Learn Something New, Day 13: My Mother . . . The Actress???

Sunday, May 13, 2007

This is SO great!

I don't know how the conversation got around to this, but at some point while all of us (my sibs, Thomas, the kids, and my Mom) were sitting around talking, Mom announced that she used to want to be an actress when she was a young girl. 

I've known my Mom for, like, all my life, and why did I never know this before??

When she was an eighth grader she says she thought she'd make a good actress, and she even had a part in a school play -- written by the students.  My mother went to school in a one-room schoolhouse where grades one to eight all met together.  She couldn't remember much about the play except that she played a .....

 

Wait for it .....

 

A black "mammy".

I thought my (African-American) husband was going to roll on the floor, he was laughing so hard!

She said she remembers that she was sitting in a rocking chair, rocking a "baby" (doll) for most of the play, and that at some point she was supposed to call off stage, "Now you chillens settle down!"

Can't tell she grew up in rural Kentucky in the 1920s and '30s, can you?

So far, this is my favorite "learn something new"!

I can actually see my Mom as an actress.   She used to get into "pretend" play scenarios with me and my friends, and with the grandchildren (and still does) very, very easily.

Hollywood may have lost a great actress in Eler Roberts, but we sure did get a great mother and grandmother in Eler Roberts Dowell!

Tags: Mothers