7-6-26. Sounds like a good passkey number for me to use, a date easy to remember, so significant in my life. I spoke it frequently for several years when I used the drive-thru at the drugstore, picking up medicines for a special lady I called my aunt, Lorraine Freese. "Birthdate," the clerk would say, and I'd respond quickly, without having to ask her, simply because I had said it so often. The only thing is that twenty-six isn't today, July 6, 2026. It's July 6, 1926 I'm referring to.
She would be a hundred years old today, and she was sure looking forward to it. A hundred and five was her goal. She made it to ninety-five. She died alone, in a covid restricted facility where I could only visit and let her know I cared by knocking on the outside window of her room. So today I celebrate her century birthday alone, without her. How sad for such an energetic little lady who liked to call herself a firecracker.
She might have been two days late from being born on Independence Day, but she was certainly a firecracker of an independent sort. Her first five years were spent in an orphanage. She was taken in by her aunt's family (my grandmother's), and lived there until she graduated from high school and went out on her own. After a few years of trying to find herself, she joined the army. The Salvation Army.
That's her, on the left, with Sib, her friend of many years, standing beside the mission's sign. If you have any inclination of celebrating the true meaning of the Declaration of Independence, might I make a suggestion? Send a check to support this mission that is hanging on through tough times and dwindling interest in mission work. This little firecracker named Major Jean would so appreciate it. Drop a card in the mail to the Shelton Laurel Mountain Mission, 35 Mountain Mission Road, Clyde, NC 28721. The firecracker in heaven would certainly be thrilled. So would the mission, because she was too precious to them, and to the Lord, to be through with her impact on the world.
