My Granny - A Lasting Legacy

By Debra DuPree Williams @DDuPreeWilliams

One of the things I loved most about my childhood was having our grandmother, Mama’s mother, Ludie Smith Bass, live with us. She was such a sweetheart and I wish I’d been old enough to truly appreciate just who she was in my life. Of course, I was aware that she was Mama’s mother, but I had no clue about the people she knew and from whom she descended.

It took me many years to finally begin the search for my roots, on all sides. But Granny’s are some I rarely write about. Mainly because I didn’t know much about that side of our family.

Granny’s mother and father, I do know—Turner Thomas Smith and Elizabeth Gilbert, and sisters and brothers, but off the top of my head, I can’t tell you all their names. That is so sad to me. These are the people who influenced Granny’s early years, thus, the remainder of her life.

A Legacy of Love

by Debra DuPree Williams @DDuPreeWilliams

                                                                                                                                                                                                               

My Wedding Day, August 1973, 45 Years Ago

My Daddy, Bob DuPree, was an avid gardener. Gardening was one of his many hobbies, but was the one he loved most and the one he was able to do up to the day he died. He passed away five years ago, leaving a legacy of hard work, patience, compassion, love, but most of all, what it means to be a doer of the Word.

Papa, as I always call him, was a simple man. He didn’t require a lot to be happy. When my sister and I were wee ones, Papa’s sport was hunting. One day he came home with his prizes, a squirrel or two, maybe a bird as well. When my sister and I cried over the poor little animals,he put away his hunting rifle and never went hunting again. He was willing to sacrifice a sport he truly loved for the sake of the hearts of his two girls.