The legacy of Minnie Lea

Since the beginning of February 2026, I’ve worked diligently on an autobiographical fiction novel series loosely based on my life, ages 1-29. I’m recounting what it was like, growing up in Houston from the mid-1950s through 1983.

I’m lucky in one significant way. I kept a diary from 1962 through the mid-1970s. No long treatises. Mostly short snippets here and there. Enough to trigger memories, some good, some bad, some just “life in Texas.” I’m not having to guess. It’s recorded history.

This week I tackled a difficult chapter. It began with the reaction in Houston to the election of John F. Kennedy. Writing about the unbridled, unconcealed hate towards that man was hard. I was six when that happened, but I remember the loathing as if it were yesterday.

My family was in a peculiar position that November 1960. My great-grandfather, and therefore his children—my paternal grandmother and the amazing Aunt WeeWee—firmly believed that all people were equal in God’s sight. Great-Grandpa’s obituary in 1951 eulogized him as a man who knew Torah, Koran, and the Christian Bible equally well. In 1899, he was the only white sponsor of Houston’s Juneteenth parade.

It hit me, hard, that things have not changed all that much. Public pressures have not abated. Family splits are as common now as in 1960. Sometimes the objects of hatred change. One day “this” ethnic group is the Other that ‘the powers that be’ use as scapegoat. The next day, it’s another Other. In the early twentieth century, the State of Texas spent a great deal of legal firepower and money demonizing Japanese immigrants, so they could ‘nationalize’ the rice fields those immigrants had built.

That difficult month (and chapter) ended, as most Novembers in our family did, with a long weekend at my mother’s mother’s mother’s home in Martindale, Texas. That great-grandmother, Minnie Lea, was dirt poor. Had always been dirt poor. I wrote about her, and her miserable childhood and marriage, and the Thanksgivings she blessed us with, only six months ago.

While writing that difficult chapter in my novel-in-progress, tears streamed down my face. My memories have long been of the watering trough for her horses. Of the feather comforter on the bed in her screened-in porch. Of Sears & Roebuck and the outhouse. Of good food, good company, lots of laughter, home-churned ice cream with yarns spinning wildly.

While writing, I understood that her legacy consisted of far more than childhood memories, of happy days on a farm in central Texas. She gave all of us—her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren—lessons in forgiveness. Examples of graciousness and gratitude. Contentment. Open arms. She showed us how to turn hurt around and not let it damage our souls.

Two scenes in this chapter hit me deep in my heart.

In the first, my father tried to convince his mother to join us at Great-Grandma’s house. When she hemmed and hawed, we learned that she had a guilty conscience because of the way she’d treated my mother’s family when my parents wed. My paternal grandmother’s family had money. Not millions of dollars, but they lived comfortably enough for my grandmother to continue shopping at Sakowitz and Joske’s during the Great Depression.

My mother’s family farmed. Cowboys, rounding up horses. Hay farmers. Low incomes supplemented by blue collar jobs. They did what it took to feed their families, grim as some of those days were.

Those farmers did uncouth things like saucering their coffee and hanging laundry on the barbed wire fence. My paternal grandmother did not want her most beloved son’s wedding spoiled by such uncivilized barbarians. She forbade my mother’s side of the family from attending her wedding. Yes, including my mother’s mother and grandmother.

Over time, my paternal grandmother had grown to appreciate my mother’s side of the family, but she did not think they could possibly forgive her. She knew she had crossed a line. And my dad’s mother did not know how she could ever make things right.

My father eventually convinced his mother and Aunt WeeWee to join us. And my dearest great-grandmother Minnie Lea welcomed them both as if they had always been kin. They were family, period, and family doesn’t need to explain to family.

To my paternal grandmother’s credit, she did in fact ask forgiveness. But her contrition was not necessary for Minnie Lea’s acceptance.

The other superpower that Minnie Lea wielded: She understood the difference between ornery and evil. Some of those cousins in Martindale, especially the boys, were downright mean. I’m not talking about “look at this pretty snake” mean. I’m talking about “pushing into the water trough” or “you’re ugly” mean.

As I said, I was only six. My little sister was almost four. The bullying bothered us, because we didn’t know how to handle it. On the occasion of nearly being harshly thrown into the water trough, my great-grandmother appeared waving a broom and told the cousin to stop it, or I’ll let your dad know.

We rightly complained about how mean that cousin was. She said, “No, he’s just ornery.” And then explained to us in simple—but not condescending—terms the difference between ornery and wicked. And that as we grew up, we would learn to tell the difference too. She didn’t tolerate the orneriness. She simply didn’t write them off.

Granted, some of those boy cousins turned out to be not-ornery-but-wicked-and-incredibly-hate-filled. But she was right. Some people are cantankerous, grouchy, and frankly disagreeable. Doesn’t mean they’re bad people. Most days, cantankerous, grouchy, and disagreeable people are better than smooth talkers who plant knives firmly in your back.

I never recall my great-grandmother attending religious services of any sort. Her faith ran deep, but she had little time for liturgy or ceremony. She chose instead to live her goodness, not flashy, not with braggadocio, not with public prayers or a show of piety.

Except for explaining what “ornery” meant, most of Minnie Lea’s deep impression on my life came not from the words she spoke, but from the way she lived. She forgave freely, gave generously from the little she had, worked hard, loved passionately and deeply, and lived simply.

No matter whether you just concluded Ramadan or Mahavir Jayanti, whether you enjoyed a seder with family for Pesach, or whether you’re anticipating Easter or Vaisakhi… Or whether you’re an irreligious person who’s simply thankful for the quiet that you can relish as neighbors head for church or temple—

No matter what, remember that your pious or virtuous words will not make the lasting impression on your children and grandchildren that you hope for. Rather, it’s what you do.

It’s open arms for someone who wronged you. It’s giving the benefit of the doubt to a grumpy person, no matter whether they are young or old. It’s not apologizing for Sears in the outhouse. It’s doing the best you can with the hand you’re dealt.

Most of all, it’s loving, and loving some more. No matter what.

Short "conversation" worth keeping

I didn't know what the word ornery meant but it appears in my Merriam Webster app. The trouble is that means cantankerous except in the Midwest where it means mischievous.

--Robert B. Walker, April 6, 2026.

The way my great-grandmother used it, and the way I understood it, is simply mean, but not hateful. Are you familiar with the Katzenjammer Kids? Inspired by the German comic strip Max und Moritz? Those children are (to my great-grandmother's mind) ornery. But not bad people.

I've also heard it used as a synonym for troublemaker or stubborn.

--Me.

The shifting sands of semantics. The best example I know in English is the word bewildered. It's original meaning was: to lose in pathless places. To confound for want of a plain road.

It happens in all languages but it happens squared in Chinese. There is the word itself and then there is it's pictorial representation. A picture must begin with something real in the physical world but then it migrates ... 🙂

--Robert B. Walker, April 7, 2026.

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Image credits: Top photo--November 1968, Minnie Lea Norris nee Kelly's 79th birthday. Just a small part of the family. That's me on the left in the black shirt. Photo © 1968 John Heap. Bottom photo--Great-gramma Minnie Lea in 1983, at age 94. Photo © 1983 John Heap. Please contact me for permission to use either photograph.

No part of this post may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the copyright holder, except for the “fair use” of quotations that are properly cited and credited, including identification of the translator if applicable. No part of this post may be included in any Large Language Model without proper licensing from the copyright holder, Denise Elaine Heap.