On August 12, 1911, Margaret Bales was born in Lone Grove, Llano County, Texas. A few weeks later, on September 7, 1911, Muriel Stevenson was born in Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Louisiana. They would not meet until the late nineteen fifties when Margaret’s daughter, Peggy Ratliff, and Muriel’s son, David George met at Howard Payne College in Brownwood, Texas.
Margaret
Bales Ratliff grew up on a small farm in a dry, rocky area of Texas. Like a lot
of people in rural American then, they were poor by today’s standards but rich
in some important ways. Margaret had a dream of becoming a teacher and went to
Mary Hardin Baylor College. She and her sister had two dresses each and they
would trade on weekends. She started teaching before she graduated and finished
in the summers. Her brother, Albert, was killed in action in the Pacific during
World War II. She married, Wortham
Ratliff, whose family operated a dairy farm, and moved to San Antonio
when he got a job in aircraft maintenance at Kelly Air Force Base. They had two
daughters. Margaret continued to teach in the public schools. The family was
active in a Baptist church. She taught Sunday School and was active in the
Child Evangelism Fellowship and the Bible Memory Association. In retirement she
continued to teach adults, sometimes including men, in Sunday School in
Kingsland, Texas. She died on June 24, 20089, at the age of 96, in Lakeway,
Texas, near Austin.
Muriel
Stevenson George grew up in a small town in Northeast Louisiana. Her mother
died when she was two, and she and her infant brother were boarded with another
family until their father remarried. Her relationship with her stepmother was
not good and made her childhood difficult. After high school she went to work
in the office of the Ouachita Candy Company in Monroe. There she met Evans
George who had come from Central Arkansas to work. They had two sons. They
tried to start their own business in the late forties, but it failed, and the
family started over again in Texas. Muriel went to work in a bank in San
Antonio. Evans became sales manager for Gebhart Mexican Foods. They raised
their children in church and maintained membership in Baptist Churches wherever
they moved. In later years they lived in Denver, Colorado, where she died
August 19, 2006, just short of her ninety-fifth birthday.
Both
of these women came of age and married during the Great Depression. They lived
through two world wars and the tumultuous years that followed. They established
good marriages and good homes. They lived in small, modest houses with few of
the modern conveniences we enjoy today. They worked hard and found employment
outside the home to help their families. They put all their children through
college. They supported their churches. Both have lived their last years as
widows, as most wives do, having nursed their husbands through their final
illness.
As
we come to Mother’s Day this year, I am keenly aware of the importance of these
two women and countless others like them who have been faithful to God and to
their families through so many years. We have their DNA, their examples, their
teaching, and their love to thank for our lives and those of our children.
Mother’s Day is a time to remember and give thanks.
