Family Visit, Mom's side.

This week we had the pleasure of a visit by Pat's sister, Katinka Kelley, and her daughter, Bernice Crowe. We have not seen them for a long time and were pleased that they had reached out and visited us. Tinka is Pat's younger sister (3 years younger). Their other sibling, Jon Peacock, had passed a couple of years ago so Tinka is Pat's sole living-link to her immediate family.

Tinka was married to Harold Kelley. They met at Young Harris College in Clayton, GA, and were married shortly after Pat and I were. Harold worked for Southern Bell Telephone and called square dances on the side. After a few years, he found he could do better as a full-time square dance caller and did that for the rest of his career. He was good at that and Pat and I attended a few square dances with Harold calling. I think we even asked him to come to Pickens, SC to call for us one time but I'm vague on whether that ever happened. Tinka and Harold had two children, twins, Bernice and Bryant. They lived in Riverdale, GA and we visited each other a number of times when Bernice and Bryant were young. They all came to our daughter Margaret's wedding in Pickens but I'm not sure if they made Jan's and Tina's weddings?

Tinka took care of their mother, Alma Greer Peacock, after Pat nursed her mother back to good health following an auto accident in 1988 with me on Hilton Head. We were headed down to see my own mother when another car's driver fell asleep at the wheel and turned in front of us on a two lane road. We hit her broadside and Grandma Peacock was severely hurt. She was rushed to the Hilton Head hospital and transferred to Savannah General with major internal injuries. She recovered from that terrible accident and we were able to get a fairly decent settle from the other person's insurance company—and we gave the entire amount to Grandma P. Shortly after she was released from the hospital, Grandma Peacock decided she's move to Atlanta, where she bought a small house not far from Tinka's. She lived there a few years and Tinka too good care of her mother until mom died at age 93.
Alma was a neat mother-in-law for me. She had her drawbacks but I admired her for many reasons: she was a student of the Civil War. She read extensively about it and we discussed many aspects of that awful war. She suggested I read W. Cash's The Mind of the South, Ben Robertson's Red Hills and Cotton, and Rebecca West's account of the lynching in Pickens, SC in 1954  These books, combined with many discussions with Alma Peacock, gave me a bit of an education on the South. In addition to marrying a girl from the south, we'd built a textile plant in South Carolina and I was vitally interested in learning as much as I could about the area.

Our visit this week by Tinka and Bernice went well. They arrived on Thursday, Jan. 14, and Pat cooked a wonderful spaghetti dinner that first evening while we got reacquainted. Tinka has some physical problems and walks with a cane. Bernice is obviously taking good care of her mother. The next day we spent most of the time shopping in the many thrift-shops in Bluffton and on Hilton Head. That evening Butch and Margo cooked BBQ and macaroni and cheese, Pat made a nice salad and Jan and Joss brought home made bread. We had a very nice family get-together at our house. An amusing incident occurred when Tinka said to me, "How long do I have to be here before I get a glass of white wine?" Oh boy, we'd assumed that neither Tinka or Bernice drank and we didn't have any wine in the house. I rushed over to Margo's, whose daughter, Corie, had gone off with their wine. Margo suggested their neighbors, the Doggers, but they weren't home. I finally got a bottle from Don and Pam Goibson across the street. Whew!

On Sat. we toured the huge, elaborate house in Sea Pines where our son-in-law, Joss Mohr, works and ate a nice lunch at Truffles in Sea Pines. That evening, Pat, Dora, Tinka, Bernice and I had dinner at Olive Garden Restaurant in Bluffton. Sunday morning, Dora and I went to both my Unitarian church and her Catholic church. We said 'good bye' to Think and Bernice and thought they were leaving soon after we left. Pat told us later, they stayed most of the morning before leaving for Fayetteville, GA where Bernice and her mother live.
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