GREENWOOD REMEMBERS
Helen Prewitt Mackey - Oct. 9, 1913 - Oct 16, 1997
Helen was always "hot as a fox" as she would say. When she was newly married during the days of the Great Depression and the mid-west dust bowls, Marion surprised her one day with a small black electric table fan, a new and luxurious invention in her mind. She said that it saved her during those long hot summers. Flash forward to the summer of 1980, another notably long, hot, dry Missouri summer. I lived with Grandmom and Granddad that summer and as a 14 year old, I got to know them better than I did as a young child. On the news every night, it would give an update on the tolls of the summer weather, often including a death count of mostly old people who had passed from heat exhaustion because they neither had AC or fans. This upset Grandmother terribly. One morning after breakfast, she announced that we were going to collect up all the old fans she had around the house. After all, she had central air by that point and didn't really need so many fans. We went around the house and through the attic and pulled together 4 or 5 fans, saving the little black fan to keep in the family room, sitting on a chair by the recliner. We loaded all the fans into the trunk of her big old Buick and set out to deliver them to people who needed a fan. We drove around the Clarksville area vising mostly older folks whom I had never even heard of or much less met. She would chat with them and ask how they were doing and if they had a fan to keep themselves cool. If they said no, she would go to the car and pull one out to give. We did this all morning until the fans were gone.
That story just exemplifies Grandmom to me. She cared about people and was always figuring out ways to help the community, especially those less fortunate the she was. She never expected anything in return, but in her older years, incapacitated by ALS, I think she was paid back in the care and attention that so many people in the community gave to her. She was never forgotten or ignored like so many of those older people who had been found dead in their hot homes and apartments because no one cared enough to check on them. More than 20 years after her death, I still think of her almost daily. I was simply blessed to have her as a grandmother.
Courtney Brown Willard, granddaughter
Helen Prewitt Mackey - Oct. 9, 1913 - Oct 16, 1997
Helen was always "hot as a fox" as she would say. When she was newly married during the days of the Great Depression and the mid-west dust bowls, Marion surprised her one day with a small black electric table fan, a new and luxurious invention in her mind. She said that it saved her during those long hot summers. Flash forward to the summer of 1980, another notably long, hot, dry Missouri summer. I lived with Grandmom and Granddad that summer and as a 14 year old, I got to know them better than I did as a young child. On the news every night, it would give an update on the tolls of the summer weather, often including a death count of mostly old people who had passed from heat exhaustion because they neither had AC or fans. This upset Grandmother terribly. One morning after breakfast, she announced that we were going to collect up all the old fans she had around the house. After all, she had central air by that point and didn't really need so many fans. We went around the house and through the attic and pulled together 4 or 5 fans, saving the little black fan to keep in the family room, sitting on a chair by the recliner. We loaded all the fans into the trunk of her big old Buick and set out to deliver them to people who needed a fan. We drove around the Clarksville area vising mostly older folks whom I had never even heard of or much less met. She would chat with them and ask how they were doing and if they had a fan to keep themselves cool. If they said no, she would go to the car and pull one out to give. We did this all morning until the fans were gone.
That story just exemplifies Grandmom to me. She cared about people and was always figuring out ways to help the community, especially those less fortunate the she was. She never expected anything in return, but in her older years, incapacitated by ALS, I think she was paid back in the care and attention that so many people in the community gave to her. She was never forgotten or ignored like so many of those older people who had been found dead in their hot homes and apartments because no one cared enough to check on them. More than 20 years after her death, I still think of her almost daily. I was simply blessed to have her as a grandmother.
Courtney Brown Willard, granddaughter
GREENWOOD REMEMBERS
Helen Prewitt Mackey - Oct. 9, 1913 - Oct 16, 1997
Helen was always "hot as a fox" as she would say. When she was newly married during the days of the Great Depression and the mid-west dust bowls, Marion surprised her one day with a small black electric table fan, a new and luxurious invention in her mind. She said that it saved her during those long hot summers. Flash forward to the summer of 1980, another notably long, hot, dry Missouri summer. I lived with Grandmom and Granddad that summer and as a 14 year old, I got to know them better than I did as a young child. On the news every night, it would give an update on the tolls of the summer weather, often including a death count of mostly old people who had passed from heat exhaustion because they neither had AC or fans. This upset Grandmother terribly. One morning after breakfast, she announced that we were going to collect up all the old fans she had around the house. After all, she had central air by that point and didn't really need so many fans. We went around the house and through the attic and pulled together 4 or 5 fans, saving the little black fan to keep in the family room, sitting on a chair by the recliner. We loaded all the fans into the trunk of her big old Buick and set out to deliver them to people who needed a fan. We drove around the Clarksville area vising mostly older folks whom I had never even heard of or much less met. She would chat with them and ask how they were doing and if they had a fan to keep themselves cool. If they said no, she would go to the car and pull one out to give. We did this all morning until the fans were gone.
That story just exemplifies Grandmom to me. She cared about people and was always figuring out ways to help the community, especially those less fortunate the she was. She never expected anything in return, but in her older years, incapacitated by ALS, I think she was paid back in the care and attention that so many people in the community gave to her. She was never forgotten or ignored like so many of those older people who had been found dead in their hot homes and apartments because no one cared enough to check on them. More than 20 years after her death, I still think of her almost daily. I was simply blessed to have her as a grandmother.
Courtney Brown Willard, granddaughter
Helen Prewitt Mackey - Oct. 9, 1913 - Oct 16, 1997
Helen was always "hot as a fox" as she would say. When she was newly married during the days of the Great Depression and the mid-west dust bowls, Marion surprised her one day with a small black electric table fan, a new and luxurious invention in her mind. She said that it saved her during those long hot summers. Flash forward to the summer of 1980, another notably long, hot, dry Missouri summer. I lived with Grandmom and Granddad that summer and as a 14 year old, I got to know them better than I did as a young child. On the news every night, it would give an update on the tolls of the summer weather, often including a death count of mostly old people who had passed from heat exhaustion because they neither had AC or fans. This upset Grandmother terribly. One morning after breakfast, she announced that we were going to collect up all the old fans she had around the house. After all, she had central air by that point and didn't really need so many fans. We went around the house and through the attic and pulled together 4 or 5 fans, saving the little black fan to keep in the family room, sitting on a chair by the recliner. We loaded all the fans into the trunk of her big old Buick and set out to deliver them to people who needed a fan. We drove around the Clarksville area vising mostly older folks whom I had never even heard of or much less met. She would chat with them and ask how they were doing and if they had a fan to keep themselves cool. If they said no, she would go to the car and pull one out to give. We did this all morning until the fans were gone.
That story just exemplifies Grandmom to me. She cared about people and was always figuring out ways to help the community, especially those less fortunate the she was. She never expected anything in return, but in her older years, incapacitated by ALS, I think she was paid back in the care and attention that so many people in the community gave to her. She was never forgotten or ignored like so many of those older people who had been found dead in their hot homes and apartments because no one cared enough to check on them. More than 20 years after her death, I still think of her almost daily. I was simply blessed to have her as a grandmother.
Courtney Brown Willard, granddaughter
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