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My Mom, Doris Ward Buckley Berry
My Mom, Doris Ward Buckley Berry, was born in Mize Mississippi on December 13, 1920. She was Marion (Pa) Buckley’s and Lillian (Momma Lilly) Ward Buckley’s second child. She was born in their home in Mize and was delivered by Dr. McMullen. Mom’s sister, Alyce Ray Buckley, who was born on April 13, 1913, was 7 years old at the time. Her other sister, Betty Laura Buckley, would be born on July 4, 1924, three years away.
Marion Buckley was a graduate of the Marion Institute of Business. He owned and operated a dry goods store in the town of Mize at the time Mom was born. The store sold general merchandise, men’s clothing and cow feed. Earlier in his career he had been a traveling salesman. He grew up in the Fellowships community of Jasper County Mississippi, an area fifty or so miles north of Mize. Mize had been a part of his sales route. He would ride the train into Mize, rent a buggy and visit the various stores in the area, taking orders. It was on one of these trips he met Lillian. Lillian’s mother, Granny, owned the boarding house where Marion often stayed at on these trips
Mize
While in Mize, Pa, Lilly and the three girls lived in a house up on top of a hill. They had a storm pit to shelter them from bad storms. Mom said she had very few good memories of Mize but she did remember her first grade year Christmas as special. Her Santa Claus gift under the tree was a gift from Sears. It was a school satchel full of pencils, crayons and paper. Otherwise, Mize, as the Great Depression dug in, was “so poor; it was something you only read about in books. People were just surviving. Mom remembers trying to sell seed door-to-door as a child and Momma Lilly baking fruitcakes with blackberry wine to sell. She also remembers finding a dime on the floor of a store where they were shopping and thought she had come upon a fortune.
Mom remembered there was a creek running through the town of Mize called Mill Creek. She also remembered shopping at Mrs. McCollum’s flower shop in Mize. Mrs. McCollum’s husband who was tall and thin was very nice to her. The McCollums had a son named Grafton. One of Mom’s saddest memories was when she broke her only doll. She had nothing else to play with. She treated her cat as her doll.
Mom had one good friend while they lived in Mize. This was Lallah Rook Clark. When they moved from Mize they would take an occasional trip back to Mize. Mom would try to see Lallah. Lallah’s brother was Charles Clark. Mom’s sister, Alyce dated Charles. The Clarks were a little better off than most of the poor folks in Mize.
Magee
Mom and her family moved to Magee Mississippi around 1930 when she was approximately ten years old and while she was in the third grade. This was at the beginning of the Great Depression, a very difficult time with fortunes lost by millions. With the public unable to purchase goods, Pa Buckley could no longer afford to operate their store in Mize. Mom remembers Pa closing the store and moving all of the remaining unsold merchandise into their house, into one room. Magee had become the center of commerce in the area. Pa had already begun traveling into Magee to pickup house painting jobs as that had proven to be a successful means of supporting the family. It was not long before Momma Lilly insisted that they all move to Magee rather than Pa staying with strangers as a boarder in Magee for several days at a time.
Mom’s sister, Alyce, was almost eight years older than she. Alyce was old enough that she was allowed to stay in Mize to finish her schooling when the family moved to Magee. She was attending the Mize Agriculture High School and lived in the school’s dormitory. The school was on the edge of town and had some culture as opposed to the squalor of the town
They had owned a house in Mize but when they moved to Magee they were forced to rent. Approximately every two years they would move to another rented house in Magee. The first house they lived in Magee was across the street from Judge Russell’s home. (Judge Russell’s nephew was lawyer Rich Russell.) It was on the west side of the railroad tracks. Their house was two-story. Mom’s best friend was Lanell “Tutsie” Russell. Their meeting place was the garage where they had a club. The initiation to the club was the chewing of a particular bitter vine. Tutsie was a little older than Mom. They also played crocket and other games to kill time.
Their second house was on Second Avenue near the First Baptist Church on the east side of the railroad tracks that ran through Magee. This house was closer to the school and an easier walk for Mom. Mrs. Thelma Winstead owned this house. Mrs. Winstead had been recently widowed and when she remarried to Mr. Mangum she decided to rent out the house. The house that was built around 1905 had some acreage behind it and a barn. Mrs. Winstead had a son and two daughters. Mom had made friends with the youngest daughter, Mary Nell. Mrs. Winstead was well known in Magee as the music teacher. A couple of years after Pa and Mamma Lilly moved in, Mrs. Winstead came back and told them she wanted her house back because things had not worked out with Mr. Mangum. The house is still standing and after a recent major remodel is now owned by my first cousin-twice-removed on my Dad’s side, Whitney Barnes
Their third house in Magee was the Beldon house. It was in the same area as the Winstead house. Mr. Beldon had been the taxi cab driver in town prior to his death. Mom remembers Mrs. Beldon being somewhat of a vulgar woman. Two of the Beldon children were good-looking and poplar. Mamma Lilly helped deliver the daughter’s first baby.
The fourth house was the Hillmon (or Hilbourn) house. The Hillmons had recently moved to DeLo. This house was on 1st Street also near the First Baptist Church. This house was setup like a duplex. While living at this house their cousin, Ulma Smith, moved in with them. Ulma had TB and had nowhere else to go. This was a very uncomfortable time for them since Ulma coughed day and night.
The fourth house was the Presbyterian Manse house. This house was on the west side of highway 49. It had been the Presbyterian minister’s home. During the time they lived in this house Mom’s mother’s mother, Granny, died. Granny had lived with them earlier but was living with Aunt Beulah and Uncle Walter in Newton at the time of her death. Granny’s father had been a doctor, Dr. John Currie, in the Raleigh area. Mom’s second cousin, Dr. M. Oyd Currie was one of the very first doctors to work in Magee. He started his practice in Magee in 1927.
Mom, who was very shy, had a lot of good childhood memories of times living in the Manse house even though this was during the deepest part of the Great Depression. Things were so bad financially that Momma Lilly had to barter “sewing” and Pa had to milk and sell milk from a milk-cow they kept in the back yard in order to make ends meet. The Presbyterian Church, who still owned the Manse house, had a church member, Mrs. Weber, who was destitute and estranged from her husband. The church insisted that Pa allow Mrs. Weber to move into the empty room in the house. Later, the husband of Mrs. Weber returned and moved into the room with Mrs. Weber. This made it very inconvenient for everyone. Shortly after Mr. Weber’s return he was arrested for making counterfeit money and both he and Mrs. Weber moved out.
Their fifth and last house in Magee was a house directly across from the front side of the Magee High School. This was on a corner lot with house facing the football field. Pa and Momma Lilly actually moved there while Mom was in nursing school in Jackson. When Mom returned home after finishing nursing school she lived at the house with Pa, Momma Lilly and her sister Betty until she married.
Mom had three very good girl friends while growing up in Magee. They were Bobbie Burhnam, Francis Puckett and Virginia May. Their playhouse was the tall ferns across the street from their house. The three girls shared all types of adventures. Francis later married a boy by the name of Blackwell who ended up owning one of the two Chevrolet Dealerships in Jackson Mississippi. Bobbie married and moved off to New York. Virginia married someone from Illinois.
Mom’s boy friend after high school, probably while she was in nursing school in Jackson but before my dad, was Charlie Flash. He was from the New Orleans area. He was a Parker-Davis drug salesman His proper name was probably Charles George Flash. He did later marry a nurse and they had a child (Edwin Flash) around the same time Mom had her first child, Lynda. He lived with Merrells while he was in Jackson. Mom told me she borrowed other nursing student’s clothes in order to impress him on dates. She said she otherwise had barely a pot to pee in. She said she also told little white lies about herself to impress him. Regardless, her friends told her he was not good enough for her.
Mom graduated from Magee High School in 1938 during the depths of the Great Depression. The summer after she graduated she hung around with her girl-friend Virginia May. She had wanted to go to Millsap College in Jackson but could not afford to do so. She went to Clark College in Newton for a short while where her Aunt and Uncle ran the school. Since she had no money she knew soon that Clark College was not going to work out. On her own she began to plan what she wanted to do. Her dad’s and mom’s situation was somewhat hopeless because of the Depression and a number of other set-backs. She knew her parents were not going to be able to help her financially. Her dad had at that time a series of things that further ruined him financially and physically. He fell out of the Presbyterian Church Steeple while painting, then he got chicken pox and then Mom’s sister Alyce wrecked the family car by running the car into one of the store-fronts in Magee. They could not afford to even have the car fixed. Her sister Alyce would never drive again.
***The photo to the right is of Mrs. Berry’s Magee High School 1938 diploma cover.
Nursing School
Mom’s plan was to become a nurse. She traveled up the highway from Magee to meet Aunt Ollie and Uncle Bill in Mendenhall. Uncle Bill, who worked for the railroad, had access to a telephone and let her use it to make calls. Her plan was to contact the two nursing schools, Charity Hospital and Baptist Hospital, in Jackson, that were training nurses. World War II had accelerated the nursing programs across the country because nurses were so badly needed in the war effort. Her first call was to Charity. Charity Hospital had an excellent reputation as a nursing school. She made an appointment for making an application. Aunt Ollie helped her to dress up and Uncle Bill paid the bus fare to Jackson. Her cousin Mardell was working at the Heidelberg Hotel in Jackson. The back entrance to the hotel was directly in front on the bus station on Pearl Street. Mardell took a break from work and met her at the bus station upon her arrival. Mardell also helped her to find her way to the Charity Hospital on State Street. She wore a hat and Oxford-style shoes. (Mom said she probably looked somewhat gaudy.) Charity did have an opening and she was accepted. Dr. Toxey Hall was the supertendant of the hospital school of nursing. After three years she graduated from the Mississippi State Charity Hospital School of Nursing. This was either in 1941 or 1942. Mom was not sure of the year because she had entered mid-term.
While she was at Charity she wore blue & white uniforms that her mother had made for her. She worked very hard during her training and enjoyed every minute of it. Her best friend while in nursing school was Hazel Nelson. Mom’s sister, Alyce, who was married to my Uncle Jake, was living in Jackson and paid her tuition. Meals, room & board and laundry were all included in the tuition. She was paid $8.00 per month, $2 of which she sent home to her Mother. Mom was actually better dressed than most of the other girls since Momma Lilly took great care in making her clothes. Mom said she also considered herself a cut-above most of the rest of the class. Her sister, Alyce and husband Jake, would take her home to Magee three times each year to see her parents.
Magee Hospital
After graduation she went home to Magee because she had no money to go anywhere else. She had been offered a job in Newton but had no resources to get herself setup on her own. Dr. W. W. Diamond and his wife had opened the Magee Hospital in 1936. Dr. Diamond had told her when she was still a high school student that if she ever did become a nurse he would give her a job. Dr. Diamond contacted her after graduation and asked her to come to work with him at his new hospital. The job included room & board at the hospital but she moved back in with her Mom and Dad. Her mother made her two new solid white uniforms. She was dressed all in white with her white stockings and white shoes.
When she went to work at the Magee Hospital her job consisted of mostly making x-rays and doing lab work. She worked as a floor nurse very little. It seems that X-ray and lab work were very valuable skills that only graduates from true nursing schools processed.
One morning at the hospital this handsome impressive elderly man came in demanding to see Dr. Diamond immediately. He had had a skin cancer removed and needed the wound dressed. Mom found out later that this was Mr. Omer Berry (my grandfather) who had loaned Dr. Diamond money to build the Magee Hospital. Mr. Omer was business partners of Mims Mitchell and was know as someone who had money during this cash-strapped period of financial depression. Later Mr. Berry brought his son, O.E. with him. This was Mom’s first time to meet my Dad, O.E. He was very good-looking wearing riding pants and riding boots. Mom, even though shy was still considered a beauty and must have been also noticed by my Dad as it was not long after O.E.’s first cousin, Inez Brooks, was asked by O.E. to make arrangements for a proper introduction.
After Miss Brooks contacted Pa and Momma Lilly for permission, Mom accepted an invitation to Miss Brooks’ house to meet O.E. This was their first date. Their third date was to attend church together at Mt. Zion Baptist Church on Mt. Zion Road where O.E. was a member and where the Berry family were very prominent. Mom’s one memory of that date was the impression she had made on Mrs. Colly Thompson, the know-everything and know-everybody at the church. Since Mom was a nurse Mrs. Thompson asked her what she should do if her son had a tooth ache. Boldly and very bluntly, Mom said “take him to a dentist”.
All of O.E.’s family continued to push O.E. to pursue Mom. Mom always felt the family saw it necessary for O.E. to marry someone that could take care of him like his mother had taken care of him.
Marriage
Mom and Dad dated for about eight months before they were married on October 17, 1943, at O.E.’s sister’s house (Mildred and Hewitt Buckley). They honeymooned on the Gulf Coast and spent their first night in a motel on the highway in Gulfport. Their first year of marriage was full of good times.
Mr. Berry’s contact information is below if you would like to share with him some more family information or to just catch up.
