A Sister’s Tribute
Yesterday morning I started listening to Going Home to Glory. In the book, Dwight Eisenhower’s grandson David Eisenhower describes his grandfather’s years after he left the White House. David’s wife, Julie Nixon Eisenhower, is the co-author. She is the daughter of President Richard Nixon, who was also Eisenhower’s vice president.
I can’t recommend the book yet because I just got started. At this point in my listening, the former president has only been out of office for a few weeks. I can tell you this, though. I am hooked.
The day that President Eisenhower left Washington, D.C., he and Mamie went home to his farm at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. The town held a grand welcome home celebration the next day. That day the former president met a young woman from the town. She was so afraid to talk to President Eisenhower that she slipped out of the room into another room, where the president’s Secret Service agent was sitting. The Secret Service agent told her: “Young lady, the greatest man you will ever meet is standing out there in the next room. You are wasting your time here. Go talk to him.”*
That young woman almost let her fear keep her from experiencing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. For the last decade, Ray and I have known Jo, a woman who joyfully lived every minute as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I have written to you about Jo several times. I have told you about her prayer for our country, her deep devotion, and her childhood in a hollow near our home.
Just a few weeks ago, Jo sang at Carnegie Hall with Mastersingers, the community chorus in nearby Cookeville, Tennessee. Jo was determined not to miss that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Now our precious friend has gone home to glory. She blessed and gave joy until her last breath. I am thankful that I did not miss my once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to know one of the most amazing role models I have ever known. I am grateful for the lessons she taught me. I find myself thinking, “How can I bring joy like Jo did?”
Jo’s sister Geraldine, whom I have heard Jo mention with loving joy many times, wrote a beautiful tribute to her sister. Geraldine and Jo’s husband Gary have graciously given me permission to share excerpts with you. I’m sharing part of it with you today and plan to share more later.
In this way, I would like to give you a glimpse into the life of a woman who blessed others every single minute of every time that I was with her. Everyone I know who knew Jo would tell you the same thing — every single minute, every time.
In the words of Geraldine:
On May 2, 1945 in Talley’s Hollow on Roaring River in Jackson County, Velma Jo was the sixth child, “the baby of the family,” born to Norman and Hattie Harris Chaffin. She was born in a home that was constructed around a log cabin that was built in the early 1800s by her great-great-great grandparents.
Jo has traveled to many places, but her heart belonged here where her ancestors lived on Roaring River, walked and tilled the valleys and hills, and fished the river. Jo’s love of family and friends was born and nourished in this wonderful community. She was named in honor of two of her mother’s sisters. She grew up with four sisters and one brother.
During her seventy-three years, she only lived at two places and in three different houses. Her first 18 years, she lived in the house in Talley’s Hollow. After marrying, she lived the next 15 years in the house on the farm they bought from Gary’s aunt. Jo and Gary moved this house to another location and built a new home on site. They have lived there for forty years with most of the original interior decoration that she designed.
For the four years they were students in high school, Jo and Gary were members of the math team, competing in math contests held yearly at Tennessee Tech. Gary states that he “never could beat her in the competitions, so he just asked her to marry him.” They were married in the house in Talley’s Hollow on June 14, 1963.
They have been blessed with two sons and five grandchildren. “Ma Jo” enjoyed and loved her grandchildren so much. There wasn’t a day that went by that she did not do something with one of them, never missed any event they were involved in, attending all games, speaking engagements, taking them on vacations, playing games with them, cooking dinners for them, having lunch with them, inviting them and their friends for sleepovers.
I am grateful to have known a woman who lived every moment of her seventy-three years, a woman who showed me in the flesh exactly what this scripture looked like.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace,
patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control;
against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22
*Eisenhower, David and Julie Nixon Eisenhower. Going Home to Glory: A Memoir of Life with Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1961-1969. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2010, p. 11.