came to her new home as a bride in a mule-drawn buckboard, meeting her stepchildren for the first time while carrying their baby sister in her arms.

She gave birth over the next years to three children, my mother, a second daughter, and a stillborn son. She also planted a garden and raised vegetables for her table, milked cows, churned butter, cured meats and cooked three meals a day on a cast iron wood-burning stove for husband, children, and field hands. She even baked cornbread for the hunting dogs. Mammy told me that being married was hard work and that I should put it off as long as possible. “Just do it in time to get ‘Mrs.’ written on your gravestone,” she advised, a smile behind her hazel eyes.