I can’t believe it’s November already. Where has this year gone?
Seems like the older I get, the faster the time flies — is that my imagination? Or am I simply too busy, and have no time to stop and smell the roses?
One woman who never slowed down was Fannie Mae Vernon. We lost a one-of-a-kind lady this week when she passed on to glory. I didn’t know her until my years at the paper, but even then, she was on the go constantly.
When I met Fannie Mae, I believe she was wearing her Pink Lady uniform, and came by the paper. Her mission? To get thorough coverage of the Kerens Garden Club Christmas Home Tour.
We set a date, and our photographer at the time, Scott Honea, and I met Fannie Mae at a designated spot in Kerens. From there, we went from house to house, meeting people, getting the 4-1-1 on the entire tour, complete with about 200 photos.
Not too long later, Fannie Mae brought us a pie and a batch of sausage balls.
No more needed to have me as a fan. Sausage balls do the trick.
I was fortunate to have more good visits, and other fun trips to Kerens, with Fannie Mae after that initial trip. She was one amazing woman.
Think about it. In the days when most women resembled June Cleaver — you know, that perfectly coifed, nicely dressed with pearls homemaker baking yummy things in the kitchen while maintaining an immaculate house (did those gals run the Hoover wearing stilettos? Just saying.) — Fannie Mae was getting a degree, teaching school, working for TP&L;, and generally setting the woods on fire volunteering for every project that came up. Church, civic, garden, library, kids, you name it, and Fannie Mae was going to be involved.
The story goes that she did so much for the youth of the community, being involved for 40 years with the youth expo, as well as founding the non-ag division, which allows kids of all socio-economic circumstances to participate, and kids who don’t live on acreage, that a wealthy Wolens (K. or Ida, not sure which) donated a huge sum of money to the Navarro County Exposition Center, with the stipulation that the new addition to the place have Fannie Mae’s name on it, always.
Flash forward some years, and enter one upstart Chamber-type person from out of town (heck, out of state in my estimation) who has this brilliant idea to take down her name from the building, and change the name to something else.
That didn’t happen.
I never will understand how people think they can blow into our community from somewhere else and start messing with our traditions. Just because we’re nice to you, and welcome you here, doesn’t mean you have carte blanche to make it into your former hometown.
Anyway, the eager young thing who thought they could change the name of the Fannie Mae Vernon Room to something else is long gone, and Fannie Mae’s building is still where many kids compete with cakes, pies, cookies, arts and crafts projects, and more in the Youth Expo, as well as the site of fund-raisers, chili suppers, fajita cook-offs, wedding showers, all aspects of community life that involve people.
And that’s the way it should be, because the name Fannie Mae is synonymous with “community.”
She will be missed, and there will never be another like her.
—————
Deanna Brown is a Daily Sun staff writer, and editor of “Explore.” Her column appears on Sundays.
Click here to e-mail Deanna Brown.
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