The Gentle Giant of Dynamite Hill by Helen Shores Lee

Author:Helen Shores Lee [Lee, Helen Shores; Shores, Barbara S.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-310-33623-5
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2012-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

The Arguments

Lying in bed at night, I could overhear Mummee and Daddy argue. They rarely spoke unkind words to each other, so I worried about them. At times I worried they might be getting a divorce. I heard Mummee repeatedly ask Daddy, “Shores! Why would you put our family through this? Why can’t we pack up our family and move far away from Birmingham, Alabama, and all this violence?!”

Our Dad’s softly spoken words to her were always the same: “Dodie, we’re going to fight this and stick it out. We can’t move away.”

Early in the marriage, Mummee lived in fear. At first she didn’t encourage him in his work because she was concerned for her family’s safety. But as the years passed, she became his strongest supporter. She learned what it meant to fully put your trust in God to take care of Daddy. In fact, she once said, “I’m turning you over to the Lord, Shores. He will keep you safe.”

Mummee was so proud of Daddy’s work in the fight for justice. Years later we found a private scrapbook Mummee had kept on our father for years. In it she noted his fight for equal rights and recorded the various awards he received. Mummee may have been one to sometimes criticize Daddy, but she didn’t want to hear of anybody else criticizing him. When someone said something negative about Daddy, she indirectly (and sometimes directly!) gave them “a piece of her mind.” When Daddy ran for City Council reelection, she heard an opponent say something negative about him. She directly confronted the man and politely set him straight.

Mummee never flaunted or bragged that she was married to Attorney A. D. Shores. She was confident in who she was. When Daddy became a city councilman, a sales clerk told her she “needed to dress better now.” Mummee told the woman she was “quite comfortable in dressing herself the way she wanted to.”

Mummee was proud of Daddy, even though she may not have openly spoken those words. She stayed right by his side. She avoided publicity, but when unexpectedly thrust into the spotlight, she handled it well. Mummee was the silent warrior.

The guards stayed all night long, but they left in the morning when Daddy and the others went to the office and Helen and I were driven to school. For most of the day then, Mummee stayed in the house alone. She grew very frightened at home by herself, and during that time she began to get sick physically. Her chronic asthma spells became worse, and at times she could hardly breathe. On many days, Aunt Teddy stayed with Mummee during the day.

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