The Only Limestone House on Cedar Hill Drive

The only limestone house on Cedar Hill Drive stands empty and useless now. It was built over 70 years ago, with limestone rocks hauled from the Larkinsville area, crafted by my Uncle Dick Wallace. It belonged to my Aunt Rena and Uncle Raymond Ward when they were newlyweds. Aunt Rena, the daughter of Jefferson Davis Wallace and Sallie Parks Sumner Wallace, grew up directly across the street in the old Wallace homeplace. After building the house, they lived with her parents and rented the new one for a year to pay for it. She then made her only move---across the street, some sixty feet. She would stay there until her death in October of 2009, the last nineteen years without her husband.

It was the undisputed gathering place for all the Wallace kin. You saw your out-of-town cousins on Sunday afternoons at Aunt Rena's. She was the glue which held us all together. Over and over I'd heard her say, "I love my people!" And we all loved her. When the cousins were young we'd ride with Larry, her only child, in his go-cart or in his burro-drawn cart. My mother's generation congregated there for fish frys, barbecues, and Rook parties.

It was the kind of house where you were free to help yourself to a Coke (Aunt Rena had a weakness for Coca Cola, too), or candy or leftover dessert. Wherever Aunt Rena was, there was laughter, and she laughed louder at herself than anyone else. Going to her house was the only Sunday visitation we looked forward to, for in those days that was what you did on Sunday---visited the kinfolk.

What else? She loved her only child, my cousin Larry, better than life itself. He remains the most caring and thoughtful of sons that could ever have been. In her failing years he saw she was supplied with anything her heart desired and delighted in spoiling her. He never forgot how hard his parents had worked to put him through college and law school. And he never stopped giving back. He remained her pride and her joy til she drew her last breath, and he was by her side when that occurred.

She was a rabid Alabama fan. In later years it became customary to gather at her home for all televised Bama games since she had a big-screen television, provided by Larry. My mama, Sally Morris, my Aunt Pearl Berry, Dr. and Mrs. Fred Sanders, and occasionally Margaret Proctor all congregated for food and football in the 80s and the 90s for every game. Aunt Rena's blood pressure would shoot way up, and finally the doctor told her to stop watching the games. After that she'd call my mama two or three times every quarter for updates!

She loved the Democratic Party and the First Methodist Church. She loved growing vegetables just to give away. And her flowers! The huge round brick planter in the south yard was ablaze every spring with crimson and white tulips. There were azaleas, snowballs, peonies, hibiscus, caladiums, impatiens and camellias. It was a veritable outdoor hothouse, which people detoured to see.

If she was famous for anything, it was her fried pies. As a longtime election official, she made them for the other pollworkers, for friends and family, and all church functions. But that is also what she was known for---her generosity.

As she began her decline, she became less able to go out. When confined to bed, we went and sat with her and she would clutch Mama's hand in understanding after it became hard for her to converse. They were only two years apart in age and had a lifetime history of shared memories.

I pass the house every day going to work and on Sundays on my way to church. How many years will it take before I can look at that wonderful house and not get a tear in my eye or a lump in my throat? Probably never.

She was in the hospital when the end came. She suffered so much those last months, that those who loved her best smiled through their tears and thanked God that she was well at last. The funeral was everything a devoted Methodist would want, complete with every pink rose in northeast Alabama. When we left the church we turned down Cedar Hill Drive, as she passed her home for the last time. We carried her down to a little red clay knoll in the cemetery, where she had once picked cotton on her father's farm, and put her next to the only man in her life, Raymond Ward, who has been gone twenty years last month.

And so the limestone house stands alone, unable to share all the memories it holds. It sheltered not only a man, his wife and their child, but played host to a myriad of family. But the memories made there will live on, and will as long as we remember to "tell the stories", as were told to us so long ago.