Sermon Central
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Eulogy--Stories From My Mom, Clarien Dixon
Contributed by Rick Gillespie- Mobley on Oct 6, 2025 (message contributor)
Summary: This is the eulogy for my mother at a memorial service. I chose to share stories she had given me before she died.
A Son’s Reflections Of His Mother’s Stories
9/20/2025 I Timothy 4:6-10 Psalm 91
I was going to write a book on some of the stories my mother told me about her life, but since I probably will not get around to doing it, I want to share some of the stories with you. Her mother had 14 children, one of which died as an infant. They were very poor, but their mother was a hard worker. There were at least five different fathers among the 14.
But her mother had no problem with this because Jesus had told the woman at the well, that she had had five husbands, and the one she was now with was not her husband. Somehow the message of the Samaritan woman became you can have up to five husbands and possibly six and still be okay.
On picking Cotton
The time to pick cotton came around in August. The Ga sun is super hot in August. The day began at around 5:30 am with her mother baking biscuits and frying fatback. These would all be loaded up into a bag for lunch. Clarien was about 11 and she and her siblings were up at 6. They would climb on the back of a long flat bed truck that went throughout the neighborhood gathering people to be driven outside the city to the Cotton fields.
Work would begin at 7, Once at the field, Clarien searched for two things. First where was the shade tree, and second were there any clouds in the sky that might give a hint of rain. She knew they would be there in the fields until about five o’oclock. It was a joy to see the sun start heading down the other side of the sky.
Some cotton owners would have a water stations with water and watermelons on it for those needing a break. Picking cotton was hard work. All the money they earned during the week went to their mother. But Saturday was a ½ day. Each child had their own bag, and any cotton picked on Saturday, once it was weighed, the child got to keep that money. When they finished a whole field, the white folks would have a big fish fry prepared for them with watermelons and fruit. The white folks would all be peering out the windows watching them eat, but never would join in with them.
On Going To School
Picking cotton and the first two weeks of school coincided with each other and Clarien’s mother, needed them to work in the cotton fields so school was placed on the backburner. Those two weeks, Clarien was ashamed to ride on the flatbed trucks and tried to hide behind the other adults. She knew the other kids who were on their way to school would laugh at them. They were often the butt of jokes with their raggedy clothes. Clarien and her brothers and sisters became comedians as a way to get the other kids to like them. Word got out, it was okay to be with the Mobley kids, because they had could be very funny.
Clarien was very smart in school, and it was not long before she caught up with her brothers Leo and Bobby. They went to a one room school house in primer school. One day Leo and Bobby, didn’t come to school and the teacher asked Clarien why they weren’t at school. Clarien refused to say anything, the teacher demanded an answer and threatened her with a paddling. She still refused to answer. She took the paddling and went back to her seat. She didn’t want to tell the teacher, her brothers were missing that day because they didn’t have any shoes to wear to school.
Clarien was in the 11th grade when she found out she was pregnant. Her mother told her that she and James Smith were going to get married. She was taking them both down to the Courthouse. On the day they were to go, James didn’t show up. When Clarien saw him later, she asked why he didn’t come. He said he figured out, the baby was not his, and he now had another girlfriend. Clarien was devastated. When you come into Dublin from the east, you cross a double bridge and underneath it runs the mighty the Oconee River. It used to flood annually during the spring, when the dam up north was opened up. It was very near Clarien’s house and often the river surrounded the house when it overflowed its banks.
Clarien was so depressed after James’ rejection of her and her unborn child, that she went to the Oconnee River Bridge with the intent to end her life and that of her unborn child. As she stared over the edge of the bridge, and looked at the rushing river below, she was ready to make the jump. Then all of a sudden, she stopped and walked back home.
