A Mountain Forged Will

Kindly colorized by Dale Lewis

My great-aunt Alta Allen was born in 1921 in a very rural area of Eastern Kentucky called Teges. The community and two nearby creeks were named in honor of her 2X great-grandpa Adoniram “Tedious/Teges” Allen.

In her youth, she probably stood around five feet, ten inches tall, and was slender. When I arrived on the scene, she was a tall lady but she was no longer slender. She was a bit stout, wore her hair piled high, and presented a rather formidable physical presence.

Alta was a strong and strong-willed woman. She was raised by a strong-willed widow woman so I suppose that a strong will is something that she came by naturally. She grew up in the hills of Eastern Kentucky and I am sure that a weak-willed woman could not have survived there for long. Aunt Alta was a perfect storm of nature and nurture working together to forge a strong will!

Aunt Alta left her mother’s home and moved to Dayton, Ohio when she was in her early twenties in order to find work. She did find work in an automobile factory and there at work, she met her future husband, Olen Clarence Cantrell. She and Olen, who many called Bug, married and began their family.

                                         

            Alta Allen Cantrell and Olen Clarence "Bug" Cantrell

After they had their first child, Alta’s mother Mandy moved from Teges to live in Ohio with Alta and Bug. “Granny” cared for her grandchildren while both parents worked. Alta and Bug would go on to have three children.

Now, in 1950, Alta’s older sister Rachel would die, leaving her husband Boyd with seven children ranging in age from ten months to nine years of age. Boyd tried to keep the family together, but he just could not do it. His children were separated and went to the homes of various family members to live. Alta and Bug would take in the oldest, my mother Loretta, and the youngest, my Uncle Johnnie. Years later, Aunt Alta would tell me more than once that her biggest regret in life had been that she could not take in all of Rachel and Boyd’s children.

Johnnie Nolen, Linda "Kookie" Cantrell, Denny Cantrell and Dale Cantrell: Mandy "Granny" Mandy Moore Allen, Loretta Nolen Smith, Alta Allen Cantrell and Olen Clarence "Bug" Cantrell

So, Alta and Bug’s household included their three children, Granny, a niece, and a nephew. For a while, Bug’s widowed father even lived with them also. Now they did not live in a huge house. Initially, they lived in a small frame house on Knox Avenue and I imagine that it was crowded and nerves were often frayed but Alta and Bug persevered and made it work. Her strong will served her well.

                                         Knox Avenue Home

The family was able to move to a larger home on Calumet Lane after a few years. This home had three bedrooms, but more importantly, it had a few acres of land. That land had a chicken house, a barn, and ample area for a nice garden. Now Granny, Alta, and Bug all knew how to raise a garden and they kept a large garden every year. That garden was not only a source of pride, but it provided much produce to feed the family. Granny also raised chickens. Those chickens provided plenty of eggs for the family as well as the occasional chicken dinner.

Calumet Lane Home

                   Alta Allen Cantrell on her son's motorcycle

In 1968, Alta would suffer a great loss, the loss of her mother Granny. Granny had not only been a great support for Alta’s family over the years but she had surely been a source of pure sweet light for all who knew her. I have spoken to many family members over the years. I have even spoken with people who had been neighbors to Granny’s family in the past. None of them had a bad word for Granny except for one granddaughter. That one granddaughter said that Granny had been mean to her as a child and had knocked her onto the floor. Well, after some sleuthing, I found that Granny had indeed knocked her to the ground. The granddaughter’s nightgown had gotten into the flames of the fireplace and caught fire. Granny had pushed her to the floor to roll out the flames. That meanness had likely saved her life. This makes me wonder how many similar possibly wrong perceptions I have made over the years.

So Granny’s death was a great loss for many, including myself. How much greater must have been her loss to her daughter Alta. Alta continued on with life. Everyone experiences loss of loved ones so perhaps this is not a great sign of her iron will. After all, she had little choice but to go on.

            Alta Allen Cantrell and Olen Clarence "Bug" Cantrell

In January of 1979, she lost her husband of thirty-three years to cancer. Alta would never remarry and lived alone in the house that she and her husband had raised their children to adulthood in. She mowed her own huge yard. She would continue to grow a rather large garden and tilled it, planted it, and worked in it with only occasional help from others. She canned beans, tomatoes, and other vegetables. She worked corn to put into the freezer. She chopped huge cabbages from her garden to make sauerkraut. I am convinced that she made the best kraut in the world!

                             Alta Allen Cantrell in her garden

Sometime, in the ‘80s, I cannot recall exactly when Alta was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. I can recall looking up pancreatic cancer back then and seeing the dire prognosis. My heart filled with dread, anticipating the loss of my great-aunt who was more like my grandmother. A person who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer was fortunate to live even a few months after that diagnosis.

Pancreatic cancer had never met Great-aunt Alta though! Alta had surgery to remove the cancer and she also did something else. 

Aunt Alta had several aloe plants around her house. Mom tells me that Aunt Alta mentioned to her that her attention kept being drawn to her aloe plants. This happened several times and then one time Aunt Alta said, “God, are you wanting me to eat some of that aloe plant, ‘cause if you do, I will?” After that, she began breaking off a little piece of aloe plant everyday and nibbling on it. 

Nearly a decade later, Alta would be giving her medical history to a new doctor. She told him about the pancreatic cancer and he told her that she must be remembering wrong. Uncle Johnnie and Aunt Donna were with her and they all assured the doctor that she remembered correctly. The next time she visited the doctor, he had received her old medical records. He apologized for doubting her memory and said that he had been certain that she hadn’t had pancreatic cancer because she should not be there that day if she had. Well, she had indeed had it and she was indeed there! Like I said, pancreatic cancer had never met a will such as Alta’s before!

Her life continued on. She bowled on bowling leagues with her friends and was quite good at it. After she retired from work, she started playing for her church’s softball team. When she was in her late sixties, early seventies, she broke her ankle sliding into base. Crutches slowed her down for a while and then she was back at it.

Once, she must’ve been in her 70s, she locked herself out of her house. The only window that was open was the one above the kitchen sink. Now this was a window above the kitchen sink and as such, it was rather shallow and it was high above the floor. Still, that window was the only one open. Alta dragged a bale of straw up under the window and climbed up on it. She pushed out the screen and made her way halfway through the window, feet not touching the bale, and her arms and trunk balanced over the sill. That is how Uncle Johnnie and Aunt Donna found her when they thankfully stopped by. Aunt Alta could not get completely into the window and she could not quite get her feet back onto the bale of straw.

In the ‘90s, Alta went to Kentucky with my mother and her siblings to visit the old Allen home place, the old neighbors who were still there, the graves of family members… While there, she fell and broke her hip. She went to the ER in Kentucky but instead of having surgery there, she had her nephew load her into the back of his van and returned to Ohio for the surgery. Her family and friends lived in Ohio and it made sense to have surgery there.

          Alta Allen Cantrell exploring the old Allen home place

Now, my mother fell and broke her hip last May when I was present. My mother is no wuss, but just moving her onto the stretcher and turning her in her hospital bed prior to surgery was excruciating for her and everyone moving her knew just how to do it. I cannot imagine the pain that Alta must have felt being loaded into the back of a van for a journey of four to five hours by her loving, but for the most part untrained family. She willed it so and it was so!

Alta had her surgery and stayed briefly with her daughter after her discharge from the hospital. Her daughter took great care of her and as soon as Alta had recuperated enough, she returned home. Alta liked to be in her own home and live on her own terms.

Alta was not invincible and over time, the years did wear on her. She developed osteoporosis and gradually her spine began to collapse and she began walking bent over. She lost a lot of weight and she began to look like a hunched over collection of skin and bones. She began to have to sit with a pillow behind her back at the kitchen table as her knobby spine developed a sore and she could not sit against the hard wooden backed kitchen chair without padding. She kept a small metal tin of badger balm and she would sometimes get someone to rub a bit over her bony back. She went from being a tall woman to being not even as tall as my children. She must have had pain, but I never heard her complain.

                          Alta Allen Cantrell with my children. 

                          She once would have towered over them

Still, Alta was not one to sit around and wait for help or call for help. Alta saw what needed to be done and she did it. If help showed up, they were welcome to help if they chose to. If they chose not to, well, she could usually manage on her own. She mowed her own large yard and tilled her own garden until just a year or so before her death.

She worked in her garden up until the year of her death. She had a mechanic’s creeper in her garden. She would lie on the creeper and push herself along the rows to pick her beans. Once the neighbor’s children saw her on her creeper picking beans and began to laugh. The neighbor quickly shushed them and told them that Alta had done more work in her lifetime than they would ever see together and to hush up!

   Johnnie Nolen, Alta Allen Cantrell and Lola Nolen Walton Gatliff

Johnnie and Donna visited her one summer day to find her crawling through her yard with a grocery sack toward her garden. When they asked her what she was doing, she matter-of-factly stated that she was going to pick her a mess of beans. They helped her back into her house and picked her beans which she strung, broke up, and cooked.

Aunt Donna and I were with Aunt Alta when she passed away at the age of 81. I am not certain what she actually died from; some disease, old-age...? I just know that when she died, she was in a hospital bed in the bedroom she had slept in for years. The photos on the walls had been there for decades. The knick-knacks and photos on the dresser and chest were long familiar. The only unfamiliar things in that room were the hospital bed she lay in and the mere shadow of the woman it contained.

Time had taken its toll on Aunt Alta physically, but she was still sharp as a tack. The preacher had visited with her a day or so before she passed and Aunt Donna had led him to Alta’s bedside so he could visit with her. As soon as he left, Aunt Alta let Donna know that she should give her her partial dental plate to put in before she let any other visitors in!

I recall sitting and watching my great-aunt Alta lying in that bed and praying that God would take her home. I knew that she could not rest easy here on earth, unable to slide into bases, unable to get stuck climbing into kitchen windows, unable to creep through her garden picking beans. So, I prayed that God would free her, and as we watched her breathing slow and then cease, He did just that.

The Appalachian Mountains are the oldest mountain range in North America. There are other mountains in North America higher than those in the Appalachians but the Appalachians were once higher than now. Time has eventually worn them down. I reckon that Aunt Alta was like the mountains that she came from. She stood straight and tall in her youth, but time eventually wore her down, at least physically. I don’t consider that time or even death conquered Aunt Alta’s strong will; rather, I consider that when she died she had just willed herself a well-deserved rest.