Mattie Eula Meadows Gupton: 1891-1969

Today is the 118th anniversary of the birth of my grandmother. Mattie Eula Meadows was born on July 28, 1891, in Bessemer, Alabama, to James Ransom Meadows and his wife Mary Harriet Snowden Meadows. She and my grandfather, Samuel Morris Gupton, were married on Christmas Day in 1910 in Bay City, Texas.

I was in the sixth grade when my Daddy's mother passed away on April 27, 1969, at the age of 77. She had suffered a severe stroke while visiting her daughter and son-in-law, Ruby and Kirby Fontenot, in Bellaire. Although my sister Kelli and I were only children at the time and were not supposed to be allowed into her Methodist Hospital room in Houston, our Uncle Kirby slipped a nurse a fifty or something like that and slipped us in to see Eula one last time before she died. I can recall walking down that long hallway towards where my grandmother awaited us thinking that Eula would be sitting up in bed, laughing and chatting with all of her family members who were there. Being the stupid little kid that I was at the time, I was preparing my topic of discussion with her as I walked through that hospital room door. The sight of her in that hospital bed is something I will never forget. The stroke had taken away her ability to speak and she was partially paralyzed. Uncle Kirby whisked Kelli and I past those family members who were in Eula's room and situated us near her so that our grandmother could see Kelli and I. I think I babbled something to Eula about how much I missed her and asked when was she coming home. She lived in the house across the yard from the home I lived in with my parents and my brother and sister in West Columbia. Her lack of response and stoic facial expression quickly brought me to tears. My sister and I returned to the waiting area while our parents remained in Eula's room with her. That was the last time I saw my grandmother alive.

I can remember being on the front porch of our home with my cousin Angie when either my mother or Angie's mother came out and told us that our grandmother had died. My Daddy had prepared me for this with a little talk he had with me about how death would eventually come to each and every one of us, and his mother's time to leave us was drawing near. But I still fell all apart when the reality that Eula was gone had sunk in. Having Angie there with me meant a lot and I can still recall her telling me that day something on the lines of dealing with the passing of our beloved grandmother would surely not be easy but we should both be thinking more about our fathers who had just lost their mother. Angie and her brother Hank are the children of Aubrey and Terry Gupton while my sister Kelli and brother Cody and I are the children of Rex and Verna Gupton.

Eula was also survived by her daughter Ruby Nell Fontenot and sons Thurman and S.D. and their respective spouses, Kirby Fontenot, Gladys Gupton and Nina Dean Gupton. Her other grandchildren who mourned her passing that very sad day in 1969 were Dolores and Peggy Lou, the daughters of Thurman and Gladys, and Kirby and Denise, the children of S.D. and Nina Dean. All of Eula and Buff Gupton's grandchildren (with the exception of my little sister Kelli) are pictured with our grandparents at their golden wedding anniversary in the home of Judge Thurman and Gladys Gupton in West Columbia in the bottom photo. Eula is shown holding me when I was a baby in the top photo, taken in late 1957 or early 1958 in her yard.

But on Eula's birthday today it is more appropriate to reflect on her wonderful life than to rehash the difficult days leading up to her death. She was a very loving, caring mother and grandmother to my father and his siblings as well as to me, my siblings and all of my cousins. My grandfather Buff (who was called Bussie by me and several others and Granddaddy Gupton by DoDo and Peggy Lou) today walks the dark shadows of my memories as a very thin, frail, elderly man struggling for every breath he took while suffering from emphysema. He died when I was a small child but I can still remember Eula or my mother or father taking me into his bedroom to sit with him in those last few years of his life. My brother is over three years older than me and he and my older cousins were lucky to have enjoyed much more precious time with Bussie than I did. And I'm sure my sister doesn't remember her grandfather at all. She was born the year Buff and Eula Gupton celebrated 50 years of marriage in 1960 and was only one or two years old when Bussie passed away.

Through the numerous reels of old home movies my godmother Ruby Nell Fontenot and her husband Kirby took in the mid to late 1950s, valuable family mementos that I now possess and have transferred to videotape, I can view snippets of what life must have been like in the Gupton family before I was born and when I was a baby. My grandparents, parents, uncles and aunts and cousins (and me, my brother and baby sister) are brought back to life on television screens for my personal enjoyment each and every time I stick this videotape into a VCR. And now, eight years after the passing of my father and more than 13 years following my mother's death, I still am unable to avoid getting misty eyed and emotional when watching Aunt Ruby's old home movies. They are all silent films but if I look real, real close . . . at times I actually think I can hear their voices and the unique laughter of my Aunt Ruby and especially Aunt Nina who both had such wonderful loud laughs.

My memories of those earliest days of my life are highlighted by such frequent laughter, not only from my brother and sister and myself, but those many family members who made us laugh. Uncle Hank, Uncle Doc, Uncle Thurman and Uncle Kirby were such outstanding men to have accompany our father Rex Gupton in providing each child of these men (Uncle Kirby, who had no children of his own, was my godfather) with top notch dads and role models beyond compare. And their wives--Thurman's wife Gladys, Kirby's wife Ruby Nell, Rex's wife Verna (my mom), Hank's wife Terry, and Samuel Doc's wife Nina Dean--really gave our family its heart and soul. These were the children of Buff and Eula Gupton and their spouses. When this group would get together for family gatherings laughter was the key ingredient that stands out in my memory of my youth. I think I can speak for my brother and sister in saying that we all simply adored our family, each of our many cousins who share our bloodline and their parents.

The strength of the S.M. Gupton family was its matriarch, Mattie Eula Meadows Gupton. My son Brian asked me earlier today when I informed him that this was the 118th birthday of my dad's mother if I remembered her at all. I admitted to Brian that sadly I have very few memories of her husband Buff but Eula was another story all together. My parents built a home across the yard from my dad's mother's house in 1962 following the death of my grandfather. From the beginning of our time living on Gupton Lane we all attempted to include Eula in practically all aspects of our daily lives as her next door neighbors and her family. There were many times Eula would sit at our dinner table and watch television with us in our new home. And right up until the time of her final days when I was in the sixth grade I often would sit with her either in her living room where the only air conditioner in her house would keep that portion of her home cooler than anywhere else, or on her backporch where her favorite and most comfortable chair was situated in a location where she could gaze out through the many windows surrounding her on all sides and see her backyard, the road that ran beside her house and our front yard. This was her favorite place to sit during those final years of her life. And it is where I would sit beside her time after time after time and listen to her stories of her youth and throughout the rest of her long life. She would often dig out her pictures and tell me who everyone was in them, read old letters that were stuffed in drawers and boxes, and tell me just how much her family meant to her. Those words were never really needed though, because how much she valued each and every member of her large family was so very obvious by her actions. I knew from my own heart just how much Eula meant to me in those dozen years I was able to share my life with her. Since her passing it has meant a great deal to me to hear my cousins and aunts and uncles express to me how each of them also held her in their loving embrace during her life and, like me today, still think of her fondly when Eula Meadows Gupton crosses their minds.

I ask each of my surving relatives in the S.M. Gupton family who read this blog to add a comment about your own memories and stories about our grandmother. As I've said many times, I remain very envious of each of my older cousins and my older brother who were able to spend more precious time with both Buff and Eula before they passed away. A happy birthday is extended to Eula today and I close by simply saying that I loved her very much and yes, even after all these years, I still miss her dearly.