You were a wife at thirteen. Had your first child at fifteen. You had to grow up fast and you did. You taught us life lessons we will always go by. You taught us to be honest, loyal and hard workers and to love deeply. As your children you disciplined and loved us, taught us right from wrong … although we didn't always listen. Some of us hard to learn the hard way. As we grew up and had our children and our children had children, you were there to see as many of them as you could. Enjoying each and every one of them giving them nicknames of which some still use today. You always listened, cried or laughed with us. We only hope we will have your strength to get through this. Just know that we will all miss you terribly, but we will always have you and our memories forever.

With all our love

Your family.

By Midge.

In some respects, she was a typical mom and then again she wasn't. She cleaned though most of us know that it wasn't her forte. She cared for the kids while Dad worked in the woods (we all know there were plenty of kids) and she cooked. We all knew that supper was going to be good, we were just going to have to wait for Dad to come home because he was the one who could cook. But to give her a little culinary credit, she made incredible home made bread. I remember my first attempt at making bread with her. She never had a recipe, it was just a LITTLE flour, SOME yeast, SOME milk, etc, etc. Well we made the bread and let it rise. While it was rising, my brother showed up and she decided to take off with him and leave me high and dry to finish the bread. I tried to remember what Mom used to do and I did my best, but when I cooked it, it was only 3 inches high and boy was it heavy. When I asked her what happened she asked me how much lard I put in it. I looked at her and said, you didn't say anything about lard. She said "well that's what you forgot." Yeah, what I forgot! Our next attempt came out a little better. She asked me how many loaves I wanted and I said 3 or 4. Well because there was never any measuring we ended up with Nine, yes nine of them. I think I still have some in the freezer. I also remember the time she made home made biscuits for dinner at Midge & Rudy's house. When we tried to eat the biscuits, they were rock hard. Someone actually started a food fight that night and if anyone was throwing one of her biscuits, you had better run because it was gonna hurt. Of course you can always ask Sheri about the time Mom made her go out on the front lawn of their nice suburban home to pick dandelion greens. Never mind that frozen pizza in the freezer Sheri, them greens are for lunch.

She and Dad loved to dance. They would drive from Upton to Colebrook every weekend to go dancing. She taught all of us how to dance. How many of us remember her saying "push the penny, push the penny, push the penny twice. I don't know a Goodrum who isn't a pretty good dancer so she must have been right. Because Dad worked in the woods, Mom was the one who had to discipline us kids. And she really knew how to punish us. Not only did we get a spanking, but she made us go pick our own green "switch" to get spanked with. And whatever you did, you better not move. If you stayed still, you got one or two whacks, but if you moved you got one for every time you moved. If poor Rosemary was here she could tell you what it was like if you did move because she jumped when Mom spanked her with a little shingle. The problem was there was a small nail in that shingle and every time Mom spanked her it put a hole in Rosie's bottom. Poor Rosie, she ended up with 13 holes in her backside. I don't know who cried harder after that, Rosie or Mom.

Living out in the boonies, Mom had to come up with some pretty ingenious ways of dealing with aches, pains and injuries. If you got a tooth pulled or lost a tooth that meant you got to lick the beaters when she made a cake. Of course you probably weren't going to be able to eat the cake but boy you got to torment the other kids while you licked the beaters. Having an earache meant you got to have cigarette smoke blown in your ear and then you had to hold a cotton ball in your ear for at least half an hour. I don't remember it working all that well, but at least it gave her half an hour of peace and quiet from us kids. And her favorite way of dealing with a minor ailment was to tell us that "you'll never feel it the day you get married" or her second favorite "it's a long way from your heart". Somehow she was right.

Somewhere along the way she earned the name "Green Hornet". I'm not sure how that happened but it might have had something to do with her temper. She was not above causing such a stink at Town Meeting that they had to stop the meeting because she challenged a vote. Boy what an uproar that caused. Or even battling with the school. I think there are a couple of teachers out there who are no longer teachers because they ended up on the wrong side of her temper. We all knew, if we were in the right, she would defend us with everything she had, but boy if we were in the wrong we knew our punishment wouldn't be minor just ask Melody. Mom drove the school bus and she kicked Melody, her own daughter, off the bus for something. Yup, left her backside sitting in the snow bank, … several times actually.

She had some unique ways of teaching and training children. When we had children and if we had a baby who wouldn't hold still for a diaper change, she would say that just a little pick from a diaper pin would cure that. Today that would be considered child abuse, but none of us look too traumatized by it. She also used to brag that us kids were all potty trained at a young age. Well wouldn't you be when you had your bare bottom stuffed in the toilet and were threatened with being flushed down the toilet if we messed our pants again. Of course we learned young.

She had an uncanny sense of knowing things before we did. How many of us girls did she tell were pregnant long before we had any idea that we were. Some of us dreaded those calls. However, some of us are alive today because of that insight. She called my brother Horace several times one night because she could sense that one of his children was unwell. Well she was right, Horace III had had an accident with a gun and was slowly bleeding in his bed. We learned to listen to those warnings. If she called you and said she had a dream, you were quivering in your boots.

She was also a very superstitious person. I am sure that many of us remember being forced to sit down and count to 10 if we came back to the house because we forgot something, or had to turn around because we were headed somewhere and a black cat crossed the road in front of us. Many a trip was cut short because of a little black cat. And I won't even get into the rocking of an empty rocking chair, just ask Sheri and Melody if you want more on that.

She enjoyed playing cribbage and wherever she went the cribbage board was bound to come out. She so looked forward to her nightly games with Bert and I don't think there are many of us who can say that she didn't skunk them at one time or another. We always knew that we could talk to her about ANYTHING, no matter the subject or the time. Lisa and Mom had many a LATE night chat about one thing or another. If she had an opinion about something, guess what? Whether you wanted to hear it or not, she was gonna tell you just what she thought. Usually after she was done, you probably ended up with some pretty good info to help you in your crisis. She had a huge heart and she touched everybody who came to know her. Above all the funny things, she had more than enough love for all her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and even her nieces and nephews. She loved family gatherings when she could see all of us all together. Her family was her biggest joy and she was definitely the Matriarch of the Goodrum family. Even her son and daughter–in–law's were always welcomed into the fold. I think every new Goodrum wife was welcomed with a "Hello Mrs. Goodrum from the first Mrs. Goodrum. That is something I will forever miss. She will be sadly missed as she has taken a part of all our hearts with her. I know that a huge part of mine is now missing. I am glad that most of her family and extended family were able to see her in her last days. I am sure that meant the world to her. She can rest easy in heaven with Dad, Rosie and Autry as I know she saw them in her last moments. She told us so. Rest well Mom, I love you and I will see you again some day. As your good friend Terry would have said UNTIL! Never Goodbye just UNTIL!

By Michelle

DON'T CRY ANYMORE

Even though your heart is sore

And you don't want to fight

You just cannot cry anymore

Cause I'll help you through the night.

Even though you're in your home

You're in a hospital bed

But you don't have to fight anymore

Just lay down your head

I know you're tired of trying

And I'm tired of crying

This is hard for me to say

But I know that you are dying.

For Nammie

By Savannah Lutz

I will love and miss you!