The Arkansas Arts Council’s GetSmart! Learning series was the forum for a three-part virtual series, “Still I Rise: Women’s History Month Celebration,” during Women’s History Month 2020. The series included an author’s talk, featuring Robin White; a session centered around women sharing messages from their mother and other women in their lives, and during the final session, women were invited to share their stories of survival through the trauma of the global COVID season. Participants represented a diverse and intergenerational cross section of women throughout and outside the state of Arkansas, all sharing unique stories of the challenges, lessons, victories and dreams that impact their lives.

 As a follow-up to the writing and sharing series, the Arkansas Arts Council held an open submission for women who had participated in the Women’s History Month Celebration and others, to write and submit their own short memoirs and personal stories for possible inclusion in the Messages from our Mothers and Other Women Anthology.

We are excited to share these stories with our audience! We hope you will enjoy reading them and share them with your own circles. 

New Drapes

by Lana Dunnaway

Mama and Aunt Roxie, like most mothers in the fifties, were stay at home moms. Periodically, they would load my sister Rita and cousin Ronnie into the back seat of Mama’s car, and we would make the trip down Highway 71 from Bentonville to Fayetteville for a day of shopping.

I both hated and loved these trips. I was prone to suffering car sickness and found following my mother around in the stores boring. They were also fun. Being the youngest, I was always placed in the middle of the seat as a sort of buffer between Rita and Ronnie. We were territorial and dared each other to encroach on our respective spaces which, of course, we promptly did. Hitting, pinching, and name-calling would follow until Mama would finally threaten to “stop this car”. Then, we would settle into something else fun like making faces at the people in the car behind us.

On one such trip, as we were heading home, I listened to Mama and Aunt Roxie talking about the things they had bought, as well as the things they wished they could have bought. Mama had spotted some drapes that she knew were absolutely perfect for our living room windows. Unfortunately, she just couldn’t afford them. Ronnie was edging into my space, calling for at least a slight kick from me, so I tuned out the new drapes conversation in the front seat.

Suddenly, without any explanation, Mama made a right turn off the highway onto the gravel parking lot of the canning factory in Springdale.     

“What are we doing? Why did you come here?” Our questions percolated from the back seat.

Mama pulled into a parking space. “You kids stay in the car and don’t be fighting,” she said.

“Where are you going? Why can’t we come?”

“We’re just going right in here,” Aunt Roxie said, pointing to a door.

We never made stops on the way home from Fayetteville. What were they thinking? It seemed like a long time before they came back to the car.

“What were you doing in there?”

“Just filling out some papers.”

“What kind of papers?”

“Just papers.”

Our questions were useless.

Aunt Roxie looked at Mama. “Do you think they will call us?”

Mama shrugged. “I don’t know.”

What are we going to do if they do?”

Mama laughed. “I don’t know.”

The stop had caused us to be late, and Daddy was already home from work when we got home. He met us at the door with a puzzled look on his face. “The canning factory just called,” he said, “and they want you at work at seven-thirty in the morning.”

I don’t know how long Mama stayed at that job. It was long enough to turn her against canned spinach. She left there and went to work in a garment factory and, over the years, went on to waitress, receptionist, and dental assistant jobs.

Growing up, I absorbed Mama’s work ethic, the value she placed on honest work, and the pride she felt in bringing home a paycheck.

And I’ve never forgotten how pleased Mama looked, all those years ago, when she stood back and admired those new drapes hanging on the living room windows.

__________________

Lana Dunnaway grew up in Bentonville, Arkansas, and now lives in Gravette. She is the mother of two and grandmother of two. In 2020, she lost her husband of fifty-one years to COVID. In her twenties and thirties, she worked as a registered nurse. At forty, she went back to college, got her education degree, and began teaching junior high school. She is now retired. Reading and writing have been her lifelong hobbies.