Lennie Lee Thornton Jordan - Mother of Lessie Jordan Baucom

Left to right: Unknown, unknown, Aunt Trannie Roach, James Franklin Jordan, Lennie Lee Thornton Jordan. This photo is believed to have been taken in Hardeman Co. Tn.

James Franklin Jordan & Lennie Lee Thornton Jordan are the parents of Lessie Omeda Jordan Baucom, seen below. (Far right.)

(As noted before, Lessie Jordan Baucom was the wife of Comer Baucom and was the mother of Garland (Mickey) Baucom. Lessie Brasher IS not the mother of Mickey and was never married to Comer Baucom.)

Aunt Trannie was the sister of Lennie' mother, Jemima Roach Thornton. Nanny said that she had a large growth on her face so she always turned sideways in photos.

I was born a month after Lennie died, so I never knew her. But my dad and Aunt Barbara always told me that she was sweet and that everyone loved her. After her husband James Franklin Jordan died, she took turn turns traveling around to live with some of her children. She died while she was at Lessie & Comer's home (the former Lula Mae Foster Home for Boys in Birmingham, AL.)

After I was an adult, one of Lennie's other children related to me that it hurt the other children badly when their mother died and items that had belonged to her at her death were not shared with them.

Don't get me wrong, no one was robbed of an inheritance, because there was none.  When her husband died they were too poor to buy a gravestone. In fact, if his kids hadn't have pitched in, he'd be out at Potter's Field instead of Forest Hill Cemetery!

But Lennie had a trunk she took with her every time she moved domiciles among her children. It held family mementos and photos, but when you're poor and it's your mama, it's worth more than gold.

So the report goes that none of Lennie's other children were given any photos or mementos and it hurt them. If that's true, it's the only black mark on my grandmother's character that I've ever heard of. But maybe the other kids thought there was a lot more in that trunk than really was and  maybe time tells the story different than it really happened.

The story was also of interest to me because of what happened with the theft of items from Nanny's home after she died. Not anything of much value. You wouldn't have paid ten bucks for the lot of it at a yard sale. But to the people she had promised those items to, they were pure gold.

But back to Lennie:

It was related to me that Lennie had some interesting quirks and believed in a lot of old mountain folk lore and remedies. She wouldn't bathe in the winter and was convinced that bathing completely naked in the winter was a fast route to an early death. So she only took sponge baths during the winter.

Lennie had a very happy life in her last years, she enjoyed her great-grandchildren and I have seen several photos of her holding Mickey Jr., Kerry and Keith but sadly those where all lost when someone burned down Uncle Mickey's house on Lake Martin.

Lennie's earlier life was hard, hardscrabble and a included marriage to a hard drinking man, so I'm glad she had some peace in her later years.

The below is a photo of a trip we took to Payne Lake with Nanny. I still remember the car ride some 32 years ago and Daddy and Nanny sang hymns most of the way. The memory of their harmony on "The Old Rugged Cross" is still clear in my mind.

But here is why things fade away. It's hard to care about someone you never knew and keep those memories alive. I knew and loved Nanny and HER memories were important to me, so I try and keep them alive. But my youngest son never even knew Nanny. It's harder for him to conceptualize the memory of the mother of someone he never knew. So I see everything, the memory of us fading away in just a generation or two. Because that's just the way it is: Everything fades away, in this life. But not in the next!