In 1968 Nannette and I began the process of foreign missions appointment with the SBC Foreign Mission Board (now International Mission Board.) One of the requirements was to write our own personal life story. Recently I discovered Nannette’s life story–12-13 typewritten pages, a carbon copy. Since I had already begun to post my recollection of her history as I remembered it from her, I thought others might enjoy comparing our two versions of her life to see what she remembered and what I did not know or forgot. Here is her story
I was born on September 8, 1937 in Dyess, Arkansas to Edgar Clarence and Susie Weatherly Webb. My father was born February 19, 1884 in Faulkner County in Arkansas. He was an excellent student in High School, and upon graduation from High School, he taught school until changes in Arkansas education laws required college training for teachers. He felt he could not adequately support his wife and one child and attend college, so he left the teaching profession and began farming.
Dyess, Arkansas 
My family
I think he always regretted this decision especially after
his only brother did go on to receive his master’s degree and became a school
superintendent. Daddy never lost his interest in learning or in the process of
education. He was an avid reader and applied appropriate pressures to assure
that his five children were at least above average students. At the time of my
birth he was a member of what was then known as the School Board. He was also a
Justice of the Peace. He sometimes performed weddings in our home.
His other love was sports. He had attended a baseball school
while in High School and had hoped to play professional baseball. He maintained
his interest in athletics through the years and was understandably quite proud
when his youngest son Edwin developed into an outstanding athlete. I sometimes
resented having to do Edwin’s chores so that he could practice whatever sport
that happened to be in season.
Another motivating factor in his life was his religious background,
which was the Church of Christ. He never made any effort to bring up his children
in that church, although he attempted by various means to keep us out of other
denominations, particularly the Baptist.
My mother, May Weatherly Webb was born in 1895 also in
Faulkner Cunty. Her mother had been an invalid most of Mothers life, so she had
had vast experience in homemaking before she ever had a home of her own. Her
father owned a large farming area in the county and was seldom home.
Mother was of Missionary Baptist background, not there were never any real arguments between my parents about religion—or anything else, for that matter. Of course, they had been married so many years when I came along that they had had ample time to make any needed adjustments
(This is not exactly true, for Nannette shared with me that her father often criticized Baptists for their “mourner’s bench.” One day he asked Mrs. Webb “Where do you Baptists get your mourner’s bench in the Bible?” She replied, “The same place you Church of Christ get your debates and your blackboards.” Milton)
Mother was the comedienne of our family. Her conversations were
animated by gestures, movements and facial expressions which she invariably
added. I learned many of the hymns and songs that I know by heart from hearing
her sing them as she worked. I can still get a warm, secure feeling just
thinking of hearing her tender contralto voice at least three houses from home
when I was returning from school.
She didn’t have Daddy’s voice of authority, but she could
accomplish just as much with a limb from the peach tree. She maintained that
maids encouraged laziness (even if we could have afforded one) and that we
would grow up to be hoodlums if she didn’t switch us at least once a week.
My oldest brother Melvern was about twenty years old when I
was born. He enlisted in the Navy when I was only two or three. He did not marry
until he was thirty-five, so he lived at home at various times during my
childhood and early teens. It was to him that Edwin and I usually turned when
we needed money for the little extras. He probably couldn’t afford a wife until
we were old enough to have Saturday jobs to earn our own money. He and his wife
Jeanette lived in Lawton, Oklahoma with their four children where he was a
successful insurance salesman.
My next brother Elvis was already gone from home when I was
born and never lived at home after that. We saw him only once or twice a year,
so he really seemed more like an uncle. He married a nurse and they moved to Florida
where he had his own air conditioning service company.
My only sister Magalene was about fifteen when I was born. After
she graduated from high school, she went to Little Rock to enter business
school. About a year later she married Dick Vandiver, an insurance salesman and
one of my favorite people in all the world. His business required him to travel
a lot, so Sister and her three small children spent a lot of time with us. Then
after Daddy died in 1956, Mother and I lived with her and Dick in Little Rock.
The other member of Mother “second” family was Edwin, who was
three years older then me. Although we had more than our share of sibling
rivalries and I grew weary of living in his shadow in high school, I almost
idolized him. As I have already mentioned he was an outstanding athlete in high
school and college. He was quite handsome and as if he needed anything else, he
inherited Mother’s sense of humor. It was not the “in” thing at that time to
like your sister so he could be very cruel and often embarrassed me before people
(boys) when I would have preferred
to impress.
Our family had another very
beloved member, a foster brother Enoch Combs, who was Melvern’s age. Enoch came
to live with our famly in his early teens and remained with us until his
marriage. After that he made only occasional visits and became almost a
stranger to us. I think his wife probably had a lot to do with his changed
attitude toward us. My brothers still made special efforts to visit him.
In 1935 or 1936, the family
which included Melvern, Enoch, Elvis and Magalene and Edwin moved to Dyess, a “colony”
in the Mississippi Delta region of Arkansas. I think Daddy homesteaded a farm
there. I joined them by birth on September 8, 1937.
My memories of this period
include helping to pick cotton, milk the cow and riding the cotton to the gin
with Daddy. It was at the age of five that I learned that Enoch was not my “real”
brother. He still was as far as I was concerned.
We attended Sunday School and
the morning worship (really “preaching”) service at what was known as Road
Fourteen school House. I suppose it was non-denominational as we had a preacher
from a different denomination each Sunday in the month. My Church of Christ
Daddy thought the Baptist preacher preached too long, and my Baptist Mother
thought the Campbellite service was too blah without music.
Our home life was not really
Christian, although my parents were Christian and were guided by Christian
principles in rearing their children. Their social drinking will be mentioned
later.
I was anxious to start to school
until I learned that going to the cotton gin with Daddy would not be considered
an excused absence. I was even more disappointed when I learned that I would ne
called Nannette instead of Barbara (my first name) as there were several other
girls having the latter name. My only other memory of the first grade is
getting spanked twice in one day. The first time I was joined by the rest of
the class and later in the day by the other girls at my table.
