We celebrated the life and legacy of a very dear member of this church, Geraldine (Gerri) Rice Ladd. She passed away on April 25, 2008. She was born on February 4, 1926, in Durant, Oklahoma, the eldest child of Roscoe Horace Rice and Sarah Jewell Flemons Rice Seaton. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband of 51 years, Harry M. Ladd, Jr., her parents, and her sisters, Imogene Vick Edwards and Esther Lena Hogue. She is survived by her daughter, Nancy Ladd; her brother, Roscoe Horace Rice, Jr.; special nieces and great-nieces and nephews, and numerous other family members and friends whom she dearly loved. More than 82 years old and always meticulously groomed, she was still beautiful, with sparkling blue eyes and a mischievous little smile.
She lived a full and complete life, always ready to get in the car or pack a bag and go somewhere. She answered to the names of Geraldine, Gerri, Aunt Gerri, and Aunt Dewey, and she loved shopping, flowers, clothes and shoes, jewelry, working, people, particularly babies and children, fishing, talking on the phone, dining out, traveling, her family, dear friends, and countless other things. She was never happier than when doing things to make someone else happy. She loved deeply and was loved deeply in return; she laughed easily; and she found sheer joy, a childlike wonderment, even in the simplest things like wind chimes or a bird on the walk. Her strong work ethic and gregarious personality plummeted her to top-notch salesperson status in a number of retail stores over a lifetime of work, including Peyton-Marcus, Streets, and Kay-Anne's. She enjoyed her work and would have still been working had health permitted. She was a member of the Order of Eastern Star, Midwest City Chapter 491, the Shrine Widows Club, and the First Christian Church.
One thing in particular has struck a chord with me in talking with Gerri's family and friends, and that is she was a many-faceted woman, a unique woman, who was capable of giving much to this world and did. She undoubtedly has left an indelible mark on the hearts and lives she touched. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that no one here today ever knew anyone else exactly like her and that the likes of her will not walk this way again. Every one of you have your own special memories of her, but there seems to be a common theme among them. She was a most caring and compassionate person who would give you the shirt off her back if you needed it more than she did. She was one-of-a-kind, and everybody loved her and respected her. She had a strong sense of humor She shared a special bond with her daughter, Nancy, that never wavered.
Geraldine 'Gerri' Rice Ladd was born February 4, 1926 in Durant, Bryan County, Oklahoma, the eldest child of Roscoe 'Ross' Horace Rice and Sarah Jewell Flemons. Eventually she would have three siblings: Imogene Rice, born May 10, 1928; Esther Lena Rice, born March 19, 1930; and Roscoe Horace 'Sonny' Rice Jr, born January 23, 1936.
Gerri and her siblings attended the Durant Public School System, starting to school at the Robert E. Lee School and they attended Sunday School at the First Baptist Church and later at the Calvery Baptist Church. She never forget the names of every teacher that she had. She was a smart little girl who was double-promoted from kindergarten to 2nd grade, not having to take the 1st grade.
Life is uncertain. In a single moment, everything can change. My Mother was doing well, considering her 82 years and her list of medical problems. But who could predict that she would take a fall, hit her head, and be gone in a matter of days? I'm just thankful that all of us had her for as long as we did, and I'm particularly thankful that she and I shared many many private times in which we talked about her love, not only for me but for all of her family and friends, as well as the inevitability of dying, and the promise of eternal life. She accepted Jesus Christ into her life many years ago, and while she was not scholarly on what is in the Bible, she had her favorite verses, and she believed in the Golden Rule. She believed in forgiveness and kindness, and she believed in making certain that children have opportunities early in life to learn about God and his promises. It was not unusual that she taught many of the children in our family the Lord's Prayer, and the 23rd Psalm, and the words to some beautiful hymns.
My Mother was known by a number of different names. I always called her Momma Bear. Most people just called her Gerri. Some of her nieces and their children called her Aunt Gerri. She picked up another name about 20 years ago...Aunt Dewey. Ashley was about 4 years old and my Mother was taking care of her. They were outside and Ashley was walking around spitting. My Mother scolded her, but Ashley kept doing it, and my Mother asked, "who taught you to do that?" Ashley said "Dewey". That evening, my Mother told Ashley's Mother that she needed to do something about that little boy, Dewey, that is teaching Ashley to spit, and Wilma said, "Aunt Gerri, you're Dewey, she can't say Gerri". So the name Aunt Dewey stuck. When Ashley's little sister, Casey, came along, she too called my Mother Aunt Dewey. Ashley and Casey were the children of Wilma, and the grandchildren of Jean, who was my Mother's sister. Unfortunately, Jean passed away at the age of 58 while Ashley and Casey were still quite small, and Wilma was gracious enough to allow my Mother and Poppy to be her children's surrogate grandparents, a position that my Mother and Poppy always cherished.
Like a lot of other people, my Mother came from humble beginnings. When she was born, her parents had a small house in Durant with no running water and no indoor plumbing. She was born in 1926 and the depression hit in 1929 and times were not easy. Luckily, her father worked in the produce business and kept his family and a lot of other families going with fresh eggs and chickens. I think my Mother watched all of this and learned that giving and helping other people is a good thing.....and she loved fried chicken for the rest of her life. She has told us all so many times that she never felt poor or deprived in those early years, she simply ate her chicken and enjoyed each day. That same attitude seemed to resonate throughout her life. No matter what life threw at her, she dealt with it and found good in each day. One of the joys of her last 25 years or so was to eat at the Queen Anne Cafeteria. She was their greatest advocate, always letting everyone know that they needed to go there and that maybe they ought to try the fried chicken.
I guess my Mother was always a little impetuous with a mind of her own. She always did things in her own way and in her own time from the very beginning. She could not be hurried. As a toddler, she was pudgy and happy, and in absolutely no hurry to start talking. She was engaged in everything around her, but simply would not talk. One cold evening, her Mother was holding her as they waited outside for my grandfather to arrive home from work. Without moving her head, my Mother rolled her big blue eyes toward the sky and said "moon". She talked constantly from then on. My Mother always took her time when she was eating. I could have my meal finished and she would still be messing with her napkin. I have to admit that sometimes I thought maybe she were purposely seeing how slow she could chew. She savored each bite and enjoyed each moment, and I think we can say that is pretty much how she lived her life. She always did things in her own way and in her own time.
As children, Momma Bear and her siblings all had their chores, but they also liked to play outside. They would jump rope or tell each other spooky stories. Sometimes on Saturday they went downtown to see a movie for ten cents. They didn't have many toys so they made up games to entertain themselves. They liked to aggravate their paternal grandmother by picking her spyrhea, putting it in their hair, and playing "here comes the bride". Sometimes they made stilts by tying tin cans onto their feet with bailing wire. Sometimes they just sat in the porch swing of their grandmother's house next door and kept ramming the swing into the wall until they got some attention. My Mother took tap and square dancing for awhile, and until just the last few years, was quite willing to demonstrate the few steps she had learned. She got a new pair of roller skates as a child and loved to skate and didn't ever want to take them off. Once her Mother told her to take them off and take out the garbage to the pigs. Momma Bear didn't remove the skates, but just grabbed the 5-gallon garbage pail and went happily skating down the path. She had to skate down a hill to get to the pig-pen and she started going too fast, and she fell and broke her arm.
One time Momma Bear's parents were having company for dinner. Her mother had only a single dollar bill to buy food, so she sent my Mother and the other kids to the store for porkchops. They were gone for hours. They finally came back, but without any porkchops. They had gotten in a fight with each other and lost the dollar. Momma Bear and her sister, Jean, often got into a fight whenever they were supposed to do work. Jean said that she and my Mother would get started and then my Mother would quit and try to get Jean to do the rest of it. One time their Mother was going to make homemade ice cream and she sent my Mother and Jean to get ice. They got the ice and started home, carrying the ice between them on a rope. My Mother decided that Jean should carry the ice by herself and Jean refused. They got into a fight, threw the ice in the ditch, and went home for the biggest whipping they ever had. One time the three girls were playing jacks and Sonny, who was just a toddler, kept getting in their way. They pushed him away several times and then my Mother flung him to one side, accidentally breaking his arm. She always felt a little guilty about that.
The kids always sent their name in every year to the Goodfellows for a free Christmas sack, and sometimes that is all they got. Other Christmases were better. One year just before Christmas, Gerri found three dolls and three wicker doll buggies hidden behind the sofa. She became very upset because she then realized the truth about Santa Claus. She simply had to share what she just learned so she immediately told Jean and Lena about the dolls and buggies.
When my Mother was 16 years old, she fell in love with a 16-year old boy and conceived a baby. That was me. There were no real options for them, so the boy joined the Navy and went off to war and Momma Bear became my sole parent. I, of course, didn't recognize the difficulties she faced in society as a single mother. All I knew is that I absolutely adored her from the very beginning. We grew up together. We developed a bond that no one could penetrate, a bond so strong that it simply defies description. She taught me to sing, to pray, to add and subtract and multiply and divide; she taught me to laugh easily; she taught me that there is always a rainbow in every cloudy day if you just look for it; and she taught me that I could do anything I wanted to in this world if I would just buckle down and do it. She gave me immeasurable amounts of love and guidance and encouragement, and I knew that I could never repay her, even if I could give her everything for the rest of her life.
We moved to Oklahoma City in the late 1940's, and my Mother took a job in a restaurant. One day she met a young man named Harry Ladd, Jr. who stopped at the restaurant. He started stopping in frequently just to see her, which made her pretty happy. One day he brought his sister and told my Mother it was his girlfriend, and Momma Bear poured coffee all over him. That brings up another trait. You just didn't want to mess around with Momma Bear. If you were a nice person and she liked you, she would give you everything she had. If she didn't like you or was put out with you, you needed to just stay away. She was someone that you just didn't want to mess with.
Momma Bear and Harry had a whirlwind courtship and were married on January 3, 1948, in this very church at its former location on 10th street in Oklahoma City. They didn't have much money for a few years, but it didn't matter as long as they had each other. I gave Harry a new name, he became my Poppy, and I not only called him that but a lot of other people in the family and elsewhere called him that too. He was a dear man, sweet-tempered, kind, compassionate, very loving....just perfect for my Mother. Looking back it is really as if God just looked down and knew exactly what she needed and he put Poppy on her path. They had 51 years and 5 days together before he passed away. There is not a doubt in my mind that Poppy and all the angels in Heaven rejoiced when they saw Momma Bear's face again. Undoubtedly, she has already located all of her family and friends and is now introducing herself to everybody else she meets. Soon she will know hundreds of people in Heaven, she will know about all them and their families and where they lived and what they liked to do.
As the years wore on and family members passed away, my Mother became the matriarch of our extended family, and always felt the need to share the wisdom of her years with all of us. She dispensed her advice freely, and sometimes it sounded more like direction than advice, and if it was something really important, you could count on getting phone calls from her following up on whether you did the right thing.
My Mother had great friends. Her friends mostly were "life friends" in that once you became her friend, you would be one forever. There are way too many to mention, but suffice it to say that Norma Warner and Sadie Whisman have been loyal partners in crime with her for a number of years. Dorline Murray and Joyce Walke and my Mother have been friends for somewhere around 50 years, and then there is Asalee Santilli, and Eva Roth, and so many others. If I had lost my Mother in her prime, we would have been having this service in the Civic Auditorium to accommodate everybody.
My Mother never knew a stranger. I remember when I was little, it would take us half an hour to walk a block as she had to stop and talk with everyone we passed. She loved people, she loved to talk, and she could really keep a conversation going. She could talk easily with beggars or kings and she really didn't care which. I often suspected that some of her many phone calls may have been wrong numbers but it didn't matter, they always found something to talk about. She was pretty outspoken, a real "stand-up-and-be-counted" kind of woman who was never afraid to express her views over and over again. She was in charge....and there was never a doubt in anyone's mind about that. She really cared about people. Her brother, Sonny, said that she took after their daddy, in that she was always interested in what was going on in other people's lives and was always willing to help or give advice.
She loved to travel and see and do new things. At one time or another, she and Poppy traveled from one end of the United States to the other, as well as to Mexico and to the Orient. Some of these trips were to come see me, and others were just trips that they shared. Every day, even in these last years, she looked forward to getting in the car and going for a ride. She liked to look at the changes in downtown Oklahoma and reminisce about how it used to look. She liked to go out for lunch. On a good day, she liked to go to Macy's or somewhere and see if there was something that she might add to her clothes collection.
All of you know that my Mother was always meticulous in her appearance. Neither sleet nor snow nor anything else could keep her from going to Wilma's house every week to get her hair fixed. It didn't matter if Momma Bear wore jeans and a sweater, or was decked out to the "nines", she made sure she always looked good. When I brought her to live with me, I gave her the master bedroom, mostly because the closet is enormous. It is a walk-in that winds and turns and stretches the length of her bedroom. It was designed to hold the clothes of two or more but her clothes packed it to overflowing. I suppose one might say she had a passion for clothing. I told her that there is no longer space for anything new unless we get rid of something, and she said, "no, you just go ahead and find a way to make it all work". She never had as many shoes as she would have liked in her childhood, so she made up for it in her adult life. There must be 200 pairs of shoes in her closet, filling up shelf after shelf after shelf. When Poppy was alive, he often remarked that Momma Bear had clothes and shoes that had never been worn that were lost somewhere in her closet. Not only did she horde clothing, she horded money. Poppy also said everytime she opened her wallet, the moths flew out.
Poppy always told me that you need to expect the unexpected with my Mother. When they first married, he made up a story about how he used to be a cook. She believed him and got part-time night jobs for both of them, with him as the cook. He had to learn fast. When he took her fishing, he said you needed to listen if she said she wanted to leave. Otherwise, she would just throw all the bait in the water and sit there and look innocent.
One of the most endearing things about my Mother, other than her sweet face and her compassion, was her childlike delight in the smallest things, whether it was a bouquet of balloons or a basket of flowers. She genuinely appreciated and treasured even the smallest gift. She took good care of her things and made me do the same. If one of her treasures got broken, it would be akin to a national disaster. She valued everything. She had no sense of pretense, although some called her Diamond Lil. That had nothing to do with show, she just loved diamonds. She also loved free stuff. A $10 off coupon was cause for celebration. She got excited when the mail carrier brought catalogs from Macy's and Nordstrom's and others, and could spend hours of delight in looking at each page.
My Mother was so very proud of her work history. She absolutely loved her job and it showed. She had started working in retail sales in 1950 and continued to work until the early 1990's when her health no longer permitted it. She was just super in sales, catered to her customers, was always honest about whether something looked good on them or whether something else might be better. She did it all with a huge amount of energy, humor, and she could usually outsell most of the other sales people in the store.
Momma Bear and Poppy loved their home and spent hours working in the yard and manicuring the yard and planting flowers. They did everything together, and didn't like to be away from each other very long. When he suffered through his many medical problems that eventually took his life, she stayed by his side throughout it all, and when he died, part of her died with him.
My Mother died as she lived, with dignity and grace....slowly lessening her breaths until taking her last and then giving a little smile and going to sleep. She touched the lives of so many people, and if you knew her, you were intrigued by her and you loved her. She was a woman that none of you will forget, for she was one-of-a-kind, and not easily described. Mischievous, compassionate, funny, generous, nurturing, giving.... She liked to have fun, and it didn't take much. She loved fishing, she loved to sing, she loved talking on the phone, and she and her friend, Sadie, could do that for hours.
Jesus said, " I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." So her physical death is not the end, but we know that her leaving will leave a gigantic hole in our lives and our hearts that cannot be filled. I am so proud and so lucky and so honored that she was my Mother, and I know that I will be looking for that sweet little face, those little cherub cheeks, around every corner and in every place I go. I know I have done an inadequate job of painting a picture of my Mother. I want to convey the beauty, the kindness, the strength, the warmth of this remarkable woman, and that is hard to do. It all comes down to one thing, and that is just thanking God for choosing her to be my Mother. She had the biggest heart of anyone I have ever met and my heart is breaking now because she is gone, but it is also bursting with pride that she was my Mother. To have a person that you know will always love you, no matter what...that's worth more than my words could ever express. I love you, Momma Bear, and so do hundreds of other people. Your loss hurts like no other, but we will be strong knowing that is what you would tell us to do. Save us a place in Heaven and put in a good word for us.
Copyright © 2010 Nancy Ladd. All rights reserved.
She lived a full and complete life, always ready to get in the car or pack a bag and go somewhere. She answered to the names of Geraldine, Gerri, Aunt Gerri, and Aunt Dewey, and she loved shopping, flowers, clothes and shoes, jewelry, working, people, particularly babies and children, fishing, talking on the phone, dining out, traveling, her family, dear friends, and countless other things. She was never happier than when doing things to make someone else happy. She loved deeply and was loved deeply in return; she laughed easily; and she found sheer joy, a childlike wonderment, even in the simplest things like wind chimes or a bird on the walk. Her strong work ethic and gregarious personality plummeted her to top-notch salesperson status in a number of retail stores over a lifetime of work, including Peyton-Marcus, Streets, and Kay-Anne's. She enjoyed her work and would have still been working had health permitted. She was a member of the Order of Eastern Star, Midwest City Chapter 491, the Shrine Widows Club, and the First Christian Church.
One thing in particular has struck a chord with me in talking with Gerri's family and friends, and that is she was a many-faceted woman, a unique woman, who was capable of giving much to this world and did. She undoubtedly has left an indelible mark on the hearts and lives she touched. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that no one here today ever knew anyone else exactly like her and that the likes of her will not walk this way again. Every one of you have your own special memories of her, but there seems to be a common theme among them. She was a most caring and compassionate person who would give you the shirt off her back if you needed it more than she did. She was one-of-a-kind, and everybody loved her and respected her. She had a strong sense of humor She shared a special bond with her daughter, Nancy, that never wavered.
Geraldine 'Gerri' Rice Ladd was born February 4, 1926 in Durant, Bryan County, Oklahoma, the eldest child of Roscoe 'Ross' Horace Rice and Sarah Jewell Flemons. Eventually she would have three siblings: Imogene Rice, born May 10, 1928; Esther Lena Rice, born March 19, 1930; and Roscoe Horace 'Sonny' Rice Jr, born January 23, 1936.
Gerri and her siblings attended the Durant Public School System, starting to school at the Robert E. Lee School and they attended Sunday School at the First Baptist Church and later at the Calvery Baptist Church. She never forget the names of every teacher that she had. She was a smart little girl who was double-promoted from kindergarten to 2nd grade, not having to take the 1st grade.
Life is uncertain. In a single moment, everything can change. My Mother was doing well, considering her 82 years and her list of medical problems. But who could predict that she would take a fall, hit her head, and be gone in a matter of days? I'm just thankful that all of us had her for as long as we did, and I'm particularly thankful that she and I shared many many private times in which we talked about her love, not only for me but for all of her family and friends, as well as the inevitability of dying, and the promise of eternal life. She accepted Jesus Christ into her life many years ago, and while she was not scholarly on what is in the Bible, she had her favorite verses, and she believed in the Golden Rule. She believed in forgiveness and kindness, and she believed in making certain that children have opportunities early in life to learn about God and his promises. It was not unusual that she taught many of the children in our family the Lord's Prayer, and the 23rd Psalm, and the words to some beautiful hymns.
My Mother was known by a number of different names. I always called her Momma Bear. Most people just called her Gerri. Some of her nieces and their children called her Aunt Gerri. She picked up another name about 20 years ago...Aunt Dewey. Ashley was about 4 years old and my Mother was taking care of her. They were outside and Ashley was walking around spitting. My Mother scolded her, but Ashley kept doing it, and my Mother asked, "who taught you to do that?" Ashley said "Dewey". That evening, my Mother told Ashley's Mother that she needed to do something about that little boy, Dewey, that is teaching Ashley to spit, and Wilma said, "Aunt Gerri, you're Dewey, she can't say Gerri". So the name Aunt Dewey stuck. When Ashley's little sister, Casey, came along, she too called my Mother Aunt Dewey. Ashley and Casey were the children of Wilma, and the grandchildren of Jean, who was my Mother's sister. Unfortunately, Jean passed away at the age of 58 while Ashley and Casey were still quite small, and Wilma was gracious enough to allow my Mother and Poppy to be her children's surrogate grandparents, a position that my Mother and Poppy always cherished.
Like a lot of other people, my Mother came from humble beginnings. When she was born, her parents had a small house in Durant with no running water and no indoor plumbing. She was born in 1926 and the depression hit in 1929 and times were not easy. Luckily, her father worked in the produce business and kept his family and a lot of other families going with fresh eggs and chickens. I think my Mother watched all of this and learned that giving and helping other people is a good thing.....and she loved fried chicken for the rest of her life. She has told us all so many times that she never felt poor or deprived in those early years, she simply ate her chicken and enjoyed each day. That same attitude seemed to resonate throughout her life. No matter what life threw at her, she dealt with it and found good in each day. One of the joys of her last 25 years or so was to eat at the Queen Anne Cafeteria. She was their greatest advocate, always letting everyone know that they needed to go there and that maybe they ought to try the fried chicken.
I guess my Mother was always a little impetuous with a mind of her own. She always did things in her own way and in her own time from the very beginning. She could not be hurried. As a toddler, she was pudgy and happy, and in absolutely no hurry to start talking. She was engaged in everything around her, but simply would not talk. One cold evening, her Mother was holding her as they waited outside for my grandfather to arrive home from work. Without moving her head, my Mother rolled her big blue eyes toward the sky and said "moon". She talked constantly from then on. My Mother always took her time when she was eating. I could have my meal finished and she would still be messing with her napkin. I have to admit that sometimes I thought maybe she were purposely seeing how slow she could chew. She savored each bite and enjoyed each moment, and I think we can say that is pretty much how she lived her life. She always did things in her own way and in her own time.
As children, Momma Bear and her siblings all had their chores, but they also liked to play outside. They would jump rope or tell each other spooky stories. Sometimes on Saturday they went downtown to see a movie for ten cents. They didn't have many toys so they made up games to entertain themselves. They liked to aggravate their paternal grandmother by picking her spyrhea, putting it in their hair, and playing "here comes the bride". Sometimes they made stilts by tying tin cans onto their feet with bailing wire. Sometimes they just sat in the porch swing of their grandmother's house next door and kept ramming the swing into the wall until they got some attention. My Mother took tap and square dancing for awhile, and until just the last few years, was quite willing to demonstrate the few steps she had learned. She got a new pair of roller skates as a child and loved to skate and didn't ever want to take them off. Once her Mother told her to take them off and take out the garbage to the pigs. Momma Bear didn't remove the skates, but just grabbed the 5-gallon garbage pail and went happily skating down the path. She had to skate down a hill to get to the pig-pen and she started going too fast, and she fell and broke her arm.
One time Momma Bear's parents were having company for dinner. Her mother had only a single dollar bill to buy food, so she sent my Mother and the other kids to the store for porkchops. They were gone for hours. They finally came back, but without any porkchops. They had gotten in a fight with each other and lost the dollar. Momma Bear and her sister, Jean, often got into a fight whenever they were supposed to do work. Jean said that she and my Mother would get started and then my Mother would quit and try to get Jean to do the rest of it. One time their Mother was going to make homemade ice cream and she sent my Mother and Jean to get ice. They got the ice and started home, carrying the ice between them on a rope. My Mother decided that Jean should carry the ice by herself and Jean refused. They got into a fight, threw the ice in the ditch, and went home for the biggest whipping they ever had. One time the three girls were playing jacks and Sonny, who was just a toddler, kept getting in their way. They pushed him away several times and then my Mother flung him to one side, accidentally breaking his arm. She always felt a little guilty about that.
The kids always sent their name in every year to the Goodfellows for a free Christmas sack, and sometimes that is all they got. Other Christmases were better. One year just before Christmas, Gerri found three dolls and three wicker doll buggies hidden behind the sofa. She became very upset because she then realized the truth about Santa Claus. She simply had to share what she just learned so she immediately told Jean and Lena about the dolls and buggies.
When my Mother was 16 years old, she fell in love with a 16-year old boy and conceived a baby. That was me. There were no real options for them, so the boy joined the Navy and went off to war and Momma Bear became my sole parent. I, of course, didn't recognize the difficulties she faced in society as a single mother. All I knew is that I absolutely adored her from the very beginning. We grew up together. We developed a bond that no one could penetrate, a bond so strong that it simply defies description. She taught me to sing, to pray, to add and subtract and multiply and divide; she taught me to laugh easily; she taught me that there is always a rainbow in every cloudy day if you just look for it; and she taught me that I could do anything I wanted to in this world if I would just buckle down and do it. She gave me immeasurable amounts of love and guidance and encouragement, and I knew that I could never repay her, even if I could give her everything for the rest of her life.
We moved to Oklahoma City in the late 1940's, and my Mother took a job in a restaurant. One day she met a young man named Harry Ladd, Jr. who stopped at the restaurant. He started stopping in frequently just to see her, which made her pretty happy. One day he brought his sister and told my Mother it was his girlfriend, and Momma Bear poured coffee all over him. That brings up another trait. You just didn't want to mess around with Momma Bear. If you were a nice person and she liked you, she would give you everything she had. If she didn't like you or was put out with you, you needed to just stay away. She was someone that you just didn't want to mess with.
Momma Bear and Harry had a whirlwind courtship and were married on January 3, 1948, in this very church at its former location on 10th street in Oklahoma City. They didn't have much money for a few years, but it didn't matter as long as they had each other. I gave Harry a new name, he became my Poppy, and I not only called him that but a lot of other people in the family and elsewhere called him that too. He was a dear man, sweet-tempered, kind, compassionate, very loving....just perfect for my Mother. Looking back it is really as if God just looked down and knew exactly what she needed and he put Poppy on her path. They had 51 years and 5 days together before he passed away. There is not a doubt in my mind that Poppy and all the angels in Heaven rejoiced when they saw Momma Bear's face again. Undoubtedly, she has already located all of her family and friends and is now introducing herself to everybody else she meets. Soon she will know hundreds of people in Heaven, she will know about all them and their families and where they lived and what they liked to do.
As the years wore on and family members passed away, my Mother became the matriarch of our extended family, and always felt the need to share the wisdom of her years with all of us. She dispensed her advice freely, and sometimes it sounded more like direction than advice, and if it was something really important, you could count on getting phone calls from her following up on whether you did the right thing.
My Mother had great friends. Her friends mostly were "life friends" in that once you became her friend, you would be one forever. There are way too many to mention, but suffice it to say that Norma Warner and Sadie Whisman have been loyal partners in crime with her for a number of years. Dorline Murray and Joyce Walke and my Mother have been friends for somewhere around 50 years, and then there is Asalee Santilli, and Eva Roth, and so many others. If I had lost my Mother in her prime, we would have been having this service in the Civic Auditorium to accommodate everybody.
My Mother never knew a stranger. I remember when I was little, it would take us half an hour to walk a block as she had to stop and talk with everyone we passed. She loved people, she loved to talk, and she could really keep a conversation going. She could talk easily with beggars or kings and she really didn't care which. I often suspected that some of her many phone calls may have been wrong numbers but it didn't matter, they always found something to talk about. She was pretty outspoken, a real "stand-up-and-be-counted" kind of woman who was never afraid to express her views over and over again. She was in charge....and there was never a doubt in anyone's mind about that. She really cared about people. Her brother, Sonny, said that she took after their daddy, in that she was always interested in what was going on in other people's lives and was always willing to help or give advice.
She loved to travel and see and do new things. At one time or another, she and Poppy traveled from one end of the United States to the other, as well as to Mexico and to the Orient. Some of these trips were to come see me, and others were just trips that they shared. Every day, even in these last years, she looked forward to getting in the car and going for a ride. She liked to look at the changes in downtown Oklahoma and reminisce about how it used to look. She liked to go out for lunch. On a good day, she liked to go to Macy's or somewhere and see if there was something that she might add to her clothes collection.
All of you know that my Mother was always meticulous in her appearance. Neither sleet nor snow nor anything else could keep her from going to Wilma's house every week to get her hair fixed. It didn't matter if Momma Bear wore jeans and a sweater, or was decked out to the "nines", she made sure she always looked good. When I brought her to live with me, I gave her the master bedroom, mostly because the closet is enormous. It is a walk-in that winds and turns and stretches the length of her bedroom. It was designed to hold the clothes of two or more but her clothes packed it to overflowing. I suppose one might say she had a passion for clothing. I told her that there is no longer space for anything new unless we get rid of something, and she said, "no, you just go ahead and find a way to make it all work". She never had as many shoes as she would have liked in her childhood, so she made up for it in her adult life. There must be 200 pairs of shoes in her closet, filling up shelf after shelf after shelf. When Poppy was alive, he often remarked that Momma Bear had clothes and shoes that had never been worn that were lost somewhere in her closet. Not only did she horde clothing, she horded money. Poppy also said everytime she opened her wallet, the moths flew out.
Poppy always told me that you need to expect the unexpected with my Mother. When they first married, he made up a story about how he used to be a cook. She believed him and got part-time night jobs for both of them, with him as the cook. He had to learn fast. When he took her fishing, he said you needed to listen if she said she wanted to leave. Otherwise, she would just throw all the bait in the water and sit there and look innocent.
One of the most endearing things about my Mother, other than her sweet face and her compassion, was her childlike delight in the smallest things, whether it was a bouquet of balloons or a basket of flowers. She genuinely appreciated and treasured even the smallest gift. She took good care of her things and made me do the same. If one of her treasures got broken, it would be akin to a national disaster. She valued everything. She had no sense of pretense, although some called her Diamond Lil. That had nothing to do with show, she just loved diamonds. She also loved free stuff. A $10 off coupon was cause for celebration. She got excited when the mail carrier brought catalogs from Macy's and Nordstrom's and others, and could spend hours of delight in looking at each page.
My Mother was so very proud of her work history. She absolutely loved her job and it showed. She had started working in retail sales in 1950 and continued to work until the early 1990's when her health no longer permitted it. She was just super in sales, catered to her customers, was always honest about whether something looked good on them or whether something else might be better. She did it all with a huge amount of energy, humor, and she could usually outsell most of the other sales people in the store.
Momma Bear and Poppy loved their home and spent hours working in the yard and manicuring the yard and planting flowers. They did everything together, and didn't like to be away from each other very long. When he suffered through his many medical problems that eventually took his life, she stayed by his side throughout it all, and when he died, part of her died with him.
My Mother died as she lived, with dignity and grace....slowly lessening her breaths until taking her last and then giving a little smile and going to sleep. She touched the lives of so many people, and if you knew her, you were intrigued by her and you loved her. She was a woman that none of you will forget, for she was one-of-a-kind, and not easily described. Mischievous, compassionate, funny, generous, nurturing, giving.... She liked to have fun, and it didn't take much. She loved fishing, she loved to sing, she loved talking on the phone, and she and her friend, Sadie, could do that for hours.
Jesus said, " I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." So her physical death is not the end, but we know that her leaving will leave a gigantic hole in our lives and our hearts that cannot be filled. I am so proud and so lucky and so honored that she was my Mother, and I know that I will be looking for that sweet little face, those little cherub cheeks, around every corner and in every place I go. I know I have done an inadequate job of painting a picture of my Mother. I want to convey the beauty, the kindness, the strength, the warmth of this remarkable woman, and that is hard to do. It all comes down to one thing, and that is just thanking God for choosing her to be my Mother. She had the biggest heart of anyone I have ever met and my heart is breaking now because she is gone, but it is also bursting with pride that she was my Mother. To have a person that you know will always love you, no matter what...that's worth more than my words could ever express. I love you, Momma Bear, and so do hundreds of other people. Your loss hurts like no other, but we will be strong knowing that is what you would tell us to do. Save us a place in Heaven and put in a good word for us.
Copyright © 2010 Nancy Ladd. All rights reserved.
We celebrated the life and legacy of a very dear member of this church, Geraldine (Gerri) Rice Ladd. She passed away on April 25, 2008. She was born on February 4, 1926, in Durant, Oklahoma, the eldest child of Roscoe Horace Rice and Sarah Jewell Flemons Rice Seaton. She was preceded in death by her beloved husband of 51 years, Harry M. Ladd, Jr., her parents, and her sisters, Imogene Vick Edwards and Esther Lena Hogue. She is survived by her daughter, Nancy Ladd; her brother, Roscoe Horace Rice, Jr.; special nieces and great-nieces and nephews, and numerous other family members and friends whom she dearly loved. More than 82 years old and always meticulously groomed, she was still beautiful, with sparkling blue eyes and a mischievous little smile.
She lived a full and complete life, always ready to get in the car or pack a bag and go somewhere. She answered to the names of Geraldine, Gerri, Aunt Gerri, and Aunt Dewey, and she loved shopping, flowers, clothes and shoes, jewelry, working, people, particularly babies and children, fishing, talking on the phone, dining out, traveling, her family, dear friends, and countless other things. She was never happier than when doing things to make someone else happy. She loved deeply and was loved deeply in return; she laughed easily; and she found sheer joy, a childlike wonderment, even in the simplest things like wind chimes or a bird on the walk. Her strong work ethic and gregarious personality plummeted her to top-notch salesperson status in a number of retail stores over a lifetime of work, including Peyton-Marcus, Streets, and Kay-Anne's. She enjoyed her work and would have still been working had health permitted. She was a member of the Order of Eastern Star, Midwest City Chapter 491, the Shrine Widows Club, and the First Christian Church.
One thing in particular has struck a chord with me in talking with Gerri's family and friends, and that is she was a many-faceted woman, a unique woman, who was capable of giving much to this world and did. She undoubtedly has left an indelible mark on the hearts and lives she touched. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that no one here today ever knew anyone else exactly like her and that the likes of her will not walk this way again. Every one of you have your own special memories of her, but there seems to be a common theme among them. She was a most caring and compassionate person who would give you the shirt off her back if you needed it more than she did. She was one-of-a-kind, and everybody loved her and respected her. She had a strong sense of humor She shared a special bond with her daughter, Nancy, that never wavered.
Geraldine 'Gerri' Rice Ladd was born February 4, 1926 in Durant, Bryan County, Oklahoma, the eldest child of Roscoe 'Ross' Horace Rice and Sarah Jewell Flemons. Eventually she would have three siblings: Imogene Rice, born May 10, 1928; Esther Lena Rice, born March 19, 1930; and Roscoe Horace 'Sonny' Rice Jr, born January 23, 1936.
Gerri and her siblings attended the Durant Public School System, starting to school at the Robert E. Lee School and they attended Sunday School at the First Baptist Church and later at the Calvery Baptist Church. She never forget the names of every teacher that she had. She was a smart little girl who was double-promoted from kindergarten to 2nd grade, not having to take the 1st grade.
Life is uncertain. In a single moment, everything can change. My Mother was doing well, considering her 82 years and her list of medical problems. But who could predict that she would take a fall, hit her head, and be gone in a matter of days? I'm just thankful that all of us had her for as long as we did, and I'm particularly thankful that she and I shared many many private times in which we talked about her love, not only for me but for all of her family and friends, as well as the inevitability of dying, and the promise of eternal life. She accepted Jesus Christ into her life many years ago, and while she was not scholarly on what is in the Bible, she had her favorite verses, and she believed in the Golden Rule. She believed in forgiveness and kindness, and she believed in making certain that children have opportunities early in life to learn about God and his promises. It was not unusual that she taught many of the children in our family the Lord's Prayer, and the 23rd Psalm, and the words to some beautiful hymns.
My Mother was known by a number of different names. I always called her Momma Bear. Most people just called her Gerri. Some of her nieces and their children called her Aunt Gerri. She picked up another name about 20 years ago...Aunt Dewey. Ashley was about 4 years old and my Mother was taking care of her. They were outside and Ashley was walking around spitting. My Mother scolded her, but Ashley kept doing it, and my Mother asked, "who taught you to do that?" Ashley said "Dewey". That evening, my Mother told Ashley's Mother that she needed to do something about that little boy, Dewey, that is teaching Ashley to spit, and Wilma said, "Aunt Gerri, you're Dewey, she can't say Gerri". So the name Aunt Dewey stuck. When Ashley's little sister, Casey, came along, she too called my Mother Aunt Dewey. Ashley and Casey were the children of Wilma, and the grandchildren of Jean, who was my Mother's sister. Unfortunately, Jean passed away at the age of 58 while Ashley and Casey were still quite small, and Wilma was gracious enough to allow my Mother and Poppy to be her children's surrogate grandparents, a position that my Mother and Poppy always cherished.
Like a lot of other people, my Mother came from humble beginnings. When she was born, her parents had a small house in Durant with no running water and no indoor plumbing. She was born in 1926 and the depression hit in 1929 and times were not easy. Luckily, her father worked in the produce business and kept his family and a lot of other families going with fresh eggs and chickens. I think my Mother watched all of this and learned that giving and helping other people is a good thing.....and she loved fried chicken for the rest of her life. She has told us all so many times that she never felt poor or deprived in those early years, she simply ate her chicken and enjoyed each day. That same attitude seemed to resonate throughout her life. No matter what life threw at her, she dealt with it and found good in each day. One of the joys of her last 25 years or so was to eat at the Queen Anne Cafeteria. She was their greatest advocate, always letting everyone know that they needed to go there and that maybe they ought to try the fried chicken.
I guess my Mother was always a little impetuous with a mind of her own. She always did things in her own way and in her own time from the very beginning. She could not be hurried. As a toddler, she was pudgy and happy, and in absolutely no hurry to start talking. She was engaged in everything around her, but simply would not talk. One cold evening, her Mother was holding her as they waited outside for my grandfather to arrive home from work. Without moving her head, my Mother rolled her big blue eyes toward the sky and said "moon". She talked constantly from then on. My Mother always took her time when she was eating. I could have my meal finished and she would still be messing with her napkin. I have to admit that sometimes I thought maybe she were purposely seeing how slow she could chew. She savored each bite and enjoyed each moment, and I think we can say that is pretty much how she lived her life. She always did things in her own way and in her own time.
As children, Momma Bear and her siblings all had their chores, but they also liked to play outside. They would jump rope or tell each other spooky stories. Sometimes on Saturday they went downtown to see a movie for ten cents. They didn't have many toys so they made up games to entertain themselves. They liked to aggravate their paternal grandmother by picking her spyrhea, putting it in their hair, and playing "here comes the bride". Sometimes they made stilts by tying tin cans onto their feet with bailing wire. Sometimes they just sat in the porch swing of their grandmother's house next door and kept ramming the swing into the wall until they got some attention. My Mother took tap and square dancing for awhile, and until just the last few years, was quite willing to demonstrate the few steps she had learned. She got a new pair of roller skates as a child and loved to skate and didn't ever want to take them off. Once her Mother told her to take them off and take out the garbage to the pigs. Momma Bear didn't remove the skates, but just grabbed the 5-gallon garbage pail and went happily skating down the path. She had to skate down a hill to get to the pig-pen and she started going too fast, and she fell and broke her arm.
One time Momma Bear's parents were having company for dinner. Her mother had only a single dollar bill to buy food, so she sent my Mother and the other kids to the store for porkchops. They were gone for hours. They finally came back, but without any porkchops. They had gotten in a fight with each other and lost the dollar. Momma Bear and her sister, Jean, often got into a fight whenever they were supposed to do work. Jean said that she and my Mother would get started and then my Mother would quit and try to get Jean to do the rest of it. One time their Mother was going to make homemade ice cream and she sent my Mother and Jean to get ice. They got the ice and started home, carrying the ice between them on a rope. My Mother decided that Jean should carry the ice by herself and Jean refused. They got into a fight, threw the ice in the ditch, and went home for the biggest whipping they ever had. One time the three girls were playing jacks and Sonny, who was just a toddler, kept getting in their way. They pushed him away several times and then my Mother flung him to one side, accidentally breaking his arm. She always felt a little guilty about that.
The kids always sent their name in every year to the Goodfellows for a free Christmas sack, and sometimes that is all they got. Other Christmases were better. One year just before Christmas, Gerri found three dolls and three wicker doll buggies hidden behind the sofa. She became very upset because she then realized the truth about Santa Claus. She simply had to share what she just learned so she immediately told Jean and Lena about the dolls and buggies.
When my Mother was 16 years old, she fell in love with a 16-year old boy and conceived a baby. That was me. There were no real options for them, so the boy joined the Navy and went off to war and Momma Bear became my sole parent. I, of course, didn't recognize the difficulties she faced in society as a single mother. All I knew is that I absolutely adored her from the very beginning. We grew up together. We developed a bond that no one could penetrate, a bond so strong that it simply defies description. She taught me to sing, to pray, to add and subtract and multiply and divide; she taught me to laugh easily; she taught me that there is always a rainbow in every cloudy day if you just look for it; and she taught me that I could do anything I wanted to in this world if I would just buckle down and do it. She gave me immeasurable amounts of love and guidance and encouragement, and I knew that I could never repay her, even if I could give her everything for the rest of her life.
We moved to Oklahoma City in the late 1940's, and my Mother took a job in a restaurant. One day she met a young man named Harry Ladd, Jr. who stopped at the restaurant. He started stopping in frequently just to see her, which made her pretty happy. One day he brought his sister and told my Mother it was his girlfriend, and Momma Bear poured coffee all over him. That brings up another trait. You just didn't want to mess around with Momma Bear. If you were a nice person and she liked you, she would give you everything she had. If she didn't like you or was put out with you, you needed to just stay away. She was someone that you just didn't want to mess with.
Momma Bear and Harry had a whirlwind courtship and were married on January 3, 1948, in this very church at its former location on 10th street in Oklahoma City. They didn't have much money for a few years, but it didn't matter as long as they had each other. I gave Harry a new name, he became my Poppy, and I not only called him that but a lot of other people in the family and elsewhere called him that too. He was a dear man, sweet-tempered, kind, compassionate, very loving....just perfect for my Mother. Looking back it is really as if God just looked down and knew exactly what she needed and he put Poppy on her path. They had 51 years and 5 days together before he passed away. There is not a doubt in my mind that Poppy and all the angels in Heaven rejoiced when they saw Momma Bear's face again. Undoubtedly, she has already located all of her family and friends and is now introducing herself to everybody else she meets. Soon she will know hundreds of people in Heaven, she will know about all them and their families and where they lived and what they liked to do.
As the years wore on and family members passed away, my Mother became the matriarch of our extended family, and always felt the need to share the wisdom of her years with all of us. She dispensed her advice freely, and sometimes it sounded more like direction than advice, and if it was something really important, you could count on getting phone calls from her following up on whether you did the right thing.
My Mother had great friends. Her friends mostly were "life friends" in that once you became her friend, you would be one forever. There are way too many to mention, but suffice it to say that Norma Warner and Sadie Whisman have been loyal partners in crime with her for a number of years. Dorline Murray and Joyce Walke and my Mother have been friends for somewhere around 50 years, and then there is Asalee Santilli, and Eva Roth, and so many others. If I had lost my Mother in her prime, we would have been having this service in the Civic Auditorium to accommodate everybody.
My Mother never knew a stranger. I remember when I was little, it would take us half an hour to walk a block as she had to stop and talk with everyone we passed. She loved people, she loved to talk, and she could really keep a conversation going. She could talk easily with beggars or kings and she really didn't care which. I often suspected that some of her many phone calls may have been wrong numbers but it didn't matter, they always found something to talk about. She was pretty outspoken, a real "stand-up-and-be-counted" kind of woman who was never afraid to express her views over and over again. She was in charge....and there was never a doubt in anyone's mind about that. She really cared about people. Her brother, Sonny, said that she took after their daddy, in that she was always interested in what was going on in other people's lives and was always willing to help or give advice.
She loved to travel and see and do new things. At one time or another, she and Poppy traveled from one end of the United States to the other, as well as to Mexico and to the Orient. Some of these trips were to come see me, and others were just trips that they shared. Every day, even in these last years, she looked forward to getting in the car and going for a ride. She liked to look at the changes in downtown Oklahoma and reminisce about how it used to look. She liked to go out for lunch. On a good day, she liked to go to Macy's or somewhere and see if there was something that she might add to her clothes collection.
All of you know that my Mother was always meticulous in her appearance. Neither sleet nor snow nor anything else could keep her from going to Wilma's house every week to get her hair fixed. It didn't matter if Momma Bear wore jeans and a sweater, or was decked out to the "nines", she made sure she always looked good. When I brought her to live with me, I gave her the master bedroom, mostly because the closet is enormous. It is a walk-in that winds and turns and stretches the length of her bedroom. It was designed to hold the clothes of two or more but her clothes packed it to overflowing. I suppose one might say she had a passion for clothing. I told her that there is no longer space for anything new unless we get rid of something, and she said, "no, you just go ahead and find a way to make it all work". She never had as many shoes as she would have liked in her childhood, so she made up for it in her adult life. There must be 200 pairs of shoes in her closet, filling up shelf after shelf after shelf. When Poppy was alive, he often remarked that Momma Bear had clothes and shoes that had never been worn that were lost somewhere in her closet. Not only did she horde clothing, she horded money. Poppy also said everytime she opened her wallet, the moths flew out.
Poppy always told me that you need to expect the unexpected with my Mother. When they first married, he made up a story about how he used to be a cook. She believed him and got part-time night jobs for both of them, with him as the cook. He had to learn fast. When he took her fishing, he said you needed to listen if she said she wanted to leave. Otherwise, she would just throw all the bait in the water and sit there and look innocent.
One of the most endearing things about my Mother, other than her sweet face and her compassion, was her childlike delight in the smallest things, whether it was a bouquet of balloons or a basket of flowers. She genuinely appreciated and treasured even the smallest gift. She took good care of her things and made me do the same. If one of her treasures got broken, it would be akin to a national disaster. She valued everything. She had no sense of pretense, although some called her Diamond Lil. That had nothing to do with show, she just loved diamonds. She also loved free stuff. A $10 off coupon was cause for celebration. She got excited when the mail carrier brought catalogs from Macy's and Nordstrom's and others, and could spend hours of delight in looking at each page.
My Mother was so very proud of her work history. She absolutely loved her job and it showed. She had started working in retail sales in 1950 and continued to work until the early 1990's when her health no longer permitted it. She was just super in sales, catered to her customers, was always honest about whether something looked good on them or whether something else might be better. She did it all with a huge amount of energy, humor, and she could usually outsell most of the other sales people in the store.
Momma Bear and Poppy loved their home and spent hours working in the yard and manicuring the yard and planting flowers. They did everything together, and didn't like to be away from each other very long. When he suffered through his many medical problems that eventually took his life, she stayed by his side throughout it all, and when he died, part of her died with him.
My Mother died as she lived, with dignity and grace....slowly lessening her breaths until taking her last and then giving a little smile and going to sleep. She touched the lives of so many people, and if you knew her, you were intrigued by her and you loved her. She was a woman that none of you will forget, for she was one-of-a-kind, and not easily described. Mischievous, compassionate, funny, generous, nurturing, giving.... She liked to have fun, and it didn't take much. She loved fishing, she loved to sing, she loved talking on the phone, and she and her friend, Sadie, could do that for hours.
Jesus said, " I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." So her physical death is not the end, but we know that her leaving will leave a gigantic hole in our lives and our hearts that cannot be filled. I am so proud and so lucky and so honored that she was my Mother, and I know that I will be looking for that sweet little face, those little cherub cheeks, around every corner and in every place I go. I know I have done an inadequate job of painting a picture of my Mother. I want to convey the beauty, the kindness, the strength, the warmth of this remarkable woman, and that is hard to do. It all comes down to one thing, and that is just thanking God for choosing her to be my Mother. She had the biggest heart of anyone I have ever met and my heart is breaking now because she is gone, but it is also bursting with pride that she was my Mother. To have a person that you know will always love you, no matter what...that's worth more than my words could ever express. I love you, Momma Bear, and so do hundreds of other people. Your loss hurts like no other, but we will be strong knowing that is what you would tell us to do. Save us a place in Heaven and put in a good word for us.
Copyright © 2010 Nancy Ladd. All rights reserved.
She lived a full and complete life, always ready to get in the car or pack a bag and go somewhere. She answered to the names of Geraldine, Gerri, Aunt Gerri, and Aunt Dewey, and she loved shopping, flowers, clothes and shoes, jewelry, working, people, particularly babies and children, fishing, talking on the phone, dining out, traveling, her family, dear friends, and countless other things. She was never happier than when doing things to make someone else happy. She loved deeply and was loved deeply in return; she laughed easily; and she found sheer joy, a childlike wonderment, even in the simplest things like wind chimes or a bird on the walk. Her strong work ethic and gregarious personality plummeted her to top-notch salesperson status in a number of retail stores over a lifetime of work, including Peyton-Marcus, Streets, and Kay-Anne's. She enjoyed her work and would have still been working had health permitted. She was a member of the Order of Eastern Star, Midwest City Chapter 491, the Shrine Widows Club, and the First Christian Church.
One thing in particular has struck a chord with me in talking with Gerri's family and friends, and that is she was a many-faceted woman, a unique woman, who was capable of giving much to this world and did. She undoubtedly has left an indelible mark on the hearts and lives she touched. It is probably not an exaggeration to say that no one here today ever knew anyone else exactly like her and that the likes of her will not walk this way again. Every one of you have your own special memories of her, but there seems to be a common theme among them. She was a most caring and compassionate person who would give you the shirt off her back if you needed it more than she did. She was one-of-a-kind, and everybody loved her and respected her. She had a strong sense of humor She shared a special bond with her daughter, Nancy, that never wavered.
Geraldine 'Gerri' Rice Ladd was born February 4, 1926 in Durant, Bryan County, Oklahoma, the eldest child of Roscoe 'Ross' Horace Rice and Sarah Jewell Flemons. Eventually she would have three siblings: Imogene Rice, born May 10, 1928; Esther Lena Rice, born March 19, 1930; and Roscoe Horace 'Sonny' Rice Jr, born January 23, 1936.
Gerri and her siblings attended the Durant Public School System, starting to school at the Robert E. Lee School and they attended Sunday School at the First Baptist Church and later at the Calvery Baptist Church. She never forget the names of every teacher that she had. She was a smart little girl who was double-promoted from kindergarten to 2nd grade, not having to take the 1st grade.
Life is uncertain. In a single moment, everything can change. My Mother was doing well, considering her 82 years and her list of medical problems. But who could predict that she would take a fall, hit her head, and be gone in a matter of days? I'm just thankful that all of us had her for as long as we did, and I'm particularly thankful that she and I shared many many private times in which we talked about her love, not only for me but for all of her family and friends, as well as the inevitability of dying, and the promise of eternal life. She accepted Jesus Christ into her life many years ago, and while she was not scholarly on what is in the Bible, she had her favorite verses, and she believed in the Golden Rule. She believed in forgiveness and kindness, and she believed in making certain that children have opportunities early in life to learn about God and his promises. It was not unusual that she taught many of the children in our family the Lord's Prayer, and the 23rd Psalm, and the words to some beautiful hymns.
My Mother was known by a number of different names. I always called her Momma Bear. Most people just called her Gerri. Some of her nieces and their children called her Aunt Gerri. She picked up another name about 20 years ago...Aunt Dewey. Ashley was about 4 years old and my Mother was taking care of her. They were outside and Ashley was walking around spitting. My Mother scolded her, but Ashley kept doing it, and my Mother asked, "who taught you to do that?" Ashley said "Dewey". That evening, my Mother told Ashley's Mother that she needed to do something about that little boy, Dewey, that is teaching Ashley to spit, and Wilma said, "Aunt Gerri, you're Dewey, she can't say Gerri". So the name Aunt Dewey stuck. When Ashley's little sister, Casey, came along, she too called my Mother Aunt Dewey. Ashley and Casey were the children of Wilma, and the grandchildren of Jean, who was my Mother's sister. Unfortunately, Jean passed away at the age of 58 while Ashley and Casey were still quite small, and Wilma was gracious enough to allow my Mother and Poppy to be her children's surrogate grandparents, a position that my Mother and Poppy always cherished.
Like a lot of other people, my Mother came from humble beginnings. When she was born, her parents had a small house in Durant with no running water and no indoor plumbing. She was born in 1926 and the depression hit in 1929 and times were not easy. Luckily, her father worked in the produce business and kept his family and a lot of other families going with fresh eggs and chickens. I think my Mother watched all of this and learned that giving and helping other people is a good thing.....and she loved fried chicken for the rest of her life. She has told us all so many times that she never felt poor or deprived in those early years, she simply ate her chicken and enjoyed each day. That same attitude seemed to resonate throughout her life. No matter what life threw at her, she dealt with it and found good in each day. One of the joys of her last 25 years or so was to eat at the Queen Anne Cafeteria. She was their greatest advocate, always letting everyone know that they needed to go there and that maybe they ought to try the fried chicken.
I guess my Mother was always a little impetuous with a mind of her own. She always did things in her own way and in her own time from the very beginning. She could not be hurried. As a toddler, she was pudgy and happy, and in absolutely no hurry to start talking. She was engaged in everything around her, but simply would not talk. One cold evening, her Mother was holding her as they waited outside for my grandfather to arrive home from work. Without moving her head, my Mother rolled her big blue eyes toward the sky and said "moon". She talked constantly from then on. My Mother always took her time when she was eating. I could have my meal finished and she would still be messing with her napkin. I have to admit that sometimes I thought maybe she were purposely seeing how slow she could chew. She savored each bite and enjoyed each moment, and I think we can say that is pretty much how she lived her life. She always did things in her own way and in her own time.
As children, Momma Bear and her siblings all had their chores, but they also liked to play outside. They would jump rope or tell each other spooky stories. Sometimes on Saturday they went downtown to see a movie for ten cents. They didn't have many toys so they made up games to entertain themselves. They liked to aggravate their paternal grandmother by picking her spyrhea, putting it in their hair, and playing "here comes the bride". Sometimes they made stilts by tying tin cans onto their feet with bailing wire. Sometimes they just sat in the porch swing of their grandmother's house next door and kept ramming the swing into the wall until they got some attention. My Mother took tap and square dancing for awhile, and until just the last few years, was quite willing to demonstrate the few steps she had learned. She got a new pair of roller skates as a child and loved to skate and didn't ever want to take them off. Once her Mother told her to take them off and take out the garbage to the pigs. Momma Bear didn't remove the skates, but just grabbed the 5-gallon garbage pail and went happily skating down the path. She had to skate down a hill to get to the pig-pen and she started going too fast, and she fell and broke her arm.
One time Momma Bear's parents were having company for dinner. Her mother had only a single dollar bill to buy food, so she sent my Mother and the other kids to the store for porkchops. They were gone for hours. They finally came back, but without any porkchops. They had gotten in a fight with each other and lost the dollar. Momma Bear and her sister, Jean, often got into a fight whenever they were supposed to do work. Jean said that she and my Mother would get started and then my Mother would quit and try to get Jean to do the rest of it. One time their Mother was going to make homemade ice cream and she sent my Mother and Jean to get ice. They got the ice and started home, carrying the ice between them on a rope. My Mother decided that Jean should carry the ice by herself and Jean refused. They got into a fight, threw the ice in the ditch, and went home for the biggest whipping they ever had. One time the three girls were playing jacks and Sonny, who was just a toddler, kept getting in their way. They pushed him away several times and then my Mother flung him to one side, accidentally breaking his arm. She always felt a little guilty about that.
The kids always sent their name in every year to the Goodfellows for a free Christmas sack, and sometimes that is all they got. Other Christmases were better. One year just before Christmas, Gerri found three dolls and three wicker doll buggies hidden behind the sofa. She became very upset because she then realized the truth about Santa Claus. She simply had to share what she just learned so she immediately told Jean and Lena about the dolls and buggies.
When my Mother was 16 years old, she fell in love with a 16-year old boy and conceived a baby. That was me. There were no real options for them, so the boy joined the Navy and went off to war and Momma Bear became my sole parent. I, of course, didn't recognize the difficulties she faced in society as a single mother. All I knew is that I absolutely adored her from the very beginning. We grew up together. We developed a bond that no one could penetrate, a bond so strong that it simply defies description. She taught me to sing, to pray, to add and subtract and multiply and divide; she taught me to laugh easily; she taught me that there is always a rainbow in every cloudy day if you just look for it; and she taught me that I could do anything I wanted to in this world if I would just buckle down and do it. She gave me immeasurable amounts of love and guidance and encouragement, and I knew that I could never repay her, even if I could give her everything for the rest of her life.
We moved to Oklahoma City in the late 1940's, and my Mother took a job in a restaurant. One day she met a young man named Harry Ladd, Jr. who stopped at the restaurant. He started stopping in frequently just to see her, which made her pretty happy. One day he brought his sister and told my Mother it was his girlfriend, and Momma Bear poured coffee all over him. That brings up another trait. You just didn't want to mess around with Momma Bear. If you were a nice person and she liked you, she would give you everything she had. If she didn't like you or was put out with you, you needed to just stay away. She was someone that you just didn't want to mess with.
Momma Bear and Harry had a whirlwind courtship and were married on January 3, 1948, in this very church at its former location on 10th street in Oklahoma City. They didn't have much money for a few years, but it didn't matter as long as they had each other. I gave Harry a new name, he became my Poppy, and I not only called him that but a lot of other people in the family and elsewhere called him that too. He was a dear man, sweet-tempered, kind, compassionate, very loving....just perfect for my Mother. Looking back it is really as if God just looked down and knew exactly what she needed and he put Poppy on her path. They had 51 years and 5 days together before he passed away. There is not a doubt in my mind that Poppy and all the angels in Heaven rejoiced when they saw Momma Bear's face again. Undoubtedly, she has already located all of her family and friends and is now introducing herself to everybody else she meets. Soon she will know hundreds of people in Heaven, she will know about all them and their families and where they lived and what they liked to do.
As the years wore on and family members passed away, my Mother became the matriarch of our extended family, and always felt the need to share the wisdom of her years with all of us. She dispensed her advice freely, and sometimes it sounded more like direction than advice, and if it was something really important, you could count on getting phone calls from her following up on whether you did the right thing.
My Mother had great friends. Her friends mostly were "life friends" in that once you became her friend, you would be one forever. There are way too many to mention, but suffice it to say that Norma Warner and Sadie Whisman have been loyal partners in crime with her for a number of years. Dorline Murray and Joyce Walke and my Mother have been friends for somewhere around 50 years, and then there is Asalee Santilli, and Eva Roth, and so many others. If I had lost my Mother in her prime, we would have been having this service in the Civic Auditorium to accommodate everybody.
My Mother never knew a stranger. I remember when I was little, it would take us half an hour to walk a block as she had to stop and talk with everyone we passed. She loved people, she loved to talk, and she could really keep a conversation going. She could talk easily with beggars or kings and she really didn't care which. I often suspected that some of her many phone calls may have been wrong numbers but it didn't matter, they always found something to talk about. She was pretty outspoken, a real "stand-up-and-be-counted" kind of woman who was never afraid to express her views over and over again. She was in charge....and there was never a doubt in anyone's mind about that. She really cared about people. Her brother, Sonny, said that she took after their daddy, in that she was always interested in what was going on in other people's lives and was always willing to help or give advice.
She loved to travel and see and do new things. At one time or another, she and Poppy traveled from one end of the United States to the other, as well as to Mexico and to the Orient. Some of these trips were to come see me, and others were just trips that they shared. Every day, even in these last years, she looked forward to getting in the car and going for a ride. She liked to look at the changes in downtown Oklahoma and reminisce about how it used to look. She liked to go out for lunch. On a good day, she liked to go to Macy's or somewhere and see if there was something that she might add to her clothes collection.
All of you know that my Mother was always meticulous in her appearance. Neither sleet nor snow nor anything else could keep her from going to Wilma's house every week to get her hair fixed. It didn't matter if Momma Bear wore jeans and a sweater, or was decked out to the "nines", she made sure she always looked good. When I brought her to live with me, I gave her the master bedroom, mostly because the closet is enormous. It is a walk-in that winds and turns and stretches the length of her bedroom. It was designed to hold the clothes of two or more but her clothes packed it to overflowing. I suppose one might say she had a passion for clothing. I told her that there is no longer space for anything new unless we get rid of something, and she said, "no, you just go ahead and find a way to make it all work". She never had as many shoes as she would have liked in her childhood, so she made up for it in her adult life. There must be 200 pairs of shoes in her closet, filling up shelf after shelf after shelf. When Poppy was alive, he often remarked that Momma Bear had clothes and shoes that had never been worn that were lost somewhere in her closet. Not only did she horde clothing, she horded money. Poppy also said everytime she opened her wallet, the moths flew out.
Poppy always told me that you need to expect the unexpected with my Mother. When they first married, he made up a story about how he used to be a cook. She believed him and got part-time night jobs for both of them, with him as the cook. He had to learn fast. When he took her fishing, he said you needed to listen if she said she wanted to leave. Otherwise, she would just throw all the bait in the water and sit there and look innocent.
One of the most endearing things about my Mother, other than her sweet face and her compassion, was her childlike delight in the smallest things, whether it was a bouquet of balloons or a basket of flowers. She genuinely appreciated and treasured even the smallest gift. She took good care of her things and made me do the same. If one of her treasures got broken, it would be akin to a national disaster. She valued everything. She had no sense of pretense, although some called her Diamond Lil. That had nothing to do with show, she just loved diamonds. She also loved free stuff. A $10 off coupon was cause for celebration. She got excited when the mail carrier brought catalogs from Macy's and Nordstrom's and others, and could spend hours of delight in looking at each page.
My Mother was so very proud of her work history. She absolutely loved her job and it showed. She had started working in retail sales in 1950 and continued to work until the early 1990's when her health no longer permitted it. She was just super in sales, catered to her customers, was always honest about whether something looked good on them or whether something else might be better. She did it all with a huge amount of energy, humor, and she could usually outsell most of the other sales people in the store.
Momma Bear and Poppy loved their home and spent hours working in the yard and manicuring the yard and planting flowers. They did everything together, and didn't like to be away from each other very long. When he suffered through his many medical problems that eventually took his life, she stayed by his side throughout it all, and when he died, part of her died with him.
My Mother died as she lived, with dignity and grace....slowly lessening her breaths until taking her last and then giving a little smile and going to sleep. She touched the lives of so many people, and if you knew her, you were intrigued by her and you loved her. She was a woman that none of you will forget, for she was one-of-a-kind, and not easily described. Mischievous, compassionate, funny, generous, nurturing, giving.... She liked to have fun, and it didn't take much. She loved fishing, she loved to sing, she loved talking on the phone, and she and her friend, Sadie, could do that for hours.
Jesus said, " I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: And whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die." So her physical death is not the end, but we know that her leaving will leave a gigantic hole in our lives and our hearts that cannot be filled. I am so proud and so lucky and so honored that she was my Mother, and I know that I will be looking for that sweet little face, those little cherub cheeks, around every corner and in every place I go. I know I have done an inadequate job of painting a picture of my Mother. I want to convey the beauty, the kindness, the strength, the warmth of this remarkable woman, and that is hard to do. It all comes down to one thing, and that is just thanking God for choosing her to be my Mother. She had the biggest heart of anyone I have ever met and my heart is breaking now because she is gone, but it is also bursting with pride that she was my Mother. To have a person that you know will always love you, no matter what...that's worth more than my words could ever express. I love you, Momma Bear, and so do hundreds of other people. Your loss hurts like no other, but we will be strong knowing that is what you would tell us to do. Save us a place in Heaven and put in a good word for us.
Copyright © 2010 Nancy Ladd. All rights reserved.
