Mama never let herself get too tired.  This thought comes to mind as I read a saved article by Stover Dunagan, Jr.  Mama never let herself get too tired, unless she wanted to.  Truth be known, as a young mother and wife, she cooked, and sewed, and cleaned, and quilted, and worked endlessly; yet, it was not uncommon to hear her say, “I’ve got to stop a minute and let my heart catch up.”     

               Growing up, the word heart was as common to me as the word  face. By that I mean, mother talked with me about our hearts in the same way she might say, “It’s time to wash our faces.”  For example, arriving at a local high school football game she’d say, “Scup, let’s park the car where our hearts can handle the walk,” or climbing the courthouse steps,  “Whew, those steps really get your heart pumping.”  In other words, wherever we were, our hearts were also. 

               What I understood about mama’s own heart, I had gathered in bits and pieces. Its first beat was in 1929 in an old country hollow. For awhile, its nameless owner, was simply the youngest daughter and eleventh child of an aging farmer and midwife, Fred and Maggie.  Parents of eleven children, with several reared to adulthood, family lore tells that the baby girl was finally named when a neighbor woman came gifting a spring bouquet of Irises and ferns. Not too many years later, young Fern, the green's namesake, was stricken with Rheumatic Fever. Thereafter, a mitral valve was permanently damaged and the fragile heart was left to fade.

               Dunagan’s article describes that mother’s physicians, Yelton and  Mebane, determined that she had less than a year to live, and as a result, Dr. Mebane contacted a friend and surgeon in Boston, Dr. Dwight Harken.   Dunagan writes:  Six months ago, Fern M., 21-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Fred A. M. was a very sick girl-with less than one year to live.  Now she is on the road to complete recovery, thanks to the faith of herself and family, two  physicians, the Junior Chamber of Commerce and a Boston surgeon.  Fern had been suffering from mitral valvulo plasty: a narrowing and poor function of a valve of the heart as a result of rheumatic fever, for the past two years, and had been constantly failing in health.  She finally reached the point where any physical exertion would give her an attack.  These attacks came regularly every three to four weeks.   

               As Fern received her death sentence,  Fred and Maggie, now each over sixty years old, held hard-working country lives that did not include the possession of funds needed to save a young girl’s life.  Thus, here is the point in the story where today we begin to give our thanks. 

               In the 1950's, Dr. Yelton was a member of the Jaycees. Dunnagan writes, “Yelton introduced the case to the Jaycees, of which he is a member, and the club backed him and the girl up, 100 percent. Since time was short and the need for money urgent, an appeal was made to a neighbor city Jaycees for help.”  Quick and generous support arrived as a result of a county-wide drive,  and soon the Jaycees had Fern in a car bound for Boston. 

  Dunagan provides my mother’s story in her own words:

There is very little I can say about the trip North, because most of the time, I was lying down in the car.  I did enjoy traveling through the valleys of Virginia with the brilliance of fall colors all around me.  It reminded me of school days and Joyce Kilmer’s poem, “Trees.”   We stopped in Bristol, PA the first night, and the following day we entered all the noise and confusion of Brooklyn, N.Y.  Brooklyn reminded me of a huge toy, wound up and released upon the world to clatter, rant, and rumble. 

               Then on to Boston, up the beautiful Merritt Parkway.  Once again, we met all the racket of a big town, but, after a few days, the noise didn’t bother me anymore. 

               After eleven days of taking hundreds of tests, I was taken to the Pent House, the patient’s name for the operating room.  At first I was scared of the operation, but after meeting Dr. Harken, my fear seemed to disappear.  Dr Harken was quite interested in my case, because I was the youngest patient to undergo this type of operation, from which only two others had survived.  But, when it was all over, and I had his assurance that the operation was a complete success, I felt perfectly wonderful, and could actually feel my strength coming back  During the latter part of my stay, Dr. Harken made films of me, and the type of operation he had performed, to use at his lectures.  He also made pictures of me at my favorite sport, fishing, to show the success of his efforts.  I hope my story will be of help to some other person, as unfortunate as I to have this trouble, but fortunate enough to have the help and support that I did.  I am so thankful to my many new friends, who worked and hoped for me.

  There is much in my heart that I would like to say, but I could never find the words to express how terribly grateful I am.  They opened up their hearts so that my heart might be stronger.         

               Dunagan sums up his story, “Fern is home now, not completely cured, but certainly well on the road to complete recovery and a normal way of life.  She intends to enter a business school shortly to study typing and shorthand, preparing herself for a career that she almost couldn’t have. Fern’s story of success and life is a beautiful one; one which may bring new hope to hundreds of men and women suffering from the same type of heart trouble that came so close to ending Fern’s life.”            

               Today, in our family, we agree that our mother had a beautiful, relatively healthy life; even as she so frequently addressed the presence of her heart. True to her plan, one year after the surgery, Iris Fern enrolled in Cecil’s Business College in South Carolina.   Our mother passed away in 1998 as a result of a car accident and after airlifting her to a cardiac unit in Charlotte, NC.   While there, several physicians spoke with me about my mother's story of which they were apparently familiar with her case.       

               Mother told us once that while in Boston, Dr. Harken advised her to never marry, or if she did, to never bear children. Yet, one summer night at a Spartanburg Auditorium singing, she met my father,  a striking soldier on leave from the Korean War. 

               The last line of Joyce Kilmer’s poem reads, “But, only God can make a tree.”   In 2010, some fifty-nine years after my mother’s heartfelt experience, my brother, sister, and I, along with seven grandchildren, and nine great grandchildren express an honest thanks.

photo credit : Free Photo-Paint Image

 Scupper © 2/2002, rev. 2010