The Red Flannel Rag

This pattern of starting new families was the source of resentment for the

daughters in the family until they understood that their own husband’s mother was

supposed to take over their raising and train them to be good wives to her son. The

mothers seemed to accept these arrangements as a matter of routine. Until I

understood the situation, I thought that mothers cared more about their sons than they

did their daughters. In my community, the strong connection between a mother and

her son continued after his marriage. The new couple often spent the first years of their

marriage under the groom’s mother’s roof.

I didn’t really think much about this arrangement until it happened to my family.

Larry married a girl in the mountain tradition. Her name was Hilda Dove. He chose her

from a mountain community further back in the Alleghenies called Fulk ’ s Run. He was

twenty years old, and she was fourteen. He had just received his draft notice. A man

could avoid the army and perhaps avoid going to Vietnam if he got married. When he

asked for Hilda’s hand, her parents freely signed the documents to allow him to marry

her. Hilda was not pregnant so it was not a “shotgun” wedding.

Once they were married, Larry brought Hilda home to live with Mom and Dad

and my younger brothers and sister. Mom finished raising Hilda and taught her how to

cook, clean, preserve food, bake bread, and do all the things a mountain wife did for her

family.

My sister and I were jealous of Hilda and Mom because their relationship was

different from our relationship with our mother. They had a unique connection as

mother-in-law and daughter-in-law and also as mother and child without the

complications that real daughters sometimes have with their mothers. Mom wanted the

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