No Hill Too High for a Stepper

by Mike Mahan

  When Momma left Montevallo in 1942 to live with her youngest daughter Lorene—or “Ween,” as I called her, I wondered if the Sunday dinners would continue in the style we had grown accustomed to. After all, she took her sterling silver with her (and when she died she left it to Ween). Buying new sterling when haircuts were fifty cents might have seemed out of the question, but for Christmas in 1946 Dad presented Mother with her own sterling service for eight, and the formal Sunday dinner routine could continue. Mother maintained a love of silver throughout her lifetime. When asked what she wanted for Christmas or her birthday, she would always answer that a piece of silver would be nice. She achieved her ambition of having service for twelve as well as a full array of serving pieces.

  My grandfather, Henry Cary “Doc” Mahan holding his blind daughter Lucille. The photograph probably was taken during one of Lucille’s visits home from the Talladega School for the Deaf and Blind.

  Studio portrait of Lucille Mahan taken during her Philadelphia days.

  Late summer 1933 family outing. Back row, Ted Hubbard, a son of my aunt, Lois Mahan Hubbard, and my father. The women, left to right, Cornelia Baird, Adelaide Mahan, my mother, and Lucille Mahan.

  Besides Mother and Momma, there was one other great feminine influence in my household. Although she only visited us in the summer, my Aunt Lucille—Daddy’s sister—was a great presence. “Aunt Cille,” who had lost her sight when she was two, came over from the Talladega School for the Deaf and Blind, which we called TSDB. When she was nine, a representative from the school came to Calera to meet Aunt Cille and her father, my Grandfather Doc, whom I never knew. To get to Calera they caught the train in Randolph, rode to Wilton, and then to Calera—a trip of about twenty miles. Lucille was interviewed and accepted into TSDB and plans were made for her to attend. A short while later, she was carried to Randolph and put on a train bound for Talladega. I’m sure that the station manager in Randolph telegraphed the station manager in Talladega about her arrival time, but this must have been a pretty stressful time for a nine-year-old blind girl. Luckily she was met at the station by a school representative and taken to the campus.

  Aunt Cille flourished in her new surroundings. At TSDB, she completed both grammar school and high school, graduating in 1912 with high awards in piano and voice. She was so proficient in music that she was sent to study piano, voice, organ, harmony, and composition at the Overbrook School for the Blind in Philadelphia. While there, she became a soloist at Patterson Memorial Presbyterian Church and also distinguished herself by being the first blind woman ever to sing with the Philadelphia Philharmonic Orchestra. After graduation in 1916, she went for further study to Hyperion School of Music in Philadelphia, returning after two years to Overbrook, where she was on the faculty from 1917 through 1925. Then she was offered a job at Talladega, and she taught there until her retirement in 1957.

  Aunt Cille was a happy soul. She never acted as if she had been cheated by her blindness, and she always said that she would rather be blind than deaf. That made sense to me, as it was clear that music was the center of her life. She was a great admirer of Helen Keller, and she would quote her to me: “The only thing that is worse than being unable to see is to be able to see and to have no vision.” She drilled into me the idea that insight was more important than eyesight, and I paid attention.

  Aunt Cille demanded attention. Not that we had to wait on her hand and foot, but she expected to be listened to. Every day and especially every night she would play the piano. The kids from the neighborhood—Martha Ann Cox, Gene Baldwin, Bill Hartley, Ed Bridges, and others—would file in and listen to her play Beethoven and Chopin. But most of all we loved it when she played the “William Tell Overture”—which we were familiar with from listening to the Lone Ranger on the radio. She could also play “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” which we had learned from Mrs. Farrah while attending Miss Charlotte Peterson’s elementary school. Musical appreciation was an important part of progressive education, which was practiced at Miss Peterson’s school.

  No one appreciated Aunt Cille’s playing more than Mother. After all, she too was a pianist and had taught piano while living in Carbon Hill. Dad loved music too, and, though not very advanced in his musicianship, he never seemed uncomfortable playing with such an accomplished musician as Aunt Cille.

  Occasionally when Aunt Cille played sing-along music, he would accompany her on his Martin guitar and they would sing songs like “I’ll Fly Away” and my favorite, “She’ll be Comin’ Round the Mountain.” Everybody would clap and yell when we finished a number, and Aunt Cille would wheel around on the piano stool, smile broadly, and, for some reason, raise herself up and down on the stool.

  After I started playing violin, one of the joys of my life was when Aunt Cille would do duets with me. Mrs. Claire Ordway, my teacher, gave me sheet music, and I would begin to play the melody of a song. Aunt Cille did not need music, but began by ear to accompany me on the piano, smiling at me as she added obligatos that improved the performance considerably. What other kid could be so fortunate, I thought.

  But Aunt Cille’s interests were not only in music— she was a great storyteller, too. Sitting on the piano stool, she would look in my direction, her eyes floating rather over my head, and begin telling me about Brer Rabbit in the briar patch or the three little pigs or Alice in Wonderland. Sometimes she made up her own stories, which she delivered in a very melodic way, and I thought them just as good as the others.

  Often Aunt Cille would read to me—not from printed books like we read, but from huge books with raised dots on coarse brown paper. She would touch her fingers to them and read, and I was fascinated to watch her. She brought lots of books with her, and when the Braille Reader’s Digest came to the post office, a friend and I would go down and load my red wagon with large packages wrapped in brown paper and tied with white string. Then we’d pull our heavy load back to our house, marveling at how such a small magazine as the Reader’s Digest took so many books and how each volume of four or more books would fill my wagon.

  After supper, Aunt Cille would read to us from what she called the classics, books like The House of Seven Gables, Little Men, Little Women, Gulliver’s Travels, and King Solomon’s Mines. And from her Braille Bible Aunt Cille read stories of Samson and Ruth, stories that made a great impression on me because of the expressive way she read. She loved the sound of words as perhaps only a blind person could, and she taught me to value sound, both in music and in language.

  When Aunt Cille packed up her books in late summer, I would feel bereft. I knew that the rich evenings of the summer would be gone for many months, and throughout the winter I would long for her return.

  My older half-sisters, Sue “Tootsie” Peters Hargrove, left, and Mary Hilda “Sister” Peters Baker, in their Alabama College senior and junior year portraits, respectively. Tootsie wanted everything in her life to be first-class, organized, and beautiful. Sister, the younger of the two, was a hard worker, creative, talented, considerate, and loved by all. I thought she was the perfect sister, daughter, mother, and wife.

  4

  Tootsie and Sister

  In addition to Mother and Momma, my two step-sisters also fulfilled maternal roles—though very different ones. Tootsie, whose real name was Sue Lorraine, was twenty years older than I, and “Sister,” named Mary Hilda, was eighteen. In my early years they were in college in Montevallo, and I was still quite young when they married and moved away. So it was never a matter of having playmates in the house. Rather it meant having an extra nurturer and an extra disciplinarian.

  Tootsie, perhaps because she was the oldest child, was the disciplinarian. She often took a dim view of my behavior, and for many years would counsel Mother about my need for punishment or chide her for not being more strict with me. Even after I was older, she let me know that she disapproved of the fact that I had not made a career of music, had such a lackluster college career, and
kept returning to Shelby Street and Mother and Dad.

  Sister took a very different tack. Although I loved Tootsie and always knew she was looking out for my best interests, Sister really had my heart. When I accomplished anything, she noted it. One of the most delightful nights of my life was when Sister and her husband Bobby took me to the Vestavia Country Club to celebrate the awarding of my degree in dentistry. Recently it occurred to me that I never missed getting a birthday or Christmas present for Sister, but I never gave anything to Tootsie.

  Dad loved Tootsie and Sister as if they were his own daughters. His will stated that when he died the house on Shelby Street would be shared equally by the two girls and me.

  Tootsie on Dog River. One of the highlights of my Mobile visits was going to Captain Hargrove’s Dog River cabin.

  Tootsie married Sidney Hargrove, whom she met while teaching in Mobile. The two were wed in a ceremony at the Methodist Church in Montevallo, and I remember distinctly the rice showering about them as they came down the high front steps of the church in their going-away clothes, jumped into his car, and sped away.

  They lived in Mobile for a while, and I visited at their cabin on the Dog River several times as a boy. Sidney, an accountant, was employed by a firm in Mobile. Tootsie received a degree in secretarial science from Alabama College, and while living in Mobile she taught typing, shorthand, and related subjects at Murphy High School.

  While living in Mobile, Sidney met Jack Schatz, whose family ran a ball-bearing business in Poughkeepsie, New York, that provided bearings for tanks and other military vehicles. It was during World War II, and the company was doing a big business. Jack talked Sidney into moving to Poughkeepsie and becoming an accountant for them. Because the company was so vital to the war effort, Sidney would have no worry about being drafted. Later the business became Federal Bearings Company, and Sidney worked for them until he retired. Following their move to Poughkeepsie, Tootsie was employed by a local business college and taught there until her retirement.

  Tootsie returned from New York annually for visits, arriving in Birmingham on the Southerner, a great streamlined train. Going to get her with my parents and Momma was a real thrill for a young boy. We would borrow a car or go with Sister and her husband to the train station, and I was always thrilled as we drove under the huge terminal building, which I thought beautiful despite its dirty yellowish-tan color. I was especially taken with the large dome on top. When we entered the building, I gazed at the overhead awning, held up by chains that were anchored to the mouths of large dirty steel lions. Inside, I was awed by the ceilings, which seemed as high as the sky, and the huge curved windows all around. I loved looking at the travelers sitting on the wooden benches, their suitcases placed around them on the colorful terrazzo floors.

  It was also fun to check the chalkboards to see if the Southerner was on time and finally to feel the pulsation of the huge building as the train neared. I would take Daddy’s hand as we walked down the stairs to where the trains unloaded the passengers, and we would wait eagerly for Aunt Tootsie to arrive. Soon we could smell the smoke and hear the whooshing of the air brakes and the clack-clack-clacking as the huge train came into the station. A distinguished black gentleman in a black uniform with brass buttons would go up and place a wooden stool next to the door, and as women came off the train he would assist them. Men would not accept his help, I noticed, but Tootsie and almost all the women did. When I saw her strolling toward us, I would run toward this woman wearing a beautiful dress and high heels, with a coat and purse draped over her arm. Although I was first to arrive, she waited until she had kissed Mother and Dad on both cheeks before tousling my hair and saying one of two things: either I had grown or I needed a haircut.

  Then Tootsie would call for one of the red caps standing next to their four-wheeled carts to get her luggage. I learned that the position of red cap was highly coveted by black men in this age of segregation. They could make good tips carrying passengers’ luggage to their cars. Tootsie would hand Dad her cosmetic case, but the red cap took the rest, and led us through a secret passage out of the building. I was amazed that there was no need to go back up the stairs we had come down by.

  Tootsie always arrived alone. Her husband would travel to Mobile to visit his parents, and after her visit to us she would take the train down to join him.

  Tootsie and her husband, Sidney Hargrove, on the front porch at Shelby Street.

  Mary Hilda, “Sister,” in the back yard, Shelby Street. Mother’s kudzu is still flourishing behind her.

  When I was in high school, Tootsie switched from train to plane. Mother did not like that she would be flying— she thought it was needlessly dangerous— but there was no stopping Tootsie once she made up her mind. When Dad, Mother, Sister, and her husband Bobby took me to Birmingham to meet the twin-engine prop plane Tootsie was on, I’d never felt more excited. The idea of Aunt Tootsie dropping down out of the sky amazed me, but I thought if anyone could do it it would certainly be Tootsie. When the plane had landed, we could go outside and watch the disembarkation steps being put in place and the door opening. Finally, Toosie emerged, dressed to the hilt as usual. The sky cap, a bit less regal than the red caps I had seen at the train station, put Tootsie’s luggage on his cart and took it to the car. All in all, Tootsie’s arrival by air paled in comparison to her arrivals on the Southerner.

  Tootsie always brought Mother some new article of clothing—a sweater, a coat, or a dress. Often she would bring Mother and Sister clothes that she had bought for herself, but had worn only once or twice or not at all. They both thought this grossly irresponsible and that she was just too reckless with money. But I noticed that they seemed quite happy to wear the fine New York clothes she brought them.

  Although Tootsie liked returning to see her parents in Montevallo, she never really had much loyalty to the town. In fact, when she graduated from Alabama College, she didn’t even hang around to go through graduation and receive her diploma— when the college was doing some cleaning up for its centennial celebration in 1996, her diploma was discovered and given to me.

  Sister chose a different course in life. When she married Bobby Baker, their ceremony, which took place at the house on Shelby Street, was more modest than Tootsie’s. Afterwards, they left for their first home, an apartment in Berney Points, near a small Southern Railroad station in the West End section of Birmingham.

  I loved going there for a visit. Many times on Saturday mornings, Dad would borrow a car and drive me to the train station in Wilton, where I would catch the train to Berney Points. In the station, we would walk up to the “white” window and buy a day-coach ticket for me. Then Dad would tell the conductor—usually one of his old train buddies—to watch out for me.

  Sister was bedridden following an automobile accident in the 1930s. Here my father is carrying her outside for the first time in seven months. Doctors told her she would never be able to dance again, but she was still jitterbugging with me in her nineties.

  Once aboard and seated, I would hear the whistle blow and feel the jerk and hear the clank as the train departed. I would look out the dirty smoked windows as we pulled out of the station. In my pocket I always had a quarter Dad had given me for a drink and candy. When a black man in a white coat walked through the car with a big basket of delicacies, I would pick out what I wanted. I noticed that there was a car for white people and one for black people, or, when whites and blacks would share a car, the whites were in the front and blacks in the back. I didn’t understand why this was. I was also confused that the seat backs of the train swiveled so that you could pull them completely around, making it hard to know what was front and what was back.

  The trip took a little over two hours. When we arrived at the Berney Points station, the conductor would put out a black metal stool like the one Tootsie stepped onto so that passengers, particularly the ladies, could exit the train easily. But I was so excited about
seeing Sister that I would bounce out of the train and rush to her. Together we would then walk the two blocks to her apartment. Also living in the big apartment building was Bob’s sister Dot, and I liked her very much. She made me feel as welcome as Sister did.

  Sister’s apartment was in a large, dark two-story home on the corner of Pearson Avenue and Alabama Street. A concrete wall surrounded the house, with big concrete steps leading up to the yard and higher steps leading up to the front porch. By the front door were four doorbells, and she showed me which one to ring for her apartment. In the other three apartments were wives whose husbands were overseas. I enjoyed hearing their talk about the war and the letters they had received telling about what their husbands were going through. They also talked about how difficult rationing had been for them—little gas, no sugar, no coffee. They all had trouble getting to work.