Happy Mother's Day, Grandmother Nordyke

Nancy Narcissus Coffey Nordyke--Happy Mother's Day!

In honor of Mother’s Day a few words about my grandmother, Narrie Coffey Nordyke, mother of my dad, Lewis Nordyke.

I was always a little in awe of Grandmother, not just because she could wring a chicken’s neck without ruffling her starchy newly ironed apron, but because she had been a pioneer.         

            Narrie (Nancy Narcissus Coffey) was born in 1874 in Dalton, Georgia to Molly (Mary Catherine—Katy, my Catherine is partly named for her) Ferrington and E.N. Coffey, a Confederate veteran of  the Battle of  Chickamauga. When Narrie was small the Coffeys pulled up their Georgia stakes—land was scarce and mostly farmed out—and headed forTexas. As a kid I envisioned the covered wagon, the campfires, the winding road, until one day I asked Grandmother, “What was it like to be on a covered wagon?”

            “I have no idea!” She pulled herself up to her full six feet and said with her usual dignity, “We came on the train.” My vision changed. White gloves were Grandmother’s thing. She wore them to the beauty shop in Baird, to the café downtown; almost anything was worth putting on her good suit and white gloves. Now I saw a parlor car with a little girl in white gloves and a Sunday dress walking down the aisle. Later, I learned they came on an immigrant train sharing a boxcar with their livestock, household goods, and several other families. I can only guess that they wished for the open trail and a campfire.

            I think about Molly, getting onto the train with her youngsters knowing full well that while there would be many letters (wish I could find them) sent with love, likely she would never see her family again. Far as I can tell, she didn’t.

            Narrie grew up in Callahan County, Texas surrounded by Georgia family and friends. But when it came time to fall in love, she picked a sort-of Yankee fiddler from Limestone County who’d come to visit relatives before heading for fiddling jobs in the saloons of Alaska.

Nancy Narcissus Coffey and Charles T. Nordyke
Married in Callahan County, Texas, December 24, 1899.

            On December 24, 1899 Narrie and Charlie Nordyke married. After a brief stint inLimestone County, and, yes, this time they did go in a covered wagon, they lived and farmed in Callahan County the rest of their long lives. Lewis was the middle child and middle boy in the family of seven.

On the farm, probably in the late 1920s.

At the 50th wedding anniversary celebration.
I'm the imp in the jumper planning mischief with
my cousin Charles Reid. (Can't you tell?)
Poor little Paul Gene--the likely victim--is