Notes for Mae Ellis Poole

GAYLE AND MARTY GALBRAITH GENEALOGY

Notes for Mae Ellis Poole

My mother, Mae Ellis Poole, married my father when she was fifteen years old. I was born 11 months later in the front bedroom of Grandfather GS Jones house in Thompsonville, Illinois. He died one year before I was born. Mother was attended during the birth by our across-the-street neighbor and friend, Ada Armes. What a tender age to have a child! Unlike today's situation with most families, Mom was surrounded by a support group of friends and relatives. My Grandmother and Grandfather, Cora and Otto Poole lived in the GS Jones house with us. My other grandparents, Oscar and Ann Galbraith, lived on a little farm just a quarter-mile away down the Akin Road. Ada Armes, who doted on Mom and I, lived just across the street.

In those days, most of the young men around Thompsonville had to go on the road to find an adequate job. My dad and uncle were in this category. When I was three and four, I remember that Dad was gone a lot of the time, working out-of-state. During these times, I am sure my grandparents took good care of Mom and I. I have only a few hazy memories of Mom, until we moved to Peoria, Ill when I was five. By this time Grandma and Grandpa Poole had died, my brother Lee had been born, and we moved to Peoria so that Dad could find steady work as a carpenter.

We were relatively poor, and every week, by Wednesday or Thursday our money ran out. On Thursday, we would often have beans cooked in bacon rinds, and biscuits or cornbread. This was close to the cheapest meal you could prepare in those days. On Friday, Mom would sometimes fix thick cakes of fried bread, made from flour and bacon grease. That was THE cheapest meal . She was an excellent cook, and could make almost anything taste good. About this time, Dad was developing into a first class alcoholic. He must have had a genetic predisposition for alcoholism, because, over the next twenty years, I watched him struggle with it and always lose in the end. When Dad would be out on an alcoholic binge, Mom was filled with anxiety and couldn't quit worrying and talking about it. This just aggravated the problem as far as Lee and I were concerned. In spite of this, we were a very close-knit and loving family. When my dad was sober, he had many admirable qualities, which I tried to emulate.

Mom had a nervous disposition, and was a non-stop talker. She rarely let more than 20 seconds of silence pass in her presence. To protect our own sanity, my brother and I got in the habit of tuning out her chatter until it was just a background noise. So did Dad. Occasionally, this got us into trouble. Once, during one of her mealtime monologues, she asked dad a question. Of course, he wasn't tuned in and couldn't answer her. Mom started carrying on and complaining. "You never pay any attention to what I say! You don't love me!"
Dad growled out the brutal truth. " Of course I love Ya! If I didn't, I couldn't stand Ya!"

Once, when I was thirteen, my pet snake got away from me inside our old '36 Ford. It crawled up under the dash, and I couldn't find it. A few minutes later, it poked its head out of a hole in the dash where the cigarette lighter once was. I went into the house and told mom, but she was not concerned about it. We were preparing to go somewhere with my Uncle George and Aunt Eldie. Mom was secretly full of glee, because she knew Uncle George was deathly afraid of snakes. As we went out to the car to leave, Mom was giggling and carrying on like a schoolgirl. George couldn't understand what was wrong with her. This kept on until we were quite a ways down the road. George couldn't stand it any more and said, "May, what is wrong with you?"
Giggling uncontrollably, she said. "Gayle's snake got loose in the car and we can't find it!" George turned pale and demanded to be let out of the car, but Dad wouldn't stop. Mom kept laughing so hard I thought she would bust.

As my brother and I were growing up, Mom gave us the very best she had. She worked like a slave in the house and provided three good home-cooked meals for us every day. She got up before five AM and fixed dad a hot breakfast before he went to work. An hour and a half later, she would fix breakfast for Lee and I before we went to school. After we got older, she fixed us a brown-bag lunch to take to school with us. When we had fried chicken, Mom would eat the back and neck, claiming they were her favorite parts. Us children always seemed to get the breast and wishbone. She waited on us like a servant, and I didn't know this wasn't the norm until much later. I often thought how lucky we were to have her for a mother. My foolish expectations must have been a hardship for my wife, Marty, until she got me trained (this is a work-in-progress as I near my 64th birthday).

Mom loved to shop, even when she had little money. Once we were in the White Star Market, a small grocery and butcher shop near our home. Mom was at the meat case and asked to see some of their best steak. She wasn't content to look thru the glass face of the cooler. She wanted to see it up close and personal. The Butcher showed her the steak. Then she said " let me see some of those pork steaks". As this process continued, I started to edge away from Mom, so no one would know I was with her. When she had looked at nearly everything in the meat case, she finally said "Oh, just give me a pound of hamburger." The butcher sighed with a resigned expression, and echoed, "A pound of hamburger."

Dad and Lee and I went on lots of fishing, hunting, and camping trips. Mom always stayed home. This changed when I was about seventeen years old. We lived on a hill overlooking Lake Peoria. At that time it was a wonderful place to fish. Somehow, I had persuaded her to go fishing with me in an old wooden rowboat we had at the lake just below our house. I taught her how to cast a bass lure and we were fishing in a stumpy, weed-filled inlet. As I was retreiving my weedless lure on the other side of the boat, I heard Mom whisper, "Gayle, I've got one!" I turned and saw a big dogfish with her lure clamped firmly in his mouth. He was lying quietly in the water at the edge of the boat, looking calmly up at us. He hadn't been caught. He had just grabbed mom's lure and followed her retrieve up to the boat. Mom, thinking that the fish was caught, lifted her rod tip to bring the fish into the boat. When the fish felt the hook, he exploded into action, showering us with water and breaking her 20 lb test line like a cobweb.

This was the most memorable moment in my life as a sportsman. I had just watched a fish catch a human. I was filled with excitement and joy, as I saw how how thrilled she was by the experience. From that moment on, she was an avid fisherman. In the next twenty years, Mom and Dad, and my family had some woderful fishing vacations. If I could choose, this precious moment would be foremost in my memories of Mom.

My Dad died twenty years before Mother. From that time on, I took the responsibility for her care. If ever a man has loved his mother, I have loved mine.

BG Galbraith