Floy Doggett

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16 January 1997 Memoir by Michael S. Usey 1 Cor. 13 Paul's comments to his friends in Corinth is not a usual text to consider at a funeral. It is a text most often read at weddings; in fact, I encourage engaged couples to insert their name in the place of the word love, to measure their love for each other.  So it is an unusual text for a funeral.  But, then again, Floy Doggett was not your usual person.  What is remarkable about her life is not that she lived to be 101--she would have been 102 in March, and was College Park's oldest member--but that she lived life so deeply and passionately while she was here.  Beethoven once said, "I will grasp life by the throat," meaning I suppose that he would not wait passively on life, but that he would embrace it, and take what life offered, and even a few things life did not offer.  This is how Floy lived her long life, for Floy was a great spirit.   Born into a family with 6 children, her father died at the age of 32; her mother remarried to a man named Miles, whom the children did not much take to.  Early in her life her spirit of independence was nurtured by her mother: a young school-aged child, Floy used to ride a pony 6 or more miles to school.  If the weather turned bad, or it started to rain, Floy did not come home, but stayed near the school with a friend of her mother's, and set the pony out to graze in that family's pasture.  With no phones, no way to get a message through, Floy's mother did not worry; she figured that she would have heard if anything was wrong.  Floy's mother used to tell her, "I knew I could count on you, Floy," which was a way of building this healthy independence in Floy.  Floy would later say relate this story to her children, which was a stragetic way this great spirit built reliability and independence in her children.   Floy remembered as child riding in a wagon into Greensboro after a big rain.  There were deep ruts in the dirt road.  Returning home, she held a still warm bag of sliced bread.  They snacked on that warm bread and cheese, and Floy remembered it as the greatest meal she ever had.  This is one of the things that made Floy so enjoyable to be around: she loved life, and she drank of it deeply.  She had the wisdom to enjoy the moment and to live in it and the good sense to notice the simple gifts that life can bring.  Ten days before she died she would say some similar about a meal: Her family had taken her to Libby Hill.  She relished her baked potato, told Doris that her cold slaw was so good that she ate the slaw and drank the juice.  Which is what she did with life as well--ate it all, and drank the juice.   Her mother died when Floy was 12, and like a turn-of-the-century Party of Five, she was raised by her siblings such as Sandy and Alexander (whom people called Eck).  She used to wave at a boy named Tom; when they courted, Tom's sister went with them to serve as chaperon.  One time Tom and Floy were together in the back seat of a buggy, when Tom kissed her.  What Floy said to him became a famous family saying:  "Tom, this will never do."  Floy had high standards for herself, and she communicated those standards to her children, as they saw her consistency and genuineness.  She made her children take naps when they were young, and Tom and Jack still remember her reading to them stories from a Bible storybook.  By communicating the stories of the faith, those stories became a part of her children's character; some years later Tom realized that it was these same stories from the Bible that had formed her remarkable character, and set a high standard for her to aspire to.  This great spirit measured herself by the Bible, and expected her children to be formed by it too.  Jack remembers being baptized as a 12-year-old boy in this church by Rev. Wilcox, and that was a good expectation that she had for her children.   She taught her children the same values out of which she lived.  When her son Tom was backing down from a neighborhood bully, she was watching from the kitchen.  She went outside and told Tom in no uncertain terms that he was going to fight the boy and he was fight him now.  Tom fought and won, and the bully never bothered Tom again.  However, another time when Jack was being chased by a boy with a hand ax, she yelled to him, "Run, Jack, run!" and, when he made it to a tree, "Climb higher!"  When Tom and Jack where shooting at each other with BB guns, Jack was loading a single shot BB rifle, which you do by putting the BBs in your month.  In his haste not to be shot-up by his brother, Jack pulled when he should have cocked, and accidentally shot himself in the tongue with a BB.  He was fine, eventually; the doctor cut his tongue to remove the BB.  You get the feeling that Floy had to be tough and smart and a minor saint to raise Esther and Nancy and especially Tom and Jack.  She used to chase the boys around the table to catch them and give them a spanking.  The last time she was chasing Tom, he simply stopped, and Floy has the quick wit to say, "You're old enough not to be spanked now."  She taught them right from wrong, but she also taught them that life was not taboo, that life was not to held in but live fully and freely.  She rode the children's bicycles; she smoked one cigarette on the side of her house, just to show her husband she could do--and it set the neighbors' tongues waging for weeks.   As an adult, she looked very much like Glenn Close, especially as she dressed in the fashions of the late 1920s and early thirties in the movie, The Natural.  She was not judgmental but rather accepting and loving.  A particularly rare trait was that Floy was not much of an advise-giver, something her daughters-in-law came to greatly appreciate.  Rather she lived wisely, and let that speak for itself.     She could cook: fried chicken, brains and eggs, homemade rolls, chili beans.  She shared her food with others; the family lived not too far from the train tracks, and hobos often came and asked for food, and she fed them all on the back steps; in fact, on occasion Ester remembers that she even took food off of one her children's plates to give to some hungry hobo.  This is one of the themes of her life: she loved to share with others.  If you ever visited her at Friends Home, you would not be able to leave without Floy insisting you have a chocolate or two or three, from one of the precious boxes of candy one of the children brought her. Many, many other things could be said about this remarkable woman's life.  She loved her grandchildren fiercely, and they adored her.  She had a knack for getting her way with them.  Floy could care for them in a wait that the grandchildren felt like they were responsible for taking care of her.  She was a friend to many people, and to her children and their children, which is not an easy thing to do. She loved to laugh: after some joke or story she would say, "Lord, forgive us for we know not what we do."  She knew people's name and remembered them; in line for a meal at Friend's Home, you've have thought she was a celebrity from all the people she knew, and all the hands she shook.  Floy sang loudly and enjoyed it.  She never quit learning.  Not long ago she asked Nancy, "I've heard people talk about computers.  Tell me how they work."  During the Gulf war she asked Esther to tell her all about the conflict.  Her mind was keen and sharp.  Floy was frugal, thrifty and good with money.  When a neighbor was flim-flammed by a con artist, Floy had no problem turning him away.  She kept her own finances and kept her son's while he was in Brazil and Mexico.  And Floy loved to go places, if you said, "Floy, would you like to go .... she said "Yes!"; if her children need her, she said, "Be there!" even if it meant packing in an hour.  Her husband's death in 1957 leave Floy empty and hit hard.  She had always been so hardy and able to face adversity of all kinds.  Tom invited her to visit him in Brazil; and Floy went, even though it meant a long plane flight with many stopped.  Her plane stopped by bad weather in the Andes, and she had to spend the night in Lima, Peru--all without a hitch, and she chided Tom for worrying when she arrived. Perhaps my favorite story of Floy is one that happened towards the end of her long life.  When she was moving to Friends home, she gave away most of her possessions; she left a long time home on the corner of Morton and Mayflower.  Her daughter-in-law Doris drove her there late that afternoon.  Her new room was bare and stark. Doris wanted Floy to come home with her that night but Floy refused, saying "I came out her to live and I am going to stay."  This is how she lived her whole life: with courage, and dignity.   I know why I Cor. 13 is so rarely read at funerals; it is because most of lives do not stand up to very high standard it sets for us.  Not so with Floy; I am not being sentimental when I say it fits her to a tee:             Floy was patience, Floy was kind; Floy was not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  She did not insist on her own way; she was not irritable or resentful.  Floy did not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoiced in the truth.  Floy bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, and endured all things. And now there abides faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.

College Park Baptist Church 1601 Walker Avenue, Greensboro, NC 27403 cpbcgbo@bellsouth.net 336.273.1779