Childhood 4

The next photo to be pulled from the trunk was of Grandpa Oscar Lawrence Jackson, Mother's father. A similar studio portrait of Grandma Jackson sat in a 4 X 5 inch frame on Mother's dresser. Why didn't she put this one out of her father?

After her mother's death, maybe she never forgave her father for marrying Lena Tolliver--the "wicked" stepmother who delved out harsh punishment to each of Oscar's four children. She favored her own daughter; my mother told the story often of Lena pretending to spank her daughter, but always in the bedroom with the door closed. Suspicious, my Mother watched once through the bedroom window as Lena hit the bed to make an appropriate spanking sound and her daughter cried out faking pain. Mother endured Lena's meanspirit and dishonest nature and Lena's daughter of the same ilk for the next eight years, until her sixteenth birthday when she left her Kentucky home without finishing high school.

Grandma Margaret Elizabeth Jackson's photo was forever on Mother's dressing table. Chandler was Grandma's maiden name. Small coincidence--we had just moved to Chandler.

Pearl Elizabeth Jackson (my mother) born August 1913 in Morehead, Kentucky. At the time, the flowing gowns were typical dress for baby portraits.

Pearl Jackson (my mother) at about age two, being held by her mom Margaret who stands in front of their Morehead, Kentucky home.

The earliest photo Mom had of her father Oscar Jackson, at about age eighteen. He was born in April 1886, the third child of six, to Eva Idora (Songer) Jackson and Lafayette Jackson, himself the third child of six children born in 1859 to Robert C. Jackson and Ann Waters, whose births were in 1827 and 1835 respectively.

Oscar Jackson is about 40 in this photo. This is just about the time Pearl turns 16, and Oscar, an engineer with the railroad, gets her a train ticket to Wickman, Arizona to live with his mother, Eva Turner and her third husband Jeff "Dad" Turner.

Pearl Jackson (my mother) shown here at the age of 16 in 1929, the year she left for Arizona to live with her 63 year old paternal Grandma Eva and her third husband Jeff Turner . Together they owned and ran a roadside eatery and gas station in Wickman.

The mother of Oscar Jackson, Eva Idora (Songer) Jackson, Peay, Turner married Lafayette Jackson in 1881. During their 29 year marriage that ended with his death in 1910, they raised six children. In 1916, when Eva was 50, she and Andrew Peay wed. Her third marriage began in 1923 with Jeff Turner, known to all as "Dad" Turner. She died in 1945 when I was 2 and she was 79.