Prairie Gothic: The Story of a West Texas Family

Chapter Twenty-two: Decline

174 Chapter Twenty-two: Decline In 1973 Grandmother Curry still lived in her house on Avenue E in Seminole. She was eighty-five years old and her daughters worried about her staying by herself in that big house, but any time they suggested other arrangements, they got Mable’s version of the Sherman Chill. She did it well enough to put a stop to all talk about a nursing home or moving in with one of her daughters. The Curry girls didn’t press the issue. Grandmother had a small legion of people who had helped her for years: Mrs. Tennill to cook, Dorothy to clean, a boy in the neighborhood to mow the yard, and handymen who trimmed the elm trees, fixed leaky faucets, and took care of routine maintenance. Once or twice a week, the Shermans (Roy, Burt, and Olive) drove into town and checked on her, and so far things were working all right. The Curry girls respected Grandmother’s independent spirit and wanted her to remain in the house as long as she could. Around the middle of April that year she fell and hurt herself, but stubborn to the end, she didn’t tell anyone until the pain finally drove her to call Uncle Roy. For three days she had lived with a broken hip and the doctors had to operate and set the bone with a pin. Kris and I drove down to Seminole with my parents and visited her in the hospital. Uncle Burt had come into town from the ranch, and he and I went into the room together. Uncle Burt was dressed in the costume he had taken up after 175 Decline retiring from the horseback life: khaki pants, a long-sleeved khaki shirt with the top button buttoned against the bulge of his double chin, and black cowboy boots with a tall riding heel. He had removed his straw cowboy hat and held it in work-thick fingers. In small towns in West Texas, those khaki clothes usually marked a man as a rancher, not a cowboy. Even in retirement, cowboys held tight to their blue jeans and snap-button western shirts with color and flare. The khakis were more subdued, suggesting a higher status and more of a managerial turn of mind. Uncle Roy, who wasn’t present that day, always wore the same khaki uniform, and on him they seemed appropriate. On Uncle Burt, they looked good, but seemed a little out of character. They were rancher clothes, not cowboy clothes. Grandmother was lying in a hospital bed, weak, groggy, and at times incoherent. The nurses had wrapped her right forearm in a splint to prevent her from disturbing the IV needle in her vein. I had never seen herinabed,andthesightmademeuncomfortable.Itseemedverywrong that the matriarch of our family was suddenly helpless and depending on others to take care of her. Uncle Burt seemed just as uneasy as I did. Mable in her rose garden near the end of her life. Photo courtesy Martha Marmaduke and Barbara Whitton. 176 Chapter Twenty-two She was awake and recognized both of us, but she wasn’t in her right mind. The IV needle bothered her and she seemed determined to pull it out. Uncle Burt and I exchanged glances, and he moved toward the bed and held her left hand. This seemed to irritate her, and for a moment there was a flash of anger in her blue eyes. “Boys,” she said in a creaky voice, “I want this off! Take out your knives and cut it off.” We didn’t know what to say. “All right, if you won’t do what I ask, I’ll do it myself!” We called for a nurse who came and gave Grandmother a gentle scolding. As soon as the nurse left, Grandmother went back to work on the splint, but her fingers lacked the strength to do the job. A young doctor breezed into the room, glanced at her chart, and talked to her. I was astonished when he called her “Mable.” MABLE! This young upstart, freshoutofmedicalschool,hadnoideawhathewassaying.ThiswasMrs. Curry! He wanted another X-ray of the hip, and soon a male technician entered, and as casually as if he were uncovering a side of beef, pulled back the covers and slipped an X-ray plate beneath Grandmother’s hip. The Curry home in winter. Photo courtesy Martha Marmaduke and Barbara...