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Leona Aden with son Dale,
daughter-in-law Rhonda and granddaughter Christine, plus
older granddaughter Bethany who was not home when this
photo was shot, enjoy sharing the 1900 homestead built by
Leona's father when he was 19 years old.
Leona Aden's family history has it that
when she was born, friends and family commiserated with
her father, "Well, Vernon, you didn't have a boy."
"No," he's said to have replied, "and not much of a girl
either."
Born to Vernon and Azzell Thomas at her grandmother's home
in McKenzie on February 18, 1927, Leona was born two weeks
shy of her mother's seventh month of pregnancy when a fall
induced early labor.
The following day when the doctor came to check on her
mother, family members asked, "What are we going to feed
her?"
"You mean she's still alive?" the incredulous doctor
replied.
At just three pounds and with no finger or toenails at
birth, Leona's survival is credited to a lady believed to
have been "Mrs. Scates", a portion of whose profession was
sitting with babies. Throughout the night, she stayed
awake turning the bassinet in front of the fireplace for
even warmth.
It was her father's first indication, perhaps, that though
small in size Leona was huge on spirit. Her mother's
friend, Mrs. Gladys Crawford, went home and made a whole
new set of preemie-sized clothes for the diminutive baby.
She was raised in the home she lives in today on the
street named for her father. He was just 19 years old when
he helped build the house in 1900. His own father had died
after cutting the wood for the home that was originally a
log house.
"I've lived in this house all my life," says Leona,
speaking with vigorous humor as her apparently boundless
energy is somewhat dispelled through her rocking chair
located in the middle room of the ancient home in which
four generations of her family have lived. The home is
gaily decorated with old and new country flavored work of
art, or a mixture of the two, as evidenced by the Seth
Thomas clock that sits upon the mantle.
Her youngest son Dale, who purchased the home from his
mother after the death of her husband Tim, joins his
mother in telling a story about the old clock. Leona had
faced the inside of the clock's cabinet with a pretty
needlepoint design and glued to its wooden frame small
wooden mice. One clockmaker was appalled at the defacement
of the historic piece while his partner called the Aden
family, Dale relates, with bad news. "He said it was eat
up with mice," he chuckles while Leona shrugs, laughing,
"The mice ran up the clock!"
The old homeplace holds many memories for Leona, who grew
up with both of her grandmothers in this house.
"Mother said she had to take us to the basement to whip us
because they didn't want us whipped," Leona recalls
humorously. Her mother was unbiased when it came to
punishing Leona and her brother Jeff, who was five days
and four years younger than his doting sister; if she
didn't get the right answer from the close-knit siblings,
both of them got a whipping.
"I loved him; that's one reason I cried when I started
school; I didn't want to leave him," says Leona
plaintively.
She was seven years old when she started school at the
rural Hico schoolhouse where Ms. Hallie Sparks was her
teacher for eight years. Her incessant tears were matched
by Ms. Sparks apparently tender heart, for Leona recalls
her teacher as a "little bitty short woman" who would
bounce Leona to sleep and lay her down to rest on the car
seat she brought inside.
Leona says she never understood, upon starting high school
in McKenzie, why there was a different teacher for every
class. She excelled, however, and after graduation
attended Bethel College for two years in order to become a
teacher. Her parents visited Bethel President Roy N. Baker
upon her admission and advised the farming family had no
other transportation for Leona except by the same school
bus that had transported her to high school.
"President Baker said if I was late just slip in the back
of the classroom and if I had to leave early to catch the
bus, just get up and leave," Leona related. So, Leona
caught the bus each morning, which dropped her off at the
Bethel campus and returned for her every afternoon.
Leona had completed her student teaching when she met Tim
Aden who she married after a ten-month courtship. The
serviceman was in his father's downtown grocery store when
he spied Leona walking down the street.
"He asked his sister who I was, and she said, 'I'll go ask
Merle Featherstone," Leona recalls.
When he called her for a date, her father refused to let
her go, however, until he went to town and asked everybody
he knew what they knew about him.
He returned home with the pensive observation, "You know,
I couldn't find out a thing bad about Tim Aden."
Leona's mother had some bad news for Tim, however, after
he presented her with an engagement ring on her birthday.
"Tim, she doesn't know how to cook a thing."
"She can learn," he replied, undaunted in his goal.
"She made me kill and dress a chicken and cook it the day
before we got married," laughs Leona.
The couple married on June 22, 1947 when she was 20 and he
was 30 years old, fashioning a home for themselves in the
apartment above his father's store.
Leona had little time to consider her former teaching
aspirations as six Aden children began appearing one at a
time, like stair steps at first then broadening to several
years apart until baby Dale was born when Leona was 42.
Mary Lee's arrival July 24, 1948 was almost a first
anniversary gift for the couple, followed a year and a
half later by Carolyn on January 19, 1950; Tim, Jr. on
December 7, 1953; Tom on July 30, 1956; Jane on May 18,
1963, and Dale on June 3, 1969.
"I always wanted a big family," Leona shares, "My uncle
laughed at me - I'd always said I was going to have eight.
'What'd you stop for,' he said.
She smiles, "I loved it; I know people would feel sorry
for me but I was always glad when summer came and the kids
could be out of school."
In those days Leona made all her own and her daughters'
clothing plus the boys' sport jackets. She gardened and
canned besides helping out in the fields. The kids worked,
too.
"We'd put all of them in the patch hoeing," she
reminisces. "Little Tim would say (moaning), 'We never
will get done; we won't get through 'til dark.' Now he
manages a 3,000 acre farm for his daddy-in-law," she
laughs.
She continues, still upbeat but with a sense of wonder, "I
look back and wonder how we made it; times were different
then than now."
Leona's happiness was enhanced when Betty Wiggins moved to
McKenzie in 1958 with the arrival of Gaines Manufacturing
Company. "We've lived by each other through the years;
she's just like the sister to me I never had," declares
Leona, recalling joint painting and wallpapering ventures
between their homes. "We did everything together," she
says.
Leona and Tim moved back to the family farm after her
father died and remodeled the old homeplace. In what has
become a family tradition, her mother lived in the home
with them.
Betty and her family came too, purchasing land from the
Adens on the corner of Vernon Thomas Road just down the
road from Leona, where they stayed for many years. "It
like to have killed me; I cried and cried when they put
that house up for sale," Leona says fervently regarding
Betty's move to town, then in her typically upbeat manner
continues, "But it's got to where it's not as far now."
Tragically, Jeff was killed in an automobile accident on
July 26, 1977 when he was just 46 years old. Already
weakened by illness, their mother succumbed six months
later on January 3, 1978.
"I never questioned why; I guess the Lord knows best,"
states Leona, "If you wasn't a Christian I don't know how
people do it without the faith."
Tim was maintenance supervisor at the McKenzie school
system and Leona also worked at the school under his
supervision for ten years. They both retired in 1980 when
Leona was 53. When she alluded that she could continue to
work, her husband replied, "Aw, we might want to go
fishing."
The family always enjoyed summer vacations to places like
Mammoth Cave and "little things like that," Leona shares.
Around 1976 Leona and Tim began a seven year spree of
summer camping at Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, roughing
it in a tent for a few years before buying a pop-up
camper.
"I never will forget Tim said, "Mama, you've come a long
way," smiles Leona, who declares she was satisfied with
tent camping.
The couple sold the camper after their final trip together
in 1983 as Tim's health declined. Tim died on December 30,
1985 after 38 years of marriage.
As the years have flown, Leona's family names have grown
to include Nana, Mama (pronounced Mamaw), Grandmother and
Great-Great as her own brood of youngsters has added 12
grandchildren and going-on-four great grandchildren to the
family.
Mary Lee and James Hall live in Memphis with their two
children, Amanda and John Luke.
Carolyn and John Lovelace also live in Memphis and have
two children, Sean and John David. Sean and his wife are
expecting Leona's fourth great grandchild.
Tim and Carolyn Aden reside in Malden, Missouri. Their
oldest daughter, Christy Hicks, had Leona's first two
great grandchildren, Claire and Emma. Their younger
daughter is Laura Paton.
Tommy and Donna Aden live in Pontotoc, Mississippi and
have two children, Alex Fauver (who is the father of
Leona's third great grandchild, Dillon) and Abby Reed
Aden.
Jane and Greg Sutton live in Sikeston, Missouri with their
two children, Ashley and Aaron; and Dale and Rhonda live
at the family homestead with Leona and their daughters
Bethany and Christine.
"The rest lived away so I didn't get to go to their
ballgames," says Leona who enjoys picking up Bethany from
basketball practice at McKenzie Middle School and
attending her games.
"It feels good to feel you're needed," she says. "They
help me and I help them."
"She still does all the cooking," says Dale, "I guess if
she gets tired of it she'll quit."
Leona also enjoys decorating, working in the yard, and
knitting (she has a beautiful sweater in progress). She
sings in the choir and teaches adult Sunday School at
Presbyterian U.S.A. Church in McKenzie, and loves to read,
fish, and shop.
Oldest daughter, Mary Lee, treats her to a special treat
each year, a trend she started six years ago on Leona's
70th birthday with a Caribbean cruise. Among other trips,
in 1999, Leona enjoyed a cool but beautiful cruise to
Alaska; saw Niagara Falls and toured Pennsylvania
Dutch/Amish country in 2000 when she went north for
grandson Sean's wedding; had her dream vacation to Hawaii
in 2001, and just returned from New York where she saw the
Broadway play Thoroughly Modern Millie.
The secret to long life - or from the perspective of one
in the presence of vigorously active, cheerful and young
looking Leona Aden, the secret to youthfulness - is to
keep moving, she guesses.
"For two solid days we walked, walked, walked," relates
Leona concerning her trip to New York that entailed
catching the subway to go here and there across New York
and New Jersey. "Mary Lee every little bit would say, 'How
are you doing?' I finally told her, 'Honey I'm not dead
yet,'" Leona laughs, slapping her knee.
She slowed down just a tad last year after falling off the
kitchen counter while hanging wallpaper border. "I
couldn't quite reach the top so I got up on the cabinet
and fell," she admits. "My head hit the floor first and my
little dog came flying in there. I moved my legs, then I
moved my arms and said, 'Thank you, Lord.'"
Her little feist Prissy was her constant companion for
fourteen years before passing away recently, watching at
the door for her when she was away and remaining
faithfully at her side when she was at home, even sleeping
with her until her arthritis was so advanced she could no
longer hop onto the bed. "She didn't know she was a dog,"
says Leona sadly, still missing her.
Counting her blessings, she considers Dale who smiles from
across the room as he helps recall memories from
yesteryear. "He's been a blessing because he stayed
around," nods Leona, "He's the fourth generation of our
family in this house."
"We bought the house from her and she stayed with us and
it's worked out great," Dale smiles, "She's a good mama."
"Well, you're a good son," she says, "All my kids are
great; I'm proud of every one of them... I'd do it all
over again." |
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