Growing Up with a Preacher Man
Rev. William "Lester" Howard (1929-2021)
Mary Eulalie McLean Howard (1933-2021)
Loucille Craig Cole, My Very First Best Friend (1904-2000)
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by Carolyn Ann Howard
I don't know how old I was when I became aware of Loucille Cole, our nearest neighbor. She, of course, attended my dad's church, as she lived as close to it as we did. Click on photos to enlarge
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| Top Arrow: Loucille, Middle Arrow, Church Bottom Arrow, Us Courtesy of Google Maps Proper attribution given |
It may have been that my parents naturally chose her to be my sitter, whenever they wanted or needed to go out somewhere. Whatever the reason, I consider her to be my very first truly best friend.
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| An unexpected find from Dad's old slides! Look at those cars in the parking lot Loucille Cole Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection |
Her house has since been torn down, but I remember it vividly. Below is a crude drawing of her floor plan, but you get the idea. She had 3 rooms in her home plus a very small bathroom.
I remember that she always made her bed. And I believe she had that metal dining table that so many households had in the 1960s. Her kitchen countertop against the wall, where you could look out the window, scrolled around at the front door, turning into three small shelves. I only remember two things on those shelves. One was a small, doll-sized bathtub that I had given her, which was full of rocks I thought were pretty. I had given them to her as a gift. The other was a pair of scissors. She always said, "Those were Joe's." Joe was her late husband.
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| Loucille is on the right Carolyn Ann Howard Family Collection |
Loucille Cole was born Loucille Craig 08 Mar 1904 in Quebec, Tennessee. That's more than I ever knew about her before. I don't know why she and Joe came to Monticello. Her husband was Joseph Lewis Cole, and he was born in 1882 in Tennessee. They were married in 1922. Joe was 40. Loucille was 18. As far as I know, they had no children. Joe was a laborer.
She would talk about Joe, not so much of him but of his things. Like the scissors were Joe's, or that she went to visit Joe's stone in Chalmers, Indiana. I was a child and that she was a widow had no bearing on anything I could relate with. She seemed happy; that's all that mattered.
She had four trees in her yard. She had a glorious weeping willow tree. And then she had three fruit trees: cherry, apple, and pear. She would let me pick as much fruit as I wanted, and I would take it home, and pretend to serve it in my pretend kitchen that was in my playroom in our walk-out basement. You would think that my favorite fruits are cherries, pears, and apples. Alas, they are not.
On one side of the parsonage where we lived, we had a gully where wild pokeweed grew. This might be one of the reasons I absolutely love pokeweed and upset my first husband when I planted some in our yard. I don't really know if this is Loucille's doing or not, but she would harvest our pokeweed and cook it up. This fascinated me as a child, but as an adult, I am not at all surprised that she would have been able to make a tasty treat from a so-called weed growing wild in our yard.
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| Pokeweed Courtesy Pixabay |
Loucille was patient, loving, kind, and compassionate, everything I Cor. 13 tells us to be. I don't remember her ever being upset with me, but she did lose patience with me once that I remember. Here's the story:
When I was in middle school - or Jr. High as it was called then in Monticello - we were required to take Physical Education (PE). I hated everything that had anything to do with PE. Firstly, we had to dress out in little blue one-piece outfits. I was overweight by this time, had a terrible opinion of myself and my body, and this little blue outfit did nothing to help my self-esteem. The worst part, though, was at the end. All of us girls had to strip down to nothing, parade in front of the PE teacher and her assistant to get to the shower, where we were all supposed to wash ourselves, parade back to the dressing area, still naked, wrapped in a towel, and get dressed in an area that felt no bigger than one square foot. It was ridiculous.
I asked about it once, because I felt it was wrong. I was told, to my consternation, that this was perfectly normal behavior between girls and women. Take that in for a second...
And so, I tried an experiment, and while Loucille was in the bathroom, I barged in. She very politely and kindly asked me to give her privacy. Such were the contradictions of my childhood. Needless to say, I haven't barged in on anyone else ever since.
Who doesn't love fried chicken? And Loucille made the best. I remember one time, sharing a meal with her in her kitchen - what a gift - I asked her if I could use my hands to eat. I'm not sure if it was chicken or if it were something else, but I remember her answer loudly and clearly, and still use the phrase to this day. She replied, "There's nobody here but us chickens." <3
Loucille didn't drive, but she worked at Bryan's Manufacturing, and some kind soul picked her up and brought her home every day after her shift. Bryan's Manufacturing was a big employer in Monticello, and I have no idea what was made there. She had retired by the time we left in 1977, but I'll never shake off the guilt of all those we left behind to search for that shiny star we thought we'd find in Evansville. Not that I didn't find shiny stars, because I did, but we left so abruptly. I don't even remember saying good-bye to her.
One last memory of Loucille is that when she came to see us, which was often, she would open our back screen door ever so slightly and say "Yoo-hoo!" We practically lived in our walk-out basement, and so she knew which door to open and say "Yoo-hoo!"
Loucille later moved to Logansport, I believe, to a niece's home. But I'm not sure. I'm just trying to remember what my parents told me years ago. Loucille died in 2000 at the age of 96.
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