Friday, March 08, 2013
Centennial Celebration For Bobbie Craddock is Saturday, March 9, 2 pm to 4 pm @ 592 CR 4815
Come and go between 2 pm and 4 pm, Saturday, March 9, @ County Road 4815 to celebrate 100th birthday of Bobbie Edmonds Martin Craddock
"Interviewing Bobbie":
She sits in the home she and Joe Bailey built
Soon after they married in Nineteen Forty One
When Bobbie’s age was 2 years shy of 30:
A lap robe keeps her warm
Born in 1913, Bobbie’s first Century ends in March,
Prompting historian Bill Jones’ interview today.
He is soft-spoken, gentle and calls her “Bobbie”
He has done this long enough to master The Way:
Where did you go to school? Quitman and Mineola.
Teacher names unremembered, but they left a mark
As did a bad case of influenza after the Great War:
Among things recalled by a centenarian matriarch.
She worked at the Agricultural Adjustment Act office
As did Joe Bailey: There they met, married, bore fruit.
He became a prominent farmer of Webster Community
Stubborn soil and society: Idleness did not compute.
She recalled travel on unpaved Wood County roadways
When it was common to mire in either mud or deep sand:
Long, narrow bridges of tempered steel and iron
Life always tough, occasionally oh so grand.
Bill Jones’ targeted questions, ending at length:
Bobbie, the centenarian, still alert and spry,
Her century-honed smile still warm, yes, still wide
A hundred years of twinkle shimmering in her eye.
For 10 full decades Bobbie has graced this ancient earth
Mostly doing what comes naturally: Just being herself.
No one would dare to put Bobbie in a category,
And don’t even think of putting Bobbie on a shelf.
---Joe Dan Boyd, at Live Poets Society meeting, Art &
Espresso, Winnsboro Market Street, Third Friday Art Walk: 01-18-13 &
published in Winnsboro News, 03-07-13 edition.
