My friendship with Melba’s daughter, Jean really flourished during college. She was a freshman at Abilene Christian when I was a senior. Sometime during my senior year I started dating her roommate, Marita Nelson. The three of us did a lot of fun things together. Marita eventually married Pat Hardcastle, a good friend and fellow graduate student. They now live in Oklahoma.
As her parents aged, Jean took responsibility for their care. She moved them to New Braunfels, Texas where she was living at the time. Jean was married to the late Gayle Dragoo. At one point Sleepy was in the nursing home, and Melba was living in her home. Quite a few times I attended a seminar in Austin and while Jean was still at Gruene (near New Braunfels) I generally took an afternoon off to visit.
On year Gayle, Jean and Melba all drove to Austin to pick me up. I had ridden to Austin with some other fellows and didn’t have a car. Melba was confused but still somewhat lucid. On the way to Austin, Gayle told Melba that I had converted to the Baptist church and was preaching for the Baptists now. When I got in the car Jean said, “Norman, you’ve got some explaining to do. Mother thinks you’re preaching for the Baptists.” I’m not sure if she ever understood that we were both being teased.
Sleepy, Melba, and Gayle all died within two or three years of each other, and on each occasion I was asked to conduct graveside services in Hico where they are all buried. I had some minor surgery on the day prior to Sleepy’s service. It was about a hundred degrees in Hico and the doctor refused let me drive from Shreveport to Hico. I asked Waymon Wren, a brother from the Southern Hills church, and former Shreveport police officer to drive me over. Jean sent me a biography of her parents, which I copied into the computer and read at the service. In quoting what one of her parents had said on one occasion, she included a mild expletive. I chose to delete it, but the word got out about what I had done, and some people wanted to know why I didn’t read the whole thing. I told them my computer just would not allow certain words to be typed in.
A few years later, Jean married a San Antonio man named Jack Mayer. He and Jean built a new home on the family farm, and they now raise registered Longhorn cattle. She chose well. Jack is one of my favorite people.
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