Tuesday, September 29, 2020

LUCILLE WALKER NORMAN LAID TO REST

''B.C.,'' (Before coronavirus) funerals for Norman and Walker families were attended by crowds of relatives and friends flying and driving in from all over the country. Funeral motorcades were counted in the hundreds, with escorting motorcycle cops clearing intersections and red lights. When my father, Eugene Norman, passed away in 1985, I was allowed to attend the funeral in Tampa, accompanied by two well-paid deputies who nervously watched as I hugged and greeted dozens of relatives I hadn't seen in years, and many I'd never see again.

Those days are no more. My dear mother, Lucille Norman, was laid to rest this past Friday, September 27, 2020, at Sunset Memory Gardens east of Tampa. with a few dozen family members and longtime friends attending, a big crowd in these pandemic times. Virtually every one was someone my mother would have been glad to be there to send her off to her just rewards.

A few months ago, before Mama fell and was hospitalized, leading to her decline and eventual death, we talked on the phone once or twice a week. I knew that one day, our phone call would be the last one, and I would always keep positive, cheering her up when she was down, and telling her I loved and missed her at the end of every call. In turn, she would cheer me up, telling me that every day she prayed for Libby and me, and that she was determined to see me freed.

One time she was talking about her upcoming 91st birthday, saying that she didn't want Libby and me to spend money on birthday presents for her, that Libby worked hard, ad needed her money. I told her, ''Mama, Libby will be sending you presents for your100th birthday, and trying to stop her is a waste of time.''

She said, ''Son, I don't want to live to be 100. I don't want to outlive the ones I love. I still haven't gotten over losing Tom (her youngest son). I don't want to bury my children. I've had a good, long life.''

I can understand that.

Of course, I couldn't attend. To hire deputy escorts from Daytona Beach to Tampa and back would have cost thousands. But I did talk to my dear aunt, Alice Walker, and my brother, Dan, on the phone, who told me all about it.

My mother dearly loved flowers, and people sent plenty, florists still delivering arrangements after the funeral was over. Mrs. Dorman and her daughter, long-time family friends, were there, having had their own trying times losing loved ones. All the Tampa Normans, of course — four of the six pallbearers were Mama's grandsons, Tim, Tommy, John and Joe, with two friends helping.

The ladies at the church Tommy Norman attends provided food for everyone after the service, which was much-appreciated. The kindness of strangers.

Alice told me she missed her big sister terribly, that she so wanted to talk to her. I told Alice I missed Mama's laugh. I grew up hearing my mother's distinctive laughter at something my father did or said, always signalling everything was right in our world.

Everyone says she is in a better place. I pray that is so. She was an extraordinary woman, and is sorely missed by us all.

Charlie Norman




 

Friday, September 18, 2020

Lucille Walker Norman, Life Celebration

  


September 18, 2020

Knowing how fragile and ephemeral life is, I wanted to make sure my mother's life would be properly documented.  Several years ago, I realized how little I actually knew about Mama, her hopes and dreams, the details of her inner life, so I undertook the mission to remedy that lack, for myself and those who come after. I am Charles Patrick Norman, the eldest child of Lucille Walker Norman, 91, who passed away peacefully at home Thursday September 17, 2020, surrounded by members of her loving family.

Lucille was born in Roxton, Texas, on August 23, 1929, the eldest daughter of Floyd Franklin Walker and Velva Marie (Edwards) Walker. She grew up on the  family farm in the bottomland of the  Red River near Fulton, Arkansas, during the Great Depression. Although there was a levee holding back the river, the family was often flooded out and had to live in Red Cross tents, returning home after the flooded river subsided. My mother's earliest memories were hoeing her father's cotton rows as a little girl. She hated it. Her father also raised watermelons, and at least once won the prize for biggest watermelon at the annual contest in Hope, Arkansas, with a melon so big it required two men to hold it up.

Lucille remembered her brother’s birth, Floyd Franklin Walker, Jr., in June of 1934 also in Fulton, during an epidemic of whooping cough. Lucille’s paternal grandparents, James Richard and Mary Frances (Tefteller) Walker, came to Fulton and took the newborn, Junior, a week old, back to Redwater, Texas, with them for about a month, to protect him, until the whooping cough had gone.

The family eventually settled in Redwater. Lorene Lowry was Lucille’s best friend in high school. They would have sleep-overs at each other’s houses. Lucille said, “All the teenagers went to the Red Springs Baptist Church. James Chapman had the only car in our group, and about fifteen of us would pack into it, hanging on, all over it, and he would drive us all to church and back home. I don’t know now how we did it! Lorene and I would giggle all the time. We had so much fun. She moved away, and wrote me when she got married, but we lost touch.”

After high school at Redwater, Texas, at age 18, Lucille and her friend Louise Child signed up to work at the Lykes Pasco Citrus Packing Plant in Dade City, Florida. After their exciting cross-country bus ride from Texarkana, Texas, to Dade City, Lucille and her friend joined a number of young women from across America in working at the packing plant and staying in a dormitory ruled by a house mother.

Eugene Norman, a native of Moultrie, Georgia, a U. S. Army veteran who served in the Philippines, drove a taxi cab and operated a fork lift at Lykes Pasco in Dade City when he met Lucille, convincing her to go on a double date with her friend, Louise, and his friend Ralph Pettis, for hamburgers at Eddie's Drive-In. Eventually he convinced her to be his wife, in December, 1948.

In 1949, very pregnant with her first son, her doctor advised her of health complications that threatened the lives of her and her unborn child. Afraid of dying far from her mother and family, she and Eugene packed up their belongings in his oil-leaking and smoking 1938 Chevrolet and began a thousand-mile journey to Texas with 36 quarts of motor oil in the trunk. Every thirty miles or so Eugene had to pull over and add another quart of oil. This was before the interstate highways, and not having money for motel rooms, they pulled off to the side of the country road at night and slept in their car. It took them three days to reach Texas.

After rejoining her family in Redwater, Texas, three weeks later, on September 4, 1949, both Lucille and her son miraculously survived caesarian surgery at St. Michael's Hospital, Texarkana, Arkansas, contrary to the dire warnings by doctors that one or both of them were likely to die.

Lucille always wanted to be a nurse. She said, “When I graduated from high school, I wanted to go to nursing school, but we didn’t have the means. After Charlie was born, I applied to the school there in Texarkana, but a doctor there at the school giving physicals, told me I should have another baby while I was young and healthy, and then go to nursing school later. But I still wanted to be a nurse, and was determined to do it. Then I got sick, and discovered I was pregnant again, with Dan. Then, two years later, I was pregnant with Tom, and suddenly I had three children under seven years old. I never did go to nursing school.”

The Walkers were a musical family. Most everyone played an instrument and sang. Lucille played the piano as a little girl, but when she married and began raising her family, a piano was an expensive luxury they could not afford. After their sons grew up and moved out, Eugene told her he would buy her a piano if she would play for him, which she did for years. He loved to listen to her play. After Eugene passed away, she never played again.

Lucille loved music and loved to sing. Redwater schoolmates Mary and Johnny Henshaw recalled several years back that when Lucille and her younger sister, Ruthie Jean, got on the bus every morning, they were skipping down the aisle and singing. I remember when I was a child, Mama sang along with the radio for hours as she cleaned house and cooked. My favorite song she sang was ''Mockingbird Hill.''

Redwater, Texas, was about 70 miles northwest of Shreveport, Louisiana, home of the ''Louisiana Hayride,'' and in the early 1950's she and Eugene made many Saturday night trips to see the contemporary country music stars perform. Lucille said, “We saw just about everyone in country music when they were first starting out, before they became famous. Webb Pierce, Faron Young, Goldie Hill (she married Carl Smith), Jim Reeves, Elvis, the Maddox Brothers and Rose, Slim Whitman, Hank Snow, and Hank Williams. I remember she had an autographed photo of Slim Whitman and several of his records, but she surprised me when she said her favorite country singer was George Jones. She said her favorite at the Hayride was the Maddox Brothers and Rose. “They were like a Mexican group, with real pretty costumes. I don’t think they ever got famous, but I really enjoyed their music,” she said. “The Hayride concerts started around eight p.m. on Saturday nights, and we wouldn’t get home until after midnight. We enjoyed every minute of it.”

In May, 1958, Lucille and family returned to Florida, first briefly to Plant City, then to Thonotosassa, east of Tampa, having lived in the same home on Grovewood Avenue since 1969. Over the years, after her sons were older, Lucille worked at Shuron Continental and then General Cable in Tampa. She later worked at East Lake Square Mall and Brandon Town Center before going to work at Walmart, eventually retiring at age 85.

Lucille was an excellent cook. Her Sunday dinners were highly-anticipated by family and friends, and everyone raved about her buttermilk biscuits, cornbread, hushpuppies, and Christmas fruit cakes.

On May 2, 1985, Lucille was widowed when her husband, Eugene Norman, passed away at University Community Hospital after a long illness. She never remarried, saying that no man could take the place of her Gene in her heart. She was also predeceased by her youngest son, Thomas Eugene Norman, daughter-in-law, Sandy Norman, two brothers, Floyd Franklin Walker, Jr., and Jim David Walker, and two sisters, Ruthie Jean Odom and Cherry Maxine Hogquist.

Lucille Norman is survived by two sons, Charles Patrick (Elizabeth), of Jacksonville, and Danny Franklin, of Thonotosassa, Diane Norman (daughter-in-law) five grandchildren, Timmy and Tammy Norman, children of Dan and Sandy, and Thomas, John and Joseph Norman, children of Lucille's late son, Thomas, and Diane, of Tampa, Florida.

She is also survived by ten great—grandchildren, Tammy's daughter, Darian Weaver, and Timmy's four children, Ashton, Delany, Bryson, and Rylie Norman, Grandson Tommy's (Carla) three boys, Thomas, Justin and Jacob Norman, and Grandson Joseph's two boys, Jax and Elisha Norman. Lucille leaves behind two sisters, Patsy Ann Crumpton, of Texarkana, Texas, and Alice Faye Walker (George), of Tampa, Florida. She also leaves behind a number of nieces and nephews, along with a handful of elderly cousins in Texas.

A lifetime member of the Baptist church, Lucille Norman prayed daily for the health, happiness, and safety of her family. Her love of life, her
laughter, and her joy at being surrounded by family will be sorely missed. We cherish the glimpses of her life packed with adventure, hard work, dedication, and selflessness, good lessons on how to love your family, that will live on in our hearts. Thank you, Lucille. Rest in peace.

Graveside Services will be held Friday, September 25, 2020, at 10 a.m. Interment will be next to her dear husband in Sunset Memory Gardens, 11005 N. U.S. Highway 301, Thonotosassa. Arrangements in charge of Swilley Funeral Home, 1602 W. Waters Avenue, Tampa.

Saturday, September 12, 2020

PRISON PANDEMIC UPDATE # 32 ''Good News/Bad News''

 

09-11-2020

The good news is the Florida prison secretary announced on the news today that family visitation will resume. No word on WHEN visits will resume, or the conditions we'll have to deal with.

Orlando TV channel nine reported there have been over 15,000 prisoners tested positive for the coronavirus, out of 94,000, with 111 inmate deaths as of Tuesday, Sept. 8th, and over 2,700 staff tested positive. Lowell C. I., in Ocala, the women's prison, had 1,003 inmates tested positive. They WILL NOT be having visits until those numbers subside. Other Florida prisons have high infection rates, too.

A nurse told me last week that there have been no positive virus tests at Tomoka C. I. since May. They have opened back up some of the education programs, and chapel volunteers are coming in for socially-distant religious services. No Wellness Programs have yet resumed.

Bad News—my mother is still in Brandon Hospital, and now has pneumonia and low enzymes. The doctor has not released the pancreatic cancer biopsy results, for some reason. They may put her in another hospital, and although the doctor said she's getting better, she can't go home until they get this low enzyme situation back to normal. To me, it doesn't seem like she's better, but worse.

No one has talked to her in over a week. I've called several times, as have Libby and Aunt Alice, but she doesn't answer. I'm worried this hospital ''No Visiting'' policy is having an adverse effect on her, she wants to go home, be with her loved ones, and if she can't, she's giving up.

All we can do at this point is pray for her.

Libby and I are fine, all things considered. I'm working on this face mask lawsuit in Tallahassee circuit court, fighting the bogus D. R. I got in May, with Libby's help electronically filing everything. The Attorney General's office has already sent me a threatening letter, so I must be doing something right.

We are working on a submission seeking a new parole hearing in a couple of months. So much to coordinate. We are working on a Photo Exhibit Supplement for 2015--2020, a collection of my essays Libby is compiling, along with more of my artwork. I would be lost without Libby's love and determination to fight these forces of evil keeping me confined.

We need new letters of support from reputable citizens stating they believe I deserve to be released. More on that later.

For now, best regards and wishes to you and yours.

Charlie