Like many married couples my parents were very different personalities. My Dad was a quiet, strong person with a very dry sense of humor. He grew up in a large farming family with three brothers and four sisters and worked hard in the fields from the time he could plow with a horse. They had no indoor plumbing and no electricity until long after I was born in 1941. I too drew many buckets of water from their well and made the trip to their "two hole" outhouse often in my younger years.
My mom however, although born in the country, was mostly raised in Paducah. She was always the life of every party and never met a stranger. And, she grew up with electricity, running water and an indoor bathroom all her life. After she and my Dad married in 1937, they built a house near her parents home that had electricity and running water but no indoor bathroom. As a kid I mostly bathed in the creek behind our house until the weather turned too cold.
All of this background is to help my readers understand what we all call THE BATHROOM STORY which my Dad loved to tell all the grandchildren. After I started school Mom began to lobby my Dad to install a bathroom. He balked because he was the kind of person who would never buy anything if he didn't have the cash to pay for it. So, he kept putting her off until they could save up enough money for the purchase and installation of the plumbing and fixtures. So, Amazing Mema took matters into hand and got her a job in Mayfield at the Merit Clothing Company. After a few years she decided she couldn't do without a bathroom any longer and one day on her lunch break went to Montgomery Ward in Mayfield and bought, on credit, all the fixtures for her bathroom. A few days later all those fixtures were delivered to our home and Dad came home from work that day to find the front porch crowded with all these huge boxes sitting everywhere. He asked my Mom what all of this was and she told him, "That's our new bathroom". He asked how she had paid for it and she replied, "Well, I charged it." He immediately hit the ceiling and told her, "Okay then I will go to town and sell the car to pay for it and if you want to go somewhere I'll put you a steering wheel on that toilet." of course he never did that because Mom had a way of talking him into her way of seeing things and it didn't take long before he had her bathroom up and running.
In her journal entry from 10/19/1998 she wrote this account that demonstrates just who she is and always has been.
"Harold and I moved to Paducah in 1943 to be nearer his work at the railroad shops. There was a great flood in 1937 that spread all over the city and in the spring of 1946 the big Ohio river was getting too high for comfort. I caught the city bus to go downtown and see for myself. When Harold got home from work that day I was all packed up to move back to our house in Marshall county. Pa Sutherland came with his truck and moved us back home."
These two stories really illustrate Hazel Marie Darnall Sutherland. Even now at nearly 92 and in a nursing home, if she makes up her mind about almost anything, trying to change it is usually futile, because she has always been mostly right and she knows it. That isn't necessarily an undesirable trait. After all she waited very patiently for a long time to get her bathroom and when she realized it just wasn't going to happen she made it happen. I have no idea how many discussions she and Dad had about moving back to their home in Marshall county, but to her it was the only right thing to do at the time and she made it happen.
She has always been the The Wife of Noble Character described in much detail by King Lemuel at Proverbs 31. Both of mine and Rosie's daughters are very much like her because they grew up with her fiery spirit, can-do attitude and gracious friendliness. I praise God for that blessing today more than ever. HALLELUJAH!
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