-mother), but also Hero of the Texas War of Independence Capt. Nicholas Mosby Dawson, whose stories are told below. In addition, Nancy Mosby’s sister was mother to the three Eastland men mentioned in the story of Texas’ War of Independence, below.
Emily Dawson (Loucinda’s paternal Grandmother)
Emily Dawson died, likely due to a childbirth complication, only a few weeks her son George Dawson Carrick was born. Emily’s brother, Capt. Nicholas Mosby Dawson, was a hero of the Texas War of Independence, as were her three cousins — Nicholas, William and Thomas Eastland. History tends to capture the stories of the men, a situation I would love to remedy. But for now I know nothing more of Emily than that she died soon after giving birth to her second son, and that she had a famous sibling, two years her junior, who left for Texas shortly after she passed away. I would like to think the two were close, but I have no way of knowing. Her younger sister, Susan, later became the step-mother to her son.
Capt. Nicholas Mosby Dawson and the Dawson cousins – Nicholas, William & Thomas Eastland
The Dawson and Eastland children were born in Kentucky, but soon moved with their parents to White County, TN. As young men they became entranced with the idea of Texas, and all four decided to move there, even though the land was part of Mexico. The Eastland brothers and their families moved first, in 1834, and Nicholas Dawson followed the next year. Mexico was giving away land to settlers willing to brave the Native Americans who, not surprisingly, had not taken kindly to their land being taken over by others. The Eastland and Nicholas Dawson all settled in LaGrange when it was still part of Mexico. For a few years the cousins volunteered to fight the Native Americans, and soon volunteered to fight the Mexicans to win independence for Texas. Nicholas and at least two of the Eastland cousins fought in several battles, including the Battle of San Jacinto which was the decisive battle that won Texas its independence. Nicholas was 2nd Lt. for Company B of the Texas Volunteers, and then captain of a militia unit in 1840 during an Indian campaign in which is now Mitchell County. When the Mexicans invaded Texas in 1842, he quickly signed up to fight again, taking his 16-year-old nephew (Nicholas Eastland’s son) and about 14 others from LaGrange with him, and joining up with others along the way until his had 52 men under his command.
They were marching towards San Antonio, to join up with the Texans who were already there, attempting to recapture the city. They unfortunately ended up trapped between the Texas forces and a group of lance-wielding Mexican Dragoons along the Salado Creek.
Mexican Dragoons
Dawson laid out the options to his men — fall back four miles, or shelter in the nearby mesquite and fight it out. Despite the odds, their decision to make a stand was finalized after hearing the words of old frontiersman Zadock Wood, who said, “We have marched a long way to meet the enemy, and I do not intend to return without meeting them. I had rather die than retreat.” With that, the men voted to remain and fight, and fight they did. At first they had the upper hand, gunning down the Mexicans with their sabers despite being outnumbered three-to-one. Then the crack of a canon broke through the noise, and fragments of trees rained down on their heads, and the Texans’ hearts sunk with the realization that artillery they hadn’t seen had been wheeled into place above them, and that artillery made all the difference. Soon more than a dozen of the Texans were dead, along with most of their horses. Cherokee snipers working with the Mexicans were picking off the survivors. Though it soon was clear they were done for, the Texans continued to fight valiantly for as long as they were alive. Finally, a few made a break for it and bravely and with a lot of luck on their side rode straight through the enemy to safety on the other side. In the end, 15 of the 53 were captured as prisoners, many of whom soon died, and only two escaped. All of the rest, including Nicholas and his nephew, died that day along the creek.
Memorial Hill – Dawson Massacre Memorial
Later, their bodies were dug up and reburied at Monument Hill State Park, overlooking the Colorado River, near LaGrange. [Credit for much of the information in this story goes to Austin photojournalist and Texas history lover Ben Friberg.]
Perhaps Dawson’s fighting spirit was no surprise to his parents, based on the snippet of a news article I found from Fayette County (home to LaGrange). It talks of three “nice young men” sent to jail for horse stealing, one of them being Capt. Nicholas Dawson’s youngest brother, George. Nicholas was also sent to jail, for supplying the prisoners “with the means of escaping from jail.” Apparently they were not kept in jail for long.
The Eastland Cousins
The cousins — the Eastland brothers — all also fought for Texas, without much more luck than Dawson. William Mosby Eastland had left the saw mill and lumber business he had begun in LaGrange and went to serve as first lieutenant of the First Division of Volunteers under Col. John H. Moore in the campaign against the Waco and Tehauacana Indians from July 25 to Sept. 15, 1835. In 1838 he was awarded land for having participated in the storming and capture of Bexar after the Siege of Bexar as part of the Texas War of Independence, as well as the Battle of San Jacinto. On Dec. 7, 1836 President Sam Houston, upon the recommendation of the Texas Sec. of War, nominated William Eastland as Captain of a company for Gonzales County in a battalion of mounted riflemen. After General Rafael Vasquez unexpectedly invaded San Antonio on March 5, 1842 and a few months later General Adrian Woll made a surprise raid and captured many prominent men attending a District Court in the area, carrying them to Mexico as prisoners, Sam Houston gathered volunteers to retaliate by sending an army to invade Mexico. For unknown reasons, however, once they reached the Rio Grande River they were ordered disbanded. Three hundred of the men, surprised and displeased, ignored the orders and continued marching into Mexico. Captain Eastland and 25 men in his company fought in a fierce battle in Mier, Mexico not far from the Rio Grande River on Christmas evening, 1842. The Texans, though greatly outnumbered, were victorious. However, the Mexicans were reinforced the next day and, through a ruse, left the Texans in a position such that there was nothing left for them to do but surrender. They were made to march towards Mexican prisons when, on Feb. 11, 1843, they overpowered their guards and escaped to the mountains. Many died of starvation, though four made it back to Texas. The others eventually were recaptured and returned to Salado — including Capt. Eastland. Santa Ana gave orders to execute every tenth men as punishment for the escape. The prisoners were blindfolded and forced to draw from a clay jar of 159 white beans and 17 black beans, knowing that anyone who drew a black bean would be executed. Captain Eastland was the first and only officer to draw a black bean and, thus, a death sentence. A few days later, he along with 16 others were blindfolded and shot in the back, thrown in a single trench and buried. Five years later they were exhumed and reburied along with those who were killed in Dawson’s massacre, on Monument Hill in LaGrange. Eastland County, TX is named for William Mosby Eastland.
Nicholas Washington Eastland lost both his son Robert (in Dawson’s Massacre) and his son Charles to the War, in addition to his cousin Nicholas Dawson, his brother William (discussed above) and his brother Thomas, who died as a prisoner of war in Mexico, as well as his good friend and Texas hero James Walker Fannin (massacred at Goliad). Nicholas Eastland served as the first County Judge of Fayette County (1838-1844), was Chairman of the Board of Land Commissioners, and served as Probate Judge. He was Representative from Bastrop County in 1863. He had a lot of property, and had a sawmill operated by slaves near the town of Bastrop.
George Dawson Carrick (Loucinda’s Father)
George Dawson Carrick
George Dawson Carrick’s mother, Emily Dawson, died only a few weeks after his birth, presumably as a result of childbirth although there are no records of her cause of death. I suspect his aunt, Susan Dawson, was a part of his life early on, as she was a younger sister to Emily, his mother, and married to his father’s brother. After his father’s brother — Moses Carrick — died in 1843 Susan married George’s father and officially became his stepmother (but by that time George was 13).
George, a slave owner, fought for the Confederates during the Civil War. He joined Captain J.H. Snodgrass’ Company A 25th Regiment of the Tennessee Company as a private Sgt. Major July 25, 1861. He later transferred to Company D, 13th Tennessee Calvary, where he was a private. He is said to have fought in Readyville, TN, and to have fought again Union General Verbage in Saltville, VA and General Sherman in Georgia, as well as in North and South Carolina. Some sources say he was discharged in 1862, others that he was discharged in Jan. 1864.
George married Martha Sims on Oct. 6, 1868 and they had six children: William Montgomery, John Addison, Loucinda (Mama Fling’s mother), Frank, George Dawson Jr. and Emily. After Martha died in 1890, when Loucinda was 18 and a new bride, George and his three boys (each of whom married one of three Little sisters)– along with Loucinda and her new husband, Anthony Houston Metcalf– moved to Northeast Texas and then to Harmon County, Oklahoma. (It’s unclear if they moved, or if the state boundaries moved around them.) He originally took two of his freed slaves with him (Matt and her daughter Allie) but neighbors in the new territory forced them to return to Tennessee. George’s youngest daughter, Emily, did not stay long in Texas, and is the only one of the family to have moved back to Sparta, TN. A photo of Emily (Loucinda’s baby sister) and her family are below.
Emily (Carrick) and William Monroe Bartlett’s family.
Loucinda Carrick (Granny Lou)
Loucinda and Anthony Hugh Metcalf’s marriage certificate (Loucinda was 17)Loucinda Carrick (with Mama Fling behind her)
Loucinda married at 17, to a neighbor — Anthony Hugh Metcalf — whose first wife (Loucinda’s cousin Mary Snodgrass) had died. He was 37 years old, with four children, so Loucinda stepped into a ready-made family. Mary Fling, her first child, was born 8 Nov. 1891 and named by her half-brother “Bevy” after his own recently departed mother. Soon she was “Sis” to her siblings, Mama to her children and Mama Fling to her grand children, great grandchildren and many others in the Turney community. Sometime between 1891 and 1894 the family moved to Wilbarger, TX. Wilbarger, in northeast TX, had been buffalo hunting grounds of the Comanches until the 1870s, and Indian hostilities caused few settlers to settle there until 1878. In 1886 Fort Worth and Denver City Railroad built a train going into the area, and encouraged immigration. This may be why the Carricks and Metcalfs settled there, around this time. However, after a peaceful and prosperous decade in the 1880s, and soon after our family moved to the area, times changed. Many farmers and ranchers suffered reversals in the 1890s, so the Carrick’s/Metcalfs didn’t move to the area at the best of times. At some point the family moved to Oklahoma, not far to the north (or the shifting boundary between Texas and Oklahoma changed the state designation of their land, it’s unclear.) Loucinda’s child born in 1898 was born in Wilbarger, TX but by the time of Joe Bailey’s birth in 1901 the family had settled in Gould, Harmon County, Oklahoma. They remained in Harmon County, OK for the rest of her life.
Granny Lou and her husband grew cotton, which was then spun into thread and woven into cotton fabric, which Granny Lou used to make her girls’ dresses and her boys’ shirts and pants.
ANTHONY HUGH METCALF
Mama Fling loved it when she was able to visit with her mother. The photo below was made sometime around 1939. Loucinda is in the front left, sitting next to her are Eddie Glen Wheeler, Billy Shepherd, Burton, and C.L. Wheeler. Mama Fling is at the end behind C.L., with Granddaddy sitting behind Eddie Glen.
I scour the internet, Ancestry.com and the other genealogy sites as well as the Salt Lake City Family History library for information on our family. I would love to hear from anyone who has more stories to tell, or photos to share. I will scan them and return them, and add the information to the story for future generations to tell of the men and women who came before us, and whose blood runs through our veins.
and Finding a Path of Plentitude at One With Your Life’s Desire
I am learning to find ease in risk … the safety and security that have seduced me for so much of my life are slowing losing their attraction. I’m 61 years old — if not now, when? I once served on a panel asked to describe a lesson learned from taking a big risk. Each of us agreed that, whether the risky venture had turned out to be successful or not, we were glad we had taken the leap. The question we asked ourselves, then, was if we all were glad we had taken the risk, if it always enhanced our life in some way — why do we nonetheless continue to fear it?
Do you know John O’Donohue’s poem, “For a New Beginning”? It resonates with me, and to carry it in my heart I’ve worked this month to memorize it. I recited it from memory for the first time this morning, in perfect conditions, as I sat on a sandy, mostly empty beach and watched the dawn create the new beginning of this day. I hope it encourages you to kindle your courage enough to step out into that new beginning that’s been quietly whispering, patient yet persistent, waiting for you to leave behind what no longer serves you and step onto a new path, to live at one with your life’s desire.
I learned to speak when I was very young. And I also learned there were rules on what I could and could not say, if I wanted to be good, if I did not want to get in trouble. I learned I was not to brag, or “back-talk” (otherwise known as saying what I felt if it differed from what I was supposed to feel or what my parents wanted to hear).
That still, small voice within is stuffed so far down — covered up with so many layers of protective coatings reapplied day after day and year after year that it’s hard even now, after a decade spent seeking my own truth, to hear my truest self.
Even when I want so badly to live authentically, to speak my truth, to give wings to my soul’s desires, to live boldly and bravely and honestly, to be raw and vulnerable and simply me, freed of a lifetime’s worth of society’s coatings, I find I don’t know how. I read a poem, do a meditation, hear an inspirational speaker, see an Instagram quote that speaks to me and truly believe that this is it — that now I understand, that now, finally, I will get started on living my best life. That I will use my time efficiently, that I will spend my days “in the flow.” That I will stop endlessly scrolling through twitter or keeping up with email or wondering where the time has gone when I look up and see my well-planned morning is now afternoon. But the next day ends up the same. I still feel the spark of that latest motivation taunting me — “see,” it says, “you’re still the same. You still haven’t figured out how to do life differently, more expansively, more truthfully. You’re still wasting your one wild and precious life.”
What DO I want to say? Is there really some voice inside that I’ve never been free or brave enough to let loose? No bullet journal or Todoist or other tool has so far managed to get me on track. Perhaps by rambling and searching and putting out into the universe what comes into my head in this blog I will find my way. I’d love to have you along for the ride.
To be a writer, write. Butt in chair. Shitty first drafts. (Thank you Anne Lamott.) I’ve heard or read all the advice and yet, though I spend much of my day with my butt in my chair, what writing I do ends up as a tweet or an email, not paragraphs and pages toward my dreamed-of creative pursuit.
“How’s your writing coming?” is the oft-asked question by well-meaning acquaintances who I now deeply regret telling of my hope to tell a story of a kick-ass woman from medieval times. And, though I love research, I can’t even blame my lack of progress on too much of that. No, I let time escape by other means, despite purchasing a variety of planners all promising to help me manage that elusive construct humans have created to give a pretense of structure to our lives.
Yesterday it was the holiday cards I had to get ordered if they were to arrive before the holiday was over. And it’s true, I did need to get them ordered if I was to send my usual multi-photo, narrated card. And the website I used last year used up way too much time by creating seemingly limitless obstacles to what should be a simple task of uploading the photos I’d already placed in a Christmas card album on iPhoto. It should have been easy, but the website kept reloading and my slowly loaded photos somehow kept disappearing and I was determined not to give up because it was the only site that I could find that allowed Christmas card booklets — yes, booklets — to give me room for all 50 of my must-have 2017 photos with plenty of space for sharing the story of our year.
Alas, and kudos to me for finally admitting defeat (admittedly difficult for me) and going to another, Wirecutter-recommended site for a 12-photo card that, praise the Lord, uploaded my edited list of photos quickly and without technical difficulties. (SimplytoImpress online holiday card site). And even though it also was intuitive in loading my Word address list from last year, I needlessly complicated matters by an inefficient method of attempting to confirm addresses that wasted at least another hour. Finally, my cards were complete and off to the printer, but my day was also near its end, without one word of writing on my much-discussed novel being written yet again. I had Christmas cards, and two trips to the grocery story completed and my dog walked multiple times and a delicious home-made roasted tomato soup made, and I could give up-to-the-minute updates on the spread of the Lilac fire in North County even though for the first time since I’ve lived in San Diego the fire posed no threat to my house or home, but another day ended without writing more than the paragraph on the back of my Christmas card.
And yet I could justify my day. After all, it’s nice to keep in touch with folks via holiday cards and I have four children whose photos need to appear equally in the end product and way too many photos — most dimly lit or unflattering or in need of cropping or other adjustments — to comb through to find just the right ones to tell the story of 2017 at our home, and I needed to ensure the addresses were correct, didn’t I? And homemade soup is good for me, as are long walks with my dog. But none of that is getting any of my writing done, and therein lies the problem. Whether of not the way I spent my time can be justified, it is without question that I did not prioritize my writing so that it, too, got done.
So today I will at least write on this long-ignored blog a post that helps me try to make sense of how it is that I am not pursuing what I believe is my passion. Why I am choosing to waste precious time despite knowing how valuable it is and how quickly it passes. How it is that I can keep buying planners and even sometimes writing my goals and “to do” lists in them and yet not doing what I’ve listed to do, ignoring the goals I set for myself, disappointing myself over and over and over again. Maybe putting it out there will help me come to grips with whatever it is that ails me, that keeps me from fulfilling my commitments.
I want to live audaciously, bravely, big. Yet I’m constrained by the rules that no longer serve me, by the good girl perfectionist I taught myself to be so long ago that it’s all my cells remember, it’s all my brain can recall. It’s a prison I created to give myself worth and it’s damn hard to knock down. Especially when it’s hard to argue with being good being a good thing. Being nice seems, well, nice. And there is nothing wrong with being good or nice but I sense that I need to be more than that to reach into my creative soul that I’ve constrained for so long and free it to be more than the small person afraid to take up space I’ve occupied for so long that it’s become me and I don’t know how to be the person I long to be. Another day has been given to me, and it’s not yet over, so let’s see how this one ends. One thing for sure, I’ve done SOME writing, and that’s a start at least!
It’s so easy to over-complicate, well, everything. See something you like, and buy it. Hate to say “no” to good causes or good friends or, well, just about anyone or anything? Easier to say “yes” and figure out later how to deal with it. Want those around you to be happy? Go along with what they would like rather than disappoint them. Step by step, day by day, each purchase, each “yes,” each twisting yourself every which way so that you can please those around you creates a maze of complications, of stuff, of weight on your shoulders that presses you down, that depresses you. Resentment builds and you snap over the simplest of things, when all you were trying was to do was to be good, to do good. And what you end up with is complications, stresses, stuff cluttering your days and your life.
It feels so good to clean out your closets, to leave some white space on your calendar, to simplify. It leaves space to take a breath, to take a nap, to soak up the beauty of this moment before you, without worrying about what’s behind or ahead. I constantly strive toward a goal of creating more light, both in the sense of brightness and in the sense of weightlessness. One path of achieving that goal is to remember that it’s the simple things in life that are often the tastiest, the most nourishing, the most satisfying.
My intention for the day – to Simplify. Check in tomorrow to see how I do!
Seeking An Enriching Life 