OLA SAWYER – HER STORY

My mother, Ola Sawyer, was born on March 28, 1901 Near Hallsville, Texas in the Sabine River bottoms.  Her father, John Wesley Sawyer, farmed a 160-acre homestead there, and also worked as a blacksmith.  The family lived off the land and Ola helped with the backbreaking labor of picking cotton, rendering sugar cane into syrup, and all the daily chores of pioneer life in East Texas.  Her mother, Anna Summers Sawyer, died when Ola was nine years old and her father passed away when she was fourteen.  Her twenty-year old brother, Adolphus, became the head of the family and kept them all together.

Ola lived during one of the most prolific times in the history of the world.  The airplane was just being invented and she lived well into the age of the jet.  The First and Second World Wars were yet to be fought and the Spanish influenza had not devastated millions all over the world.  The Great Depression lay ahead, as well.

Married at the age of 18 to Charles Logan Stokes, her first child Charles Eugene Stokes, was born in 1920.   Four more children followed over the next 12 years:  John Wesley, Alice Elizabeth, Bonnie Ruth and Pauline Glinda. 

Ola survived the worst depression in our history as a single mother with five children, in one of the poorest parts of the nation.  She persevered when her first husband abandoned her, to struggle through the depression with five children. 

Movies came into full flower during the early part of her life, yet she probably did not see one until sometime in the 1930s.  She worked in a sewing factory during this time alongside her widowed sister-in-law, Annie Sawyer.  Tired of hitching the ten miles into town to go to work, the two of them purchased a Model A Ford, even though neither knew how to drive.  They learned together and persisted.

In 1937 Ola met and married Jack Arrant, a rough and tumble character from Louisiana.  She and Jack had two children: Reddick Adolphus, and Jerry Doyle Arrant.  They lived mainly in East Texas lumber mill housing where Jack held various jobs earning minimum wage while supporting a large family.

Ola had all her children at home with the assistance of a midwife, except for her last child, when she was attended by a doctor.  She would usually work in the fields, or washing clothes outdoors, or other manual jobs before each birth and then pick up immediately and go back to work.

Life in East Texas continued as she followed her husband who worked various jobs while she kept house.  Her children grew up, got married and began to have children.  In 1952 Jack, Ola, and their two boys, Reddick and Jerry, moved to Dallas to begin the last phase of her amazing life.  Ola began ironing clothes and keeping children in her home to help supplement her minimum-wage husband’s income.  She could make a $10.00 weekly grocery budget go a long, long way.  Through her ironing, she made friends with people from all walks of life:  doctors, lawyers, shop-owners, busy mothers and many others.  Every person she met became a friend.  She could say your name and make you feel better, and she would often say “honey, everything’s going to be alright”.

All seven of Ola’s children lived into adulthood and prospered with just basic education.  She suffered the tragedy of her son Reddick’s death in a work-related accident just three weeks before his 21^st birthday.  Her lament at the time was “the circle has been broken”.

Widowed at the age of 59 she continued to make her way in the world, all the while ironing other people’s clothes and caring for generations of children, some of them her own grandchildren.  She traveled around the southeastern part of the country and enjoyed gatherings with her large family.  Ola died on February 26, 1989 just one month and two days shy of her 89^th birthday.  She left a legacy of love that will continue to echo through many, many years.