10 Feb 2025 Life is golden when we lift one another up

Posted at 5:32 PMh in News by

A column by Vivian Lawson Hogue

Ecclesiastes 4: 9-10 says two friends or companions will be rewarded, “for if they fall, one will lift up his companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help him up.” 

Nettie Elzina Ragsdale Lawson sits on the steps of the family’s 1848 log cabin outside Imboden (Lawrence County). She was the grandmother of the columnist.

My paternal grandmother, Nettie Elzena Ragsdale Lawson, lived alone in her 1800s log cabin for several years after my granddad died in 1952. She had a kitchen sink, but water came from the spring, carried uphill in two buckets. Once, while throwing her pan of dishwater out the back door, her hip broke, causing her to fall. No one lived near to know of it except perhaps a few squirrels and some deer. I never knew how her situation was resolved, but I do know she healed up and was herself again. However, she did move to the other side of the “crick” (creek) to live near her daughter and family.

Born in 1879, she was in her “Golden Years,” believed to be between retirement age to the day when you have to lock the house for the last time.  But Grandmother never worked except for farm work and bearing 11 children, burying the first one and raising 10. As she worked, she sang “Barbara Allen,” a 1600s Scottish song, and a necessarily uplifting hymn, “My yoke is easy and my burden light.” Her house was always spotless and I was fascinated with the log construction. The inside walls were covered by wallpaper, which covered the newspapers underneath, which sheltered the dirt daubers that buzzed constantly. The newspaper sheets were history in themselves!  

Purple irises and a dogwood tree bloom in front of the Lawson family cabin. Noel Lawson liked to fly the Scottish flag when he visited the cabin.

Everyone’s Golden Years depend on finances, the condition of their bodies and minds, and whether their grandchildren are respectful or needing to be spanked regardless of age, height or weight. Non-seniors roll eyes as they hear tales comparing our town’s culture “then and now.” We know our memories are factual, though, because we all remember the same things!

In Conway, our downtown was all we needed for life’s needs or wants. By 1961 we had a population of 9,791 and we knew almost everyone by sight, walking style, manner of dress, voice, or reputation. Clusters of customers could be found chatting on the wide sidewalks. I remember my mother and myself walking around the corner of Greeson’s Drug Store, where the wind often whipped with gusto. 

My head was about waist-high on adults at the time, and that day I experienced the sight of my young life when the skirt of the woman in front of us unfurled upward and, well … there she was, just as God made her. My mother couldn’t shield my eyes in time, and we both burst out laughing. I didn’t know then, but now I see that the lady may have been in her golden years and just didn’t care!

Because that’s another thing. There just comes a time when you don’t care if your earrings don’t match or people laugh at your Crocs. You simply hold fast to your pride and don’t-care-ness. Some will remember the 1960s, when women shopped with curlers in their hair. The offended generation before them still wore nice dresses and sometimes hats to shop. Men still wore suits or their nicer overalls. Kids just stayed in the car and plugged nickels into the parking meters when the red flag popped up.

Walter Washington Lawson with his dog, Gangleshanks, sits in front of the log cabin built in 1848. Walter was the grandfather of the columnist.

When we have an ailment and visit a physician, every explanation of our plight begins with, “Well, you know, as we age … .” I realize we are aging before we are born, and begin dying the day we are born. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that process could be reversed? I could be starting adulthood over and doing it right this time! I might get to publish that book, visit Williamsburg, or have our ancient fireplace refurbished and create another one. Or two.

My parents were in their mid-forties when I was born, just 20 years from their golden years! My mother had graying hair, and my dad was working on losing his. Upon his retirement, Dad would reduce the bass and crappie population in Lake Conway, and Mother joined the South Conway Home Demonstration Club in which she often gave lessons in fabric arts. The nest would soon be empty in 1961, and the two had weathered the storm together.

Grandmother Nettie Lawson was still living a very simple hill-people life, cooking on her wood stove and listening to church services on her radio. By day, she sat in a wooden chair under a gigantic oak tree as she talked to the two and four-footed forest animals that approached her. At night she slept “un-afeared” on her feather bed mattress. Grandmother believed that any day we’re still here is a day gifted to us for a reason. Meanwhile, until my reason is revealed, I hope to be someone who can be the “one who will lift up the other” … for the Bible tells me so.

Vivian Lawson Hogue
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