Mary (Frances) Bailey Stoops

Mary (Frances) Bailey Stoops was born 100 years ago. The Bailey family got their water from a spring, and hauled it down not too far from the house where they held it in a cistern, something like a small pool.

The Great Depression was not too bad for them since there was very little they needed to buy. The administration paid farmers to shoot their cattle, evidently to create shortages. Seems to be a parallel with the one we are diving into.

Mom made her wedding dress.

One photo of Mother, when she was about 40, shows her hiding behind a very young cypress tree. She was small in her own eyes, like Saul hiding among the baggage when they went to crown him as king. But the good part is, she never became proud. Mother walked with God. Several in the retirement home in Visalia rebuked us for taking her away, when my sister-in-law had her transferred to Fresno.

Mother loved vegetable and flower gardening: roses, irises, black-eyes, green beans, corn, okra... She jarred apricots, so we could enjoy them all year. She blanched corn and headed up her children to help cut it off the cob to freeze for the winter. Mother or Daniel who milked the cow each morning and evening at six. Mother was a faithful neighbor, visiting each of the five homes surrounding us, and sold certain ones a gallon of fresh cow's milk for 30 cents, though she was allergic to it herself. 

One day, Mother was transferring our “Bossie” Guernsey cow up our road toward the highway, when it broke into a run, dragging Mom down the side of the road. Mom was about ten feet behind, holding onto the chain.

Mother faithfully bathed at the end of her life, Mrs. Cole, an old Indian woman who claimed that she was 119-years-old.

Neighbors, John Whittington, Sr. and Mrs. Cole, also it was Mr. or Mrs. Myers, I don’t recall which, who prayed with mother, to receive Christ as their savior, when their life came to an end.

Sometimes people gave us used clothing. Once, when Mother was out, I put on a pair of short-shorts and a matching sleeveless top that did not cover my abdomen. When Mother spotted me, I was down the street attempting to sell orders for imprinted Christmas cards. Boy, was I in trouble!

Here Samuel and I are with Grandma Bailey, Mom's mother.

During my years in college and beyond, Mother’s words never left me. I knew in each circumstance, just what Mom would say: “I wouldn’t want to be in their place on the Judgement Day...   Marry in haste, repent at leisure... Babies would not take so much of our time if we did not spend so much time looking at them... Necessity is the mother of invention... A stitch in time saves nine... A willful waste makes a woeful want... Esther Lee, as sweet as she can be... Notice that all the food on the table, we have either raised [beef, milk] or [garden] grown.”

Mother encouraged me when there were heartbreaks, “If you are not the right one for him, then he is not the right one for you.” Or, cautioned me, “Esther, I don’t think he is the right one for you.” When David asked Dad if he could marry me, Mother said, “I’m so happy for you.”

And it was Mother, who pressed us in 1982 with urgency that we listen to Focus on the Family. There we learned from Raymond & Dorothy Moore that homeschooling gives more interaction with adults, therefore can be like the "making of kings." 

Here are our first five children with Mom & Dad, their grandparents.

Mother’s favorite chapter in the Bible, Psalm 103, is also mine: “His kingdom rules over all.”

Here is Mother with six of her seven grown children.