Mary Lee Riddle married Reuben Clodfelter . She had 5 sisters, 2 brothers, and 1 child. I was that one child. I remember Mother liked to dress up and look nice to go to church and other functions in our rural community. She shopped at Belks when they had sales going on so she could look elegant and beautiful. She would, on an occasion, wear a hat to one of those functions. There was two hats that stands out in my memory. One was a pretty little thing with some feathers and glass bead embellishments on it. I think it had some brown and muted green tones in it . It would just sit on top of her hair and wouldn’t keep her head warm at all. One Sunday morning she was trying to choose the hat she wanted to wear to church and had it and another one out trying them on. She settled on the other one and left the pretty little one on her bed. Of course , I don’t have a clue what the one she chose to wear looked like because it became unimportant when we returned home. I had a rather young Rat Terrier mix dog, named Teenie. She looked a lot like my dog Lilly that I have now. While we were gone my sweet little dog had jumped up on the bed and found that beautiful vicious critter and killed it dead. It would never again molest Mama’s head. Poor Mama, when she saw the shredded remains of that prized possession “The Sh-t hit the fan”. First she was furious, then she was heartbroken. She cried so pitifully that I remember it to this day. Teenie never forgot it either. Any time Mama got upset, angry or cried she would tuck her tail and hide until she thought it was safe to come out. It’s a good thing Mama loved that dog too.
The other memorable hat was not one that I thought was very pretty but Mama really liked it. It was navy blue and had a large flower on one side. The hat fit snugly down on her head and I don’t remember it having a tie string but the style of it made one think it should have. It sorta resembled a sleek bonnet . She was sooooo enamored with her new purchase. My friend, Gail and I played together back and forth between our two houses on a regular basis. She proudly showed her new “ bonnet” to Gail who politely agreed with mother that it was, indeed, beautiful. Later Gail went home and told her mother, Theada, about the new addition to mother’s hat collection. Theada ask Gail to describe it. Gail’s reply was “ well it looks like a Salvation Army hat with a rose on it.” After Theada told mother about Gail ‘s amusing description of it, the new hat lost some of its glamour. I can’t remember seeing it on Mama’s head again.
Nancy Shoemaker
March 8, 2020
I don’t know what I did but the post about the fire is included with this one. I was so upset when I was writing it I guess I missed a step. Nancy Shoemaker
Nancy Shoemaker's Blog- At Lake Norman 