Carrying on the Family Tradition

I am exhausted today because Maudie showed up and made me clean everything.  But most of you—well, all of you except for my family and a few close friends—have no idea what having Maudie with you means.  A little of my family history is needed to make this clear.

            My great grandfather on my mother’s side—the Stout side—was Jess Everett Stout, a charismatic evangelist who billed himself as “300 Pounds of TNT” for his tent revivals.  He was indeed a large man who could well have weighed 300 pounds if not more.  Jess Everett could sell anything from salvation to suburban lots in Detroit, Michigan.  He was a dapper man who loved to dress impeccably in fine style and loved to dine in fine hotels and white-glove establishments.  However, the one thing Jess did not like to do was any physical labor, including tying his own shoes.  Maudie did that for him.

            Luckily for Jess Everett, he married Maude Crickman, a woman who viewed the entire world as a place in need of a good scrub.  Maudie was a superb cook--as evidenced in her husband’s girth--and a cleaning machine.  Like Jess, Maudie was fastidious about her appearance, a woman who wore a corset every day until she died, in spite of her being a tall and very lean woman.  Her house dresses and white apron were starched and remained pressed-looking, even when she was down on her hands and knees cleaning corners with a toothpick.  Dirt did not stand a chance in the presence of Maude Crickman Stout.  She could not abide dust, and filth was beyond her imagining.

            As a result of these two opposites who adored one another—fat and lean; lazy and industrious—my mother and her aunt, Nina Stout Kelly, talked of Jess’s being with them or of having Maudie move in and force them to use Q Tips to clean the corners of the oven.  Now, my cousin Judy Kelly Leto and my sister Tomi Pugh Lambert talk of Maudie days and Jess days so much that we have had to explain this concept to our children.  Some of our friends and in-laws know well what we mean if one of us is to say something like: “If Maudie doesn’t show up soon, my house is going to fall down around my ears” or “Jess has been here all day, and I haven’t done a thing.”  When my daughter called today, I told her I couldn’t stop by because “Maudie showed up and made me repaint the porch furniture.”  She knows what that means.  I will not be able to stop until the painting is finished perfectly and the mess cleaned up….unless Jess drops in, of course.

            Perhaps my grandchildren will lose the significance of this caricature.  I didn’t even know Jess Everett as he had died before I was even born, and Maudie died before I was a preteen.  My children know them through legend and pictures, a favorite being a Stout family portrait in sepia.  Jess is attired in striped trousers, shoes with spats, a stiff white color under a vest with a watch chain showing, and a dark coat tailored to fit is girth impeccably.  He is the only one seated.  Behind him is Maudie, standing erect—her posture remained ramrod straight until the day she died—wearing a dress so neat that a wrinkle would not dare to occur--and a starched lace collar.  The rest of the Stouts stand in descending order of age, but the focus is on Pappy Stout—Jess—and Maudie.

            I was only able to finish this piece because Jess finally showed up to relieve my three days of heavy-duty manual labor.  Maudie had made me paint the furniture, scrub the breezeway and the screened porch, do the laundry, clean the condo stem to stern, and pot all my plants for the porch.  After I watered my last plant and cleaned up the mess, I fell into a chair and barely had the energy to clean up.  Jess is here, and I am relieved.  Maudie was trying to kill me!