the storied woman – Jeanne Hewell-Chambers

3 women + 1 baby, all wearing pink, sitting beside a piano

Taken on Mother’s Birthday 2023

Had all gone according to plan, today would’ve been spent celebrating Mom’s 96th lap around the sun, but alas, she took her last earthly breath 14 days after this photo was taken. I would’ve baked a cake and delivered it to her. We would’ve done what we did last year: spent the weekend with her, taking her to her favorite restaurants and shops. We would’ve laughed a lot, hugged frequently for no apparent reason, and made new stories while telling old familiar favorites (again).

It’s been a hard year – as many of y’all will understand what it’s like to have grief keep its boot on your neck – and though I honestly didn’t feel like doing anything but laying curled up in bed, I threw my legs over the side of the bed, stood up, and got to work baking pound cake after pound cake after pound cake using her signature recipe, of course. Last Friday, The Engineer, SeaByrd, and I picked Alison up after work, and off we merrily went to Fayetteville, GA where we spent all day Saturday delivering bags filled with pink forks, party plates with matching napkins (pink, white, and lots of flowers as were Mom’s favorite), and 82 slices of pound cake to many of her friends and family.

We couldn’t get a bag in the hands of every person she loved – such is the nature of being the daughter of an extroverted, much-loved and respected mother. If we missed you, please accept my deepest, hugest apologies, and don’t you even think for a minute that it lessens Mother’s love for you. It’s simply a matter of the finite nature of time.

Last week was quite busy, as you can imagine, and should’ve been exhausting, but it wasn’t because labors of love fuel energy levels instead of depleting them. When we crawled into the hotel bed Saturday night after spending more than 12 hours delivering the “party bags”, a peace wrapped itself around me like I’ve never experienced before. That peace rocked me to sleep, and lingers with me still. If and when it does decide to take its leave, I will do anything.- including taking on more big, fat, crazy ideas – to know that peace again. (That sound you hear is The Engineer and Alison groaning!)

I haven’t figured out how to deliver you a slice of cake through the ethers, but I can make sure you get a copy of the letter I tucked inside each bag along with a copy of Mother’s pound cake recipe. Let me know if you bake her cake, and if you do, please raise a fork to Mom’s memory.

First, the letter . . .
Like any Southern woman worth her sweet tea and lipstick, Mother had her signature cake recipes. Mom’s made-from-scratch cakes were one of her love languages, and she baked them to help loved ones celebrate milestones and moments; sooth hearts bruised through sadness and hardship; forge and foster relationships with friends and family. She even baked and decorated a multi-tiered cake for her brother Charles’ wedding. (And almost before the kiss sealed the deal, the green leaves that once adorned that cake, adorned my cute, chubby face because Aunt Jeanette – who didn’t need to because I already adored her – let me get to the cake first.)

Mother cherished you and the goodness you brought to her life. She loved the meals you shared and the adventures you went on together – whether traveling afar or just down the road. She loved laughing with you, and she especially loved the stories you shared with her and the ones you created together.

Come July 22, Mother would’ve celebrated her 96th lap around the sun. Oh my goodness did she pack a whole lotta life in her scant 95 years! Consider this a slice of her birthday cake, and as you enjoy it, please take time to savor some of your special memories of Mom. Say her name. Talk to her. Tell stories starring the two of you – tell them right out loud. Or share them with us. Chortle. Shed a tear or three if they come.

Thank you for the joy you brought to her life, for the kindness you lavished on her, for helping us celebrate her birthday, and especially for remembering her, how she lived and how much she still matters.

In love and gratitude,

Jeanne + Andy

Alison + Ava Jeanne

Kipp + Marnie + Calder + Embry

PS: Mother’s pound cake recipe is on the back. Bon appetit!

And now, The Recipe:

ADA HEWELL’S POUND CAKE

INGREDIENTS:

3 c. granulated sugar
1/2 lb. (2 sticks) unsalted butter
2 T. Crisco shortening
6 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
3 c. all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 c. milk

INSTRUCTIONS:

Cream the sugar, butter, and Crisco with an electric mixer, about 3-4 minutes.
Add eggs and vanilla. Beat with an electric mixer about 10-15 minutes. Be sure to beat for the full time.
Combine the flour and baking powder. With the mixer on low, add flour mixture and milk (alternating) to the creamed sugar and eggs mixture. Mix after each addition until just combined.
Pour batter into a tube pan that has been generously sprayed with non-stick baking spray {or buttered & floured}. Bake at 325 degrees for 1 to 1 1/2 hours until a toothpick inserted in the top comes out clean.
Cool about a 1/2 an hour in the pan; remove cake from pan.

A woman with long brunette hair wearing a long green dress with white polka dots stands to the left of a man with brunette hair wearing a brown suite with a red shirt. Both are smiling broadly.

“I don’t like to go to showers,” I (the introvert who, though I may enjoy them, am exhausted by parties and gatherings) told this man I’d known for 64 days and seen a dozen times.

”You’ll have to go to showers when we get married,” he said, touching the end of my nose gently.

“You haven’t asked me to marry you,” I said with breath that was stuck somewhere in my lungs, refusing to come out.

”I know,” he said, then sat back.

”Will you?” he asked after what seemed like hours, weeks, eons. “Will you marry me?”

”YES!” I said on the way to throwing my arms around his neck. It was the easiest, most confident and sure yes I’d ever uttered. “I sure will marry you.”

Later that night, we moved from the mid-century modern one piece L-shaped blue nubby fabric covered sofa with a chunky blue, green, and black resin cylindrical lamp hanging from a gold chain over the teak end table built onto the sofa (Oh how I wish I still had that sofa and lamp!) to the wooden yard swing hanging in the red dirt

yard. The air was cool and quiet. So were we. Keeping the swing moving in a slow sultry back and forth, back and forth, back and forth movement fell to him because my feet wouldn’t touch the ground.

With one arm around me and one hand on the swing chain, he said, “Let’s not tell anybody about our engagement just yet,” something I readily agreed to. Was his question an April Fool’s joke? Was my answer an April Fool’s joke? We’d sleep on it and have the final answer tomorrow.

As the sun stretched open the next day, my phone rang. It was Andy asking if I still wanted to marry him, and my answer was an exact replica of the night before: “Yes, I sure will marry you!”

That proposal happened 50 years ago tonight at my parents’ house. I can’t speak for The Engineer, but I can tell you with absolutely and enthusiastic certainty that I like the answer I gave then, and I’d give it by way of exact quote again today.

(The above photo was taken 6 months later.)

To hear me telling the story in my own voice, here you go . . .