In Memory of Mattie Lee Dilbeck

Today, instead of affiliate marketing, I’m going to talk about Mattie Lee Dilbeck, my Mom.

In memory of Mattie Lee Dilbeck

Mom died on Friday evening, November 21, 2008, and it was a difficult day for several reasons.

Before I talk about her death, I want to talk about her life.

I am one generation from the farm. Mom and Dad both grew up on farms and worked very hard when they were young, and that’s something that probably made them stronger when they were old.

I don’t know how many stories I’ve heard about plowing fields behind horses and mules under the hot summer sun or picking crops when their fingers were so cold they could hardly move early in the fall mornings.

My Mom was the oldest in her family and Dad was the youngest in his.

Mom and her younger brother, Floyd, used to work together to plow the fields when they were young because it took both of them to manage a plow. Mom collected arrowheads they found in the fields and I still have a few of them, now.

Mom was born on November 6, 1920, and was a child of the Great Depression. As a result, she recycled and reused everything. She was a master at getting full use out of something and discarded it only when it was completely used up.

She was a master at getting the full value of coupons and spent years clipping and passing them around to her friends and relatives, easily saving several hundred dollars per month in foods and household goods, which was a useful skill when money is tight, and it has always been tight in our family.

Mom had to drop out of school before finishing high school to help on the farm. It was only when she was in her mid-20s that she learned of the Berry school in Rome, Georgia. Even though she was about ten years older than her schoolmates, she went back to high school at Berry Academy.

For the next few years, she worked her way through the school and one of the things she loved was baking for her fellow students.

While there, she saw Henry Ford when he visited the school and – if memory serves – she made a short speech for him and his friends.

When she graduated, she was Valedictorian of her class and this was a great accomplishment for her and is something she valued her whole life.

After Berry, she moved to Chattanooga and started studying nursing at Erlanger Hospital.

In those days, nursing students could not be married (for whatever strange reason) and she was less than a year from graduating when she met Bill Dilbeck. Mom’s sister Geneva told me that it was a love that could not be denied.

Mom was an honest person her entire life. She told the truth, even when it was inconvenient. Some of her classmates told her to get married and just lie about it. That was what a few of them had already done. Mom would not do that. She quit nursing school and was married in December 1950.

Mom and Dad moved to the Atlanta area. My grandmother, Cornelia Godfrey, was sick and I think Mom helped care for her. My memory is vague about some of this.

Cornelia died shortly before I was born, so I never knew her. I’ve been told that I missed a very good person.

I was born in 1952 and my brother, David, in 1957.

While going through Mom’s papers yesterday, I found a two page receipt for the hospital stay and services when I was born at Georgia Baptist Hospital. For delivery, doctor’s fees, anesthesiologist, surgical, miscellaneous, and a room for three days, the grand total for my birth was $74.20, paid in cash on July 4, 1952, when they brought me home.

Dad wanted to call me Firecracker, but Mom put a stop to that. It’s a shame, because I like being called Firecracker.

I won’t go into a lot of detail. The highpoints…

David was born in December 1957. I don’t know what he cost.

We moved to Vero Beach, Florida in 1960, because of Dad’s arthritis. He worked hard managing several thousand acres of citrus crops during the early 60s.

We were close enough to Cape Canaveral that we could watch the rockets of the space program launch on TV and then rush outside to see them streak upwards into the sky. When the first Saturn V launched, we were amazed to be able to read “USA” on the rocket from about 70 miles away without even using binoculars.

After going through a hurricane in 1965, Dad decided that was going to be his first, and last, experience with those storms and we moved back to the Atlanta, Georgia, area.

Dad was hired back at his old job at Mullins Brothers Paving Contractors in East Point when we happened to run into his old boss in a restaurant while looking for a place to live. Dad never even had to look for a job. How’s that for a sign?

They bought a house in southern Fulton County and Dad worked at Mullins Brothers until he retired in the early 1970s. Mom worked as a power machine operator at several factories and worked even harder raising a couple of cantankerous sons.

Dad had been raised in eastern Tennessee and Mom in north Georgia. When he retired, they split the difference and bought a house – the one I’m in this morning – in Murphy, NC. That way, they’d be able to visit both branches of the family fairly easily.

Dad was about seven years older than Mom, so she had to work when they got here. She worked as a power machine operator for several years and then was hired on the Older Americans project by the USDA, where she worked in a tree orchard for several years.

By this time, I had moved to Murphy to help them out because Dad’s health had started to decline. Even so, he could outwork me any time he wanted. I taught computer programming at the local community college.

When Mom retired, she signed up for college, because it had always bothered her that she never was able to finish college and dropping out of nursing school had been one of the big disappointments of her life. A couple of years later, Mom graduated with an Associates degree in Business Administration, and then she retired.

Life went pretty well for both of them for the next few years.

In the summer of 1991, just a few days after going to watch the Independence Day fireworks, Dad died in his favorite chair of a massive heart attack. One minute, he was getting ready to go work in the garden and the next minute he was gone.

For the next 17 years, Mom continued to live here. She was an active gardener and loved flowers and herbs. She could tell you more than I ever wanted to know about any flower or plant in her garden and around the property.

Mom spent over 30 years studying our family history and easily knew more about the Godfreys and Dilbecks (our direct branches, at least) than anyone else on the planet. Much of this research was done before the Internet, and it required writing many letters and visiting many places to find the information she needed. I’ve put a small portion of what she learned on my Genealogy page or Genealogy Overview page.

I have boxes of records – mostly hand-written – that Mom collected during her genealogy research and we’re lucky that she compiled a good bit of it into a couple of books that she had printed for our family. Several of us have copies of those books.

We lost a great family historian when Mom declined to the point she could no longer do the genealogy research she loved so much.

Mom was always learning something. She has dozens of books about birds (she loved hummingbirds), flowers, gardening, cooking, and many topics related to her religion.

Mom was friendly and could talk to anyone.

She was a loving parent, loyal friend, devout Christian, and would do anything she could to help someone in need.

Mom was always scrupulously honest, even when it was not convenient for her.

She taught me how to read several years before I entered first grade and encouraged my education throughout my life.

In 2001, on Halloween, she started bleeding and couldn’t get it to stop. I took her to the emergency room. A few days later, on her birthday, she was diagnosed with colon cancer.

Weeks of radiation and chemo preceded surgery in Asheville, NC. What was expected to be a stay of a few days turned into over six weeks in two hospitals. The cancer surgery was successful, but she suffered nerve damage that left her in constant pain, and unable to walk or care for herself.

They wanted to put her in a nursing home in Asheville, but after talking it over with Mom, I said, “No.”

My daughter and I brought Mom home and I cared for her – where she wanted to be – until August 2008. It was a lot of work, but I would make the same choice today. She helped me when I needed it, and I have been happy to return the favor when she needed my help.

In August, her health suddenly declined and she had to be hospitalized. A week later she was moved to the nursing home attached to the hospital. Her health continued to decline and she found it harder to communicate as the weeks went by.

The last couple of weeks were frustrating. She was losing weight and strength. After her birthday, it was difficult to communicate with her. It seemed that she understood what she was hearing, but could not complete a sentence.

On Thursday, November 20, 2008, I started running a fever and throwing up. All the yucky side-effects of getting sick. I was planning to visit her Friday afternoon, but was sick enough I had to call the nursing home and ask them to tell her I would not be able to make it.

Late Friday afternoon, Mom’s doctor called and told me that Mom’s systems were failing and he didn’t think she’d live longer than a day, if that.

I called my brother, daughter, and ex-wife and told them. David would not be able to get there before Saturday morning, but Dena (my daughter) and Kathy (my ex-wife) went to the nursing home to be with her. Of course, I was too sick and they would not have let me in, anyway.

Dena called later Friday evening and said Mom was asking about me. She held the phone to Mom’s ear and I was able to tell her I love her and told her that everything would be alright.

Later I learned that David and my cousin Jacque also had a chance to talk to her.

Unfortunately, we could not understand what Mom was trying to say, but Dena said she smiled when listening to us, and we can only hope she understood what we told her.

I fell back asleep.

Sometime Friday evening, November 21, 2008, I’m still not exactly sure what time, Kathy called and told me that Mom had died.

It has been a very sad weekend and I’m sure today and tomorrow will be sad, too. Mom’s funeral will be this evening, and we’ll go down to Coal Mountain, Georgia, tomorrow to bury her with Dad and her family.

She’s better off than she was. She has always been an active, friendly, and talkative person, but it was very difficult to understand what she was trying to say the last 10 days, or so. Most visits consisted of talking to her, helping her sip some Sprite or juice, and holding her hand. Now and then, I could understand what she was trying to say, but it was getting more difficult.

I posted some photos of Mom on my Facebook account yesterday so Dena could try to make a CD that we can show at the viewing. We don’t have many photos of Mom, and I lost many when a harddisk crashed a couple of years ago. But we do have a few.

This should be the link to the public gallery, if you are interested:

Mattie Lee Dilbeck Photo Album

One of my favorite photos of Mom should be visible at:

Mattie Lee Dilbeck – this is the same photo that is shown at the top of this post.

There is much more that could be said about Mom, but I’m going to stop here. I’m still feeling bad and I think I’m going back to sleep for awhile.

Some of the details here may not be entirely accurate. My memory is not completely reliable on some of these details, and I’m still really foggy about what has happened over the last weekend. At least I’ll be well enough to attend her funeral and burial.

I’ll be getting back to work later this week, but the next few days will be family time.

Townson-Rose Funeral Home created a memorial page for Mattie Lee Dilbeck, should you wish to visit it.

In lieu of flowers or gifts, try to help someone or a family who is hungry this holiday season.

All the best,

Tags: Mattie Lee Dilbeck, Mom