A Woman’s Touch

Hello, 51.1 percent of the population of Jasper County, Women. During March, Women’s History Month, women and their roles in our history are highlighted.

Many of us have mothers who were the first of their families to leave home and go to work in an industry. My mother, Maxine Oakley McCarter, left the family’s sharecropper cotton farm and became a “Rosie, the Riveter” in a plant that made motors for airplanes during World War II.

My mother said that on the day that World War II ended, the supervisor at the plant announced over the loud speaker, “Lay down your tools, go home, we will send you a check.” But, as we know from history, women had gotten their foot in the door and we never let it close.

One American woman who fought to change the world and their ideas about what women were supposed to do was Clara Barton. She became famous as a volunteer nurse during the Civil War, but her legacy is really founding an organization that touches the lives of millions each year, the American Red Cross.

A friend of mine, Annette Eubanks, donates blood regularly to the Red Cross. How many lives has she saved? Red Cross workers are some of the first responders when there is a fire or storm and they are there long after helping victims. As a teenager and young woman, I was a Red Cross volunteer at the United States Naval Hospital near Memphis. Maybe you have been helped by the Red Cross.

So many women to honor, so little space, especially writers and one favorite is humorist, Dorothy Parker. She is attributed with many quotes, some can’t be repeated in a family newspaper, but she did leave behind one last quote for her gravestone, “Excuse my dust.”