Ernest Mabry and Mary Belle Auxier
Living In Two-Part Harmony
written by their daughter
Joyce Mabry Carney
My daddy played the harmonica. He played "Red Wing", he played "You Are My Sunshine", he played "When My Blue Moon Turns to Gold Again". When he was up in years, and had lost his breath from all the cigarettes he had smoked, he would still try to play the harmonica. He would only last the first few bars, but I still thought is was beautiful.
I was five years old when we lived on Harry Jones' farm northeast of Hydro, Oklahoma. I guess we were "sharecroppers", although Mr. Jones didn't make us feel that way. He let Daddy farm the way Daddy wanted to. (My Daddy was so honest, he could make a deal with a handshake, and anyone who knew him never doubted he would make it good.)
Anyway, we lived on the "Jones Place." We had a big garden, Mama, Daddy, and me, and in the summer, were joined by all the cousins who wanted to come and stay with "Uncle Ernest and Aunt Mary Belle." We put up fruit and vegetables, dressed chickens, had water fights, and in the evening, lay out in the yard on quilts Grandma Mabry had pieced, and looked at the stars, while Daddy and the boys took turns at the crank on the ice cream freezer. And Daddy played his harmonica.
Daddy and Mama were in love. Funny that I never noticed that, then. I was only five years old and I thought Daddy and Mama had been together for always, and I knew they always would be.
I couldn't help but notice however, that things took on a slight air of excitement just before Daddy come home from the field. Whatever Mama was doing, she would stop long enough to put on a fresh ironed dress and a clean apron, and brush her hair, which was parted on the side, and secured with a "bobby pin." Then she would continue her work, looking out the window or pausing at the door now and then.
I would swing on the front gate out by the windmill, and listen. From far away, I could hear the putt-putt of a tractor. Then it would stop. Daddy would be getting off now, and walking to the fence between the field and the pasture. Two fingers between his teeth, and a whistle, too soft for me to hear in the front yard, but loud enough for "Old Toney" our horse, to hear, and respond to. The white horse, so named because he was so "high toned" he would only let people ride him when it was his decision, let only Daddy ride him bareback.
Up the lane they would come, Daddy in his striped overalls, as relaxed on the back of that old white horse as he would have been in the rocking chair on the porch. Soon, I would hear that harmonica squall! "Orange Blossom Special" and the train, with its whistle and the engine and the wheels turning on the track were all coming at me on the evening wind. "Red Wing" would be next..so sad, the pretty little Indian Maiden waiting for her love to return, but "far away beneath the sky her Brave is sleeping, while Red Wing's weeping her heart away." I could see Daddy now, his straw hat shading his face from the setting sun. Mama had joined me at the gate.
"You Are My Sunshine." Yes, I was. His "Sunshine." Forty-five when I was born, and Mama, forty. Their only little chicken, loved and protected. I never doubted they existed only for me. Never caught the look between them when he slid off Old Toney's back, and kissed her. It was literally over my head.
Oh, I heard them, year after year say, "I love you, Hon" to each other, several times a day. I thought all married people did that. Watched them hold hands in the car all my life. Never thought it was special..never knew how their lives depended on each other.
Until Daddy died. February 15. The day after his favorite holiday--Valentine's Day. I was 33 years old, and still thought they lived just for me. "Did you get the girls their Valentines?" he asked me from his hospital bed, just before he went into a sleep that finally ended in death.
"Yes, Daddy, I did. Got one for all your sisters and sisters-in-law, Daddy. They wouldn't know what to think if they didn't get a Valentine from you, would they?"
Mama was strong, right to the end. I knew she'd be alright, because she was always the strong one and there when you needed her. Everybody called on her for help, and she could fix anything. Besides, she still had me, and a grandson, and a granddaughter on the way. Mama would be alright.
Mama tried. But her life was over. She had lived to take care of Daddy and to be taken care of by him. Her health failed and I became the caretaker; the nurse who tied to make her eat, make her care again. She tried.
The night before she died, six months after Daddy, she told a friend of mine, "I just want to go and be with Ernest."
Some women look all their lives for a knight in shining armor. My mama found hers. A prince in striped overalls, on the back of a sway-backed charger. Playing a harmonica. "When my Blue Moon turns to gold again--I'll be back within your arms to stay."
Published January 24, 1995 - Country Connection
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Your Are My Sunshine
provided by Dick Anderson
