Marguerite
Rachel Floyd & her father, Lafayette Maxwell Alexander
This is the continuation from the post I did on Wednesday,
March 15, 2017 about Amy Susan Floyd Loftis.
Amy’s daughter, Daisy, my Mamaw, told me that her mother had a child
before she married my great-grandfather, Jasper Guy ‘Jack’ Loftis in 1917. That child, a daughter, was named Margaret
Floyd, and she was born April 14, 1914 in Crittenden County, Kentucky in her
grandparents’ home. Amy and her
daughter Margaret, lived with Amy’s parents until January of 1917 when Amy
married Jack Loftis. Margaret stayed
with her grandparents, John and Anna Floyd.
Like my previous post stated I did not know until the
mid-1980’s that my Mamaw Loftis, had a daughter before she had my Mamaw. Margaret and Daisy were 3 years apart in
age. Mamaw said she was probably 11 or
12 years old before she even knew that Margaret was her sister and not just
another one of her cousins. Mamaw had
also heard that Margaret had married Curtis Rushing, 1910-1959, a local boy,
but she had heard nothing about her since that time, she just knew that they
had left Kentucky, but she did not know where they had gone.
Mamaw had ask me to see if I could find Margaret and their
other sister Mae, who had both left town and probably the state sometime in the
late 1930’s or so. I told you about Mae
in the previous post, finding her in Florida in 1990 and it was just six days
later I found Margaret up in Illinois in a suburb of Chicago, called Arlington
Heights.
I had been looking for both woman for the same
amount of time. I had previously ordered
a phone book for Crittenden County, Kentucky and it had arrived a day or two
after the SSDI CD’s. Since I did not
have any luck finding Margaret or Curtis in the Social Security Death Index
like I had with James Moreland, I looked up the Rushing surname in the phone
book and figured I would call everyone in it until I found someone who might
have known Curtis and Margaret. There were
only 15 or so Rushing’s listed, so I started with the first one. Everyone I talked to was very friendly, most
had no clue who I was talking about, they were all younger though, so that
could have been the reason. Finally, I
believe it was the ninth or tenth person I called, it was an older woman, I ask
her the same question I had ask all the others and she said, “Why yes I knew
them”.
Mrs. Rushing was the sweetest person, she told me she was 90
something, I don’t remember now how old exactly, but she said if she stayed as
healthy as she was now she wouldn’t mind sticking around to 100. We chatted for a while, she was a real
talker, right up my alley for sure.
Anyway, I finally steered her back to what I had called for and she told
me that Curtis had been dead for years, but she thought Margaret was still
living. I ask if she knew who I could
call to find out more and she said well Curtis had a brother in the nursing
home there in town and a granddaughter of hers worked there and she would call
her and see if she could get a phone number or something for me and then she
would call me back. Wow, my heart
started racing again, I knew I was on the right trail!
The next morning Mrs. Rushing called me back and
she started talking again and was telling me about her grandkids and a lot of
other things, but she finally got around to telling me she had what I was
looking for. She gave me Curtis
Rushing’s baby sisters name and phone number.
She also told me that Margaret was living up by Chicago, but her
brother-in-law didn’t have her number, that is why he had given just his
sisters phone number, he said she would have it. I thanked Mrs. Rushing over and over a few
times and she said, “Give me a call any time, she had enjoyed talking to me”.
It had just been four days now since I had found Mae. I dialed the number for Helen, baby sister to
Curtis and when she answered I told her who I was looking for. My heart was pumping like crazy, because she
said yes, Margaret was still living and lived up by her brother, Spencer who
kept an eye on her. She told me Curtis
had, had a heart attack when he was still young and died one morning right
after he walked out the door headed to work.
Marguerite hadn’t even closed the door yet when he fell. That was in 1959 and she never remarried, nor
did they have any children. Helen told
me that Marguerite held a grudge against her family and she wasn’t sure she
would want to talk to me. I told her how
my Mamaw had wanted me to find her and how Margaret’s mother had always
wondered what ever happen to her as well. After I said that, then Helen relaxed a
little. She told me to give her my phone
number and she would call her brother, Spencer and see what he thought. If Spencer thought, it was a good idea then
he would pass my phone number on to Margaret and have her call me.
This reunion was not going to be as easy as the one just a
few days before had been. The next
afternoon Helen called me back and said Spencer had talked to Margaret and she
was willing to talk to me and she would call when she was ready. That didn’t sound to promising, but there was
nothing I could do about it but wait.
This was the fifth day since I had found Mae in Florida.
On the sixth day, in the evening, I got the call I was
waiting for. Margaret was on the other
end of the line. She asks me why exactly
was I looking for her and what did I want from her??? I told her how my Mamaw had wanted me to not
only find her, but their younger sister, who had also disappeared and that I
had been looking for both since about 1985 and that I had found Mae just 6 days
previously in Florida. I told her Mae
had left because her Dad would not let her get married. Margaret told me she had left because she did
not think anyone loved her, especially her Mother, and she said that her
mother’s husband, Jack Loftis, did not want her around at all. She told me that after her grandfather, John
Floyd died, she decided it was time to break all ties and that is what she
did. John Floyd had died in 1937,
Margaret’s grandmother, Anna had died in 1919 just three months’ shy of
Margaret’s fifth birthday.
I told her that I thought her name was Margaret as that is
what my Mamaw called her and she said yes it was, but after she left, she did
not want something so plain and common and she wanted a middle name too, so she
chose Marguerite Rachel, because that sounded a little higher class then what
she had grown up with. She told me she
was always trying to better herself and trying to put behind her the feelings
she had grown up with of being abandoned, not wanted or loved. Here was a grown woman 76 years old who had
never felt like anyone loved her or wanted her, except her husband and he had
died and left her too. Aunt Marguerite
asks for my Mamaw’s phone number and address and told me that in a few days she
would call her and talk to her.
Aunt Marguerite told me that she had a lot to think about
and she had more questions she wanted to ask me, but she needed to rest and she
said she would call me back when she was ready.
I wondered as we ended our conversation if I would ever hear from her
again, she had conveniently not given me her phone number or address, even
though I had asked for it a couple of times during our conversation.
I called my Mamaw again just like I had six days before and
told her I had found Marguerite. The
funny thing is and I forgot to mention this in my last post, but my Uncle Guy
was at Mamaw’s house when I called the first time and he had answered the
phone. He said, “Mom has a sister named
Mae”? Now here I am calling again and
Uncle Guy answers the phone again and I say I found Marguerite too. I wish I could have seen his face, because
his voice sure sounded confused. Uncle
Guy didn’t know about either one of them.
My Mom knew because I had talked to her about it, but none of her other
siblings had any idea.
Aunt Marguerite called my Mamaw a few days later like she
said she would and then she called me back about a week after our first
conversation. Then for the next couple
of months she called almost every week with more questions. She did give me her phone number and address
the second time she called, but said that she would call me when she was ready
again. Soon though, she gave me
permission to call her if I wanted to at any time. After that either she or myself would call at
least once a month, sometimes more and just talk and she always had questions
about someone she remembered in her family.
The following is just one of the stories that Aunt
Marguerite told me that I will never forget.
This story is about when Anna Susan Davis Floyd died on a very cold,
icy, wintery morning in January of 1919.
Aunt Marguerite was not quite five years old, but she followed her Ma
everywhere. Ma was the name all of
Anna’s grandchildren called her. Pa and
Uncle Luther had left the day before to go dig wells over in Illinois and were
going to be gone three or four days.
Marguerite and Ma got up early like always and while Ma stoked the
stove, Marguerite ate a cold biscuit.
They would have a hot breakfast after the chores were done. They fed the chickens, slopped the hogs and
then went in the barn and put the old milk cow in her stall so Ma could milk
her. Uncle Luther usually did the
milking when he was home, but if he was busy or gone Ma always did.
Ma got the stool and set down and patted the old cow on her
flank and then told Marguerite to go and get a fleck of hay to feed the
cow. Marguerite ran to get the hay, but
when she got back Ma was lying beside the stool. The cow thankfully was just standing there
eating the hay that Marguerite had just given her a few moments before. Marguerite just thought her Ma was sleeping
and so she tried to wake her up, but Ma didn’t wake up and so Marguerite laid
down beside her because she was getting cold by this time. Soon Marguerite tried again to wake Ma and
she still was asleep, so she went in the house and got an old quilt off the bed
and took it out to the barn and covered up Ma and herself and laid back down
and fell asleep. When she woke up she
tried again, she knew something was wrong but in her little mind at that time
she did not want to think something bad, so she just kept thinking Ma is asleep
that’s all!!!
Marguerite said she went in the house and got
something to eat. There were always cold
biscuits, or food in the pantry that she could get to. She had never lit a fire before so she didn’t
try to do that, but soon the old stove was just as cold as could be and would
not get her warm anymore. She got more
blankets out of the house and took them out to the barn and covered Ma up some
more. She said for two whole days she
laid beside her grandmother, hoping and wishing that she would wake up, knowing
that she probably wasn’t going to.
At the beginning of the fourth day of being gone, Pa and
Uncle Luther got back. There was no
smoke coming from the chimney, the barn door was open and they could hear the
cow mooing rather loudly. Uncle Luther
ran for the house and Pa ran to the barn.
What he saw about made his old heart stop. There was his wife and granddaughter laying
under a pile of quilts and he could detect no moment. Uncle Luther got there about that time and Pa
told him to run in and get a fire going in the house. Pa raised the blankets up and in so doing,
Marguerite woke up. She was very cold
and Pa realized then that his wife, Anna, was dead. He wrapped Marguerite in one of the blankets
and carried her into the house and set her by the stove. Pa sent Uncle Luther for help and they buried
Anna the next day.
I cannot imagine the horror for that little girl, lying
beside her grandmother for two full days, cold and alone and soon to feeling
even more alone when she starts getting passed around from family to family. My heart aches for her to this day, every
time I think about some of the things that she had to endured.
The following picture taken in 1950, is probably
one of the youngest pictures I have of Margaret who was now married and going
by the name, Marguerite Rachel Rushing.
Crazy thing my third daughter is named Rachel, for one of my husband’s
great-grandmothers and I started looking for Aunt Marguerite shortly after she
was born in 1984. Aunt Marguerite is the
one that told me that her grandma, Anna Susan Davis Floyd, looked just like my
daughter, Rachel. I think my daughter,
Rachel favors Aunt Marguerite in this picture some.
Aunt Marguerite didn’t have a whole lot of pictures of
herself or of Curtis, I think it was for the following reason. They were married February 17, 1940 in
Owensboro, Daviess County, Kentucky she was 25 and Curtis was 29. She told me that she and Curtis, had both
decided, before they were even married, that neither one wanted any
children. Curtis was the oldest of
twelve kids that he had helped to support and Marguerite didn’t know who part
of her family was. So, they both decided
not to bring any children into the mix.
Why have pictures if you didn’t have anybody to pass them on too??? The following is one of the very few pictures
I have of Curtis Rushing, he was a handsome man for sure.
It was probably the third time if I remember correctly that
Aunt Marguerite called, that she asks the following question. Do you know who my Daddy was? I am 77 years old and I have never known who
my father was, can you answer that question?
I had wondered if or when she would ask and so I had asked Mamaw if she
knew who he might have been. Mamaw said
that she had never heard his name and that all she had ever heard was that he
had drowned. However, she did not know
when he had drowned or where. So, that
is what I told Aunt Marguerite.
Aunt Marguerite told me, “well if you found me, then maybe
you can find him too”. She said she
could remember as a child also hearing that he had drowned, but if she would
ask anyone after hearing that all she got was smacked and told she didn’t need
to be asking such questions. She said
another time she had done something and she heard one of the Aunts say, she
acts just like an Alexander. So, she
asks them is that my Daddy’s name and again she was smacked. Other than hearing that he had drowned, and
that his name may have been Alexander she did not know anything else. Aunt Marguerite told me from then on she
would set quietly and stay out of the way, but she was always listening hoping
someone would say something else about her Daddy, but she never heard more then
what she had already told me. From what
she had heard she had assumed that he had died either before she was born or
shortly after, if the drowning story was true that is, and Mamaw agreed, she
seem to remember hearing something about him dying around the time Marguerite was
born as well.
I was on the hunt again!
My Mamaw Loftis had lived in Crittenden County, Kentucky all her growing
up years. So, I figured Crittenden
County was likely where Aunt Marguerite’s Daddy was from too. Well there were quite a few people with the
first name Alexander in the county and there were also several people with the
surname of Alexander. I was born in
Crittenden County too and I know the area very well, the county borders on the
Ohio River and there are other smaller rivers, streams, ponds and lakes nearby,
so as you can guess there have been a lot of drownings over the years.
Since there were so many Alexander names
floating around, I decided to order some of the old newspapers from Crittenden
County that are on microfilm and that you can buy from the Margaret King
Library at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. The Crittenden Press has been publishing
their paper in Crittenden County since 1876.
I decided that since Aunt Marguerite was born April 14, 1914 that I
would look at the papers that covered nine months before she was born and a
year after she was born.
It took about 2 weeks to get the newspapers I had ordered
and thankfully I had an old microfilm reader I had bought and so I could set
down at the reader any time I wanted and go through those newspapers. There were no indexes and so it was page by
page and it was a weekly paper, so it was a slow process, but in that process I
ran across obituaries, marriage and birth announcements for other family
members that I did not have and some other cool information as well. It was not a waste of time! I was finding all kinds of drownings, young
boys, old men, men around the age of my Mamaw Loftis, but none that fit what I
thought I was looking for. It took a few
months to go through those papers. I had
started by looking in the papers after Aunt Marguerite was born, but there was
no one that even came close to what I could assume might be the one I was
looking for.
So, I started back before Marguerite was born with the month
of July since my Mamaw Loftis would have gotten pregnant about that time. I went through all of July and I was almost
finished with the month of August 1913, when my heart about stopped and the
goose bumps got a mile high on my arms.
A front-page story appears that makes me cry, it is from the Crittenden
Record-Press in Marion, Kentucky in the issue dated Thursday, August 28,
1913. This following is just a small part
of that article; it took up one whole column.
“Accidentally Drowns - Lafe Alexander, a Marion Boy, Meets his Death at
Cave-in-Rock - Last Thursday night at 8 o'clock just as the gasoline boat of
Richard McConnell, his brother-in-law, was preparing to land for the night,
Lafe Alexander was accidentally thrown overboard in some way that will never be
known. He was sitting on the bow, and as
the stage plank was projecting out in the way, he volunteered to put it up on
the deck and in doing so lost his balance and fell into the water in front of
the swift moving boat, and was swept under it in an instant. Lafayette Maxwell Alexander was born July 7,
1893, and was therefore in his 21st year.”
I just knew this was who I was looking for and that he was
Aunt Marguerite’s father. Now, all I had
to do was prove it!!!
I did not tell Aunt Marguerite or Mamaw what I had found, I
did not want to get their hopes up. I
called Aunt Marguerite and she ask if I had, had any luck yet and I answer not
anything I am sure of. I ask her to call
Aunt Sarah, I had already called Mamaw and ask her to call Aunt Sarah as
well. I wanted them to ask her again if
she knew the name of Aunt Marguerite’s father and I didn’t want them to know
the name I had found. Aunt Sarah lived
in Terra Haute, Indiana Mamaw was in Kentucky and Marguerite was in Illinois
and I was out in Arizona. They both had
been calling her and asking, but she would just steer the conversation
somewhere else each time. Aunt
Marguerite told me that she was going to start calling her every day until she
got the answers she was looking for!!!
I knew bits and pieces of the following story from my Mamaw
and from things that Aunt Marguerite remembered as well. But it was Aunt Sarah, Mamaw Loftis’ baby
sister, that finally told the whole story, though it took quite a few phone
calls to get it out of her. I had tried,
Mamaw had tired and Aunt Marguerite called her almost every day and Aunt Sarah
kept asking why we all needed to know what happened so many years ago. We kept telling her that everyone involved
was long dead and it wasn’t going to hurt anyone. Aunt Sarah was the only person still alive
that would have known who he was and what we were asking about.
Finally, at least a couple of months or more
after I had found that newspaper article, Aunt Sarah finally talked and it was
Aunt Marguerite she first told it to.
“All right, all right”, Aunt Sarah had said to Aunt Marguerite, “I will
tell you if you want to know that bad”.
The following is just what I was told by Aunt Marguerite after Aunt
Sarah finally told her who her Daddy was.
Remember I had not told anyone about the newspaper article I had found a
couple of months or so before.
Aunt Sarah said, “I was just a young girl, but I remember
that Amy was so much in love with him.
That is all she talked about, but for some reason Daddy didn’t like him
and so they mostly went out behind Daddy’s back. Anyway, Daddy came home one evening after
being in town and said everyone was talking about how he had drowned in the
river the night before. He said he just
like that and Amy went running out of the house and out to the barn. I remember Mama going out to talk to her and she
finally came back in and her eyes were all red and swollen from crying. Seems like she cried for weeks and then she
realized she was pregnant and started crying again. We didn’t talk about things like that much
back in those days, but I know Daddy was sure upset and gave her a hard
time. There at first he was talking
about sending her off somewhere, but Mama put her foot down and said no she was
staying right there! So, Daddy stopped
talking about it. Soon you were born and
Amy just cried and cried that day, saying she wished your Daddy could have been
here to see you born and how much he would have loved you.”
Aunt Sarah had still not said what his name was, but Aunt
Marguerite was sure enjoying hearing about how her parents, had loved each
other. She had been told lots of things
over the years as a child, like he was married and they had an affair, it was
just a one night stand, things like that told to a little girl. I still can’t imagine doing that to a child
and it had left a lot of scars on Aunt Marguerite’s heart and soul.
Again, Aunt Marguerite had said, “Could you tell me his name,
please?” and Aunt Sarah said, “If you want to know that bad, I guess I
can”. Aunt Sarah was real quiet and then
she said, “He drowned in the river over by Cave-in-Rock, he was working on his
brother’s boat and his last name was Alexander, but I will have to think on his
first name”. She went on talking for a
few more minutes and then suddenly right in the middle of her conversation, she
said Lafe, his name was Lafe, it was short for Lafayette, but Amy always called
him Lafe. I think most folks called him
Lafe if I remember correctly”. Aunt
Sarah was 12 years old at the time Lafe died, and had just turned 13 the month
before her niece, Marguerite was born, she was now 90 years old, but thankfully
she could remember his name.
Aunt Marguerite called me that evening and told me the whole
story and ask if I thought I could find her Daddy, Lafe Alexander and his
people. When I heard his name, I just
about hollered out loud, but all I said was, I already had! I told her I had found the newspaper article
over two months before, but I hadn’t said anything because I could not prove it
was him. She was so quiet after I said
that, but then she said, “could you read me the entire article”? I could hear her softly crying, but she was
trying her hardest to not let me know that.
She had told me several times she was not an emotional person, she had
to learn to control her emotions, it was just easier that way. She had also told me she had high blood
pressure now. She said it was probably
my fault, but she was laughing when she said it. She said it was because she never had it
until after I found her. J
Aunt Marguerite finally knew her Daddy’s name it
had taken almost 77 years, but she finally knew who she was. She also knew that her parents loved each
other too. She told me she could die
tomorrow a very happy woman, knowing now who she was and that her parents loved
each other and that they had loved her too.
The following is a picture of Aunt Marguerite with Aunt Sarah and Aunt Sarah’s
two sons Clifton and James Yates, about a year or so after the above
conversation took place. The next
picture is of Aunt Marguerite and my Mamaw, Daisy, at a Floyd Reunion a year or
two after I found her. Everyone is now
deceased.
Next she wanted me to trace her Daddy’s genealogy just like
I had her mother’s. I was on the hunt
again!!!
I won’t go into all the details, but I found quite a bit of
information on the Alexander family.
Lafe was the son of Timothy Jackson ‘Jack’ Alexander, 1852-before 1930,
and Mary Jane Conger, 1851-1942, and was the baby of their seven children. These children were, Addie Bell, John
Jackson, Lula A., Ida, Olive Bertha, and Alice Mina. I took the Alexander and Conger surnames back
several generations as well. I unfortunately
don’t know a lot about Lafe’s early life, after all he was only 20 years old when
he died. I do know that he was the mail
man on the Salem Road, which is the road Amy lived on as a young woman, so that
is probably when they first met. Other than
that, I don’t know much else about him.
I did find a niece of Lafe’s, that was still living in
Cave-in-Rock, Illinois. Her name was
Mary McConnell Pearson, 1907-2006, and it was her Daddy’s boat that Lafe had
fallen from that dreadful day. She was
almost seven years old when Lafe died and she said she could still remember
that day, just like it was yesterday.
She said her grandmother, Lafe’s Mom, never came across the river ever
again. If they wanted to see her they
had to go over to Marion. She said her
Uncle Lafe was always giving her and her brother piggy back rides and he was
always laughing and joking.
The following are pictures of Mary, her brother,
Everett and their parents Richard and Olive Alexander McConnell. I believe the picture of Mary and her brother
was probably about the time that Lafe died. I found these in the Pictorial History
of Crittenden County, Kentucky.
I told Mary that her Uncle Lafe had, had a daughter that was
born after his death and she was happy to hear that. She thought she was the last of all her
cousins, as she was 85 years old when I found her in 1992. Her Mom was, Olive Bertha Alexander, an older
sister of Lafe and wife of Richard McConnell.
I told her I would be in Kentucky that coming summer and I would love to
come over and visit with her. She said
come right on over and I will be looking for pictures in the meantime and see
if I can find one of Uncle Lafe for you to give to Marguerite.
The day I went over to Cave-in-Rock in 1992, my Mom, her
older sister, Barbara and their parents, Daisy and Ermon Fraley, my Mamaw and
Papaw, went with me. They all could not
wait to hear about Lafe and his family.
Unfortunately, Aunt Marguerite was unable to come down from Illinois to
be there with all of us. However, her
cousin, Mary, had been calling and talking to her and telling her about the Alexander
family, since finding out about her.
Mary’s daughter was also there when we got to the
house. They had lemonade, sweet tea and
little sandwiches, ready for us when we arrived. Mary told us quite a bit about herself and
her family, she was a retired school teacher and was a gracious host. We had a wonderful time while we were
there. She had lots of pictures for us
to look through. We were hoping there
would be a picture of Lafe, because Aunt Marguerite really wanted to know what
her father looked like. There were
pictures of the boat, named the “Esta”, that Lafe had fallen from, there were
pictures of Mary’s parents and her siblings, but no pictures of Lafe. Mary said that her Daddy use to have an
office down by the wharf and a lot of their things were stored there at one
time. When the flood of 1937 hit, they
lost most everything that was there in that building. By the way the boat had been named for Mary
as Esta was her middle name.
There is a pretty good article that tells about Mary’s
father, Richard McConnell and the work he did up and down the Ohio River that
Lafe would have helped him with, at this link:
Mary then remembered she had set aside some copies of some
pictures for us to send to Marguerite and so she went to get them. When she came back in the room she handed us
a picture of Lafe’s parents, pictures of the boat he had been on and she also had
an old postcard that had been address to Lafe.
She said the postcard wasn’t signed, but since it was address to Lafe
then maybe Marguerite would like to have it.
The postcard was dated almost two years before Lafe had died. It was a love note from some girl that said
how much she loved him and she couldn’t wait to see him again in a few weeks at
the dance, but there was no name signed on it saying who the girl was. We had brought some old letters of Mamaw
Loftis with us, just in case we ran across something while we were there, so we
could compare handwriting. The
handwriting was similar, but not enough that we could say for certain it was
hers. I laid the pictures and the
postcard on the table beside me while we continued talking and Mary continued
telling us what she could remember about Lafe and the family. I was disappointed that I didn’t have
something more concrete for Aunt Marguerite, but at least now she would know
what her grandparents looked like and Mary had said that Lafe favored his
father quite a bit.
The following is a copy of the picture of Aunt Marguerite’s
grandparents, Timothy Jackson Alexander and Mary Jane Conger, that Mary gave me
that day. Unfortunately, I was still new
enough at doing family history, that I did not make copies of all the things Mary
gave me before I sent them to Aunt Marguerite.
When I was back home in 2012, I went to my cousin’s house to see if I
could make copies of Aunt Marguerite’s pictures and other documents. Aunt Marguerite had lived with him for a
while after moving down to Evansville from Chicago, so he had all her old
stuff. He only had a few things left of
hers and the postcard and the pictures of the boat were not in the box of stuff
he brought out. What happen to them I do
not know, but it makes me sad that the postcard especially is no longer around.
It must have been about twenty minutes later that I picked
up the postcard again looking at the blue forget-me-nots on the front of it and
said to myself, “I sure wish this had been from Mamaw Loftis, it would have
been so nice to have something from either Lafe to Amy or vice versa, to give
to Aunt Marguerite”. I figured at least Aunt
Marguerite would have something that her Daddy would have held in his hands and
read. I turned the postcard over and
read the little love note again and then looked at Lafe’s name and the postmark
above his name. Then almost before my
eyes, just to the left of the postmark, a name appeared, Amy Floyd. My heart about skipped a beat or two and I
blinked, rubbed my eyes and looked again.
Sure, enough there was her name, the name I had wished for, Amy Floyd,
just as clear as can be, right next to the postmark date.
Aunt Barb was setting beside me and I said, look at this and
she replied, oh I already did, but I said look again. So, to humor me she took the card and looked
it over again. I ask her what did she
see next to the postmark date. There’s
Mamaw’s name!!! That wasn’t there before,
she said! Then she reached over and got
my Mom’s attention and said Jeannie look at this again. Mom said almost the exact thing Aunt Barb had
said, I have already looked at it. Good,
but look again Aunt Barb, said. So, my
Mom took the postcard and she is looking it all over and Aunt Barb and I both
say look by the postmark. Next we showed
it to Mamaw and Papaw, both looked to and Mamaw had tears running down her eyes
when she saw her Momma’s name and she said, “I can feel Momma with us so much right
now”.
When I was given that little postcard, and Mamaw Loftis’
name wasn’t on it, at least at first, the blue forget-me-nots on the front was
like Amy was telling Lafe, please don’t forget about me. Aunt Marguerite would now know that they had loved
each other and had for at least two years, and that is what matters. I don’t think Amy ever forgot him though, and
she never spoke his name again, after Marguerite was born, at least not that
anyone was aware of.
That postcard and the forget-me-nots on front
made me perk up and pay closer attention when I heard a message a few months
ago, given by Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency of
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day-Saints, and it reminded me again of
the little postcard I was given to give to my Aunt Marguerite. It reads as follows:
“A while ago I was walking through a beautiful garden with
my wife and daughter. I marveled at the glory and beauty of God’s creation. And
then I noticed, among all the glorious blooms, the tiniest flower. I knew the
name of this flower because since I was a child I have had a tender connection
to it. The flower is called forget-me-not.
I’m not exactly sure why this tiny flower has meant so much
to me over the years. It does not attract immediate attention; it is easy to
overlook among larger and more vibrant flowers; yet it is just as beautiful,
with its rich color that mirrors that of the bluest skies—perhaps this is one
reason why I like it so much.
And there is the haunting plea of its name. There is a
German legend that just as God had finished naming all the plants, one was left
unnamed. A tiny voice spoke out, “Forget me not, O Lord!” And God replied that
this would be its name.
As a child, when I would look at the little forget-me-nots,
I sometimes felt a little like that flower—small and insignificant. I wondered
if I would be forgotten by my family or by my Heavenly Father.
Years later I can look back on that young boy with
tenderness and compassion. And I do know now—I was never forgotten.
There is something inspiring and sublime about the little
forget-me-not flower. I hope it will be a symbol of the little things that make
your lives joyful and sweet. Please never forget that you must be patient and
compassionate with yourselves, that some sacrifices are better than others.
Please never forget that the “why” of the gospel of Jesus Christ will inspire
and uplift you. And never forget that your Heavenly Father knows, loves, and
cherishes you.
You are not forgotten.”
- Dieter F. Uchtdorf -
A flower that special was chosen to be on the front of a postcard
given to a young man many years ago.
That postcard brought love and closure to that young man’s daughter many,
many years later. That daughter, had
thought she was unwanted and unloved, until she saw that postcard and those
flowers on the front, made her realize she had not been forgotten, but was
wanted and loved.
Marguerite Rachel Floyd Rushing past away in Evansville,
Vanderburgh County, Indiana on July 8, 2011 she was 97 years old. I was able to visit with her in April of
2011, just a few months before she passed away.
She was getting weaker, but still had her memory and we had a nice visit
together, just she and I. She thanked me
for finding her and giving her the family she thought she never had, I guess
that was her goodbye to me. Her father,
Lafayette Maxwell Alexander passed away on August 21, 1913 at Cave-in-Rock,
Hardin County, Illinois he had just turned 20 years old just the month
before. Her mother, Amy Susan Floyd
Loftis, died November 8, 1968 in Paducah, McCracken County, Kentucky she was 76
years old.
The following is the last time I saw Aunt
Marguerite in Evansville in April of 2011, my cousin Scott took the one of me
with Aunt Marguerite.
Marguerite
was buried by her husband, Curtis Ashby Rushing in the Mapleview Cemetery in
Marion, Crittenden County, Kentucky.
Lafe was buried at the Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Crittenden County, Kentucky. He and his sister, Alice Mina Alexander
Burgess share a tombstone together. Amy
was buried at the Union Baptist Church Cemetery in Union, Crittenden County,
Kentucky. Her daughter, Dorothy had been
buried there in 1929 and she wanted to be buried by her. After Mamaw Loftis died they decided to have
Papaw Loftis who had been buried at the Holiness Cemetery in Marion,
disinterred and reburied by Mamaw Loftis at Union. The following are all their tombstones. You will notice that the year of birth for
both Lafe and Amy is incorrect.
Though
they were never able to be completely together in life, they are at least all
buried in the same county, and my belief is they are all together now rejoicing
in heaven. Marguerite, Lafe and Amy, none
of you will ever be forgotten, and every time I see blue forget-me-nots I will
remember.
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