Rebekah Sheats
Contributor
Birthdays are a wonderful time to gather with family and friends to celebrate the passing of one more year in a special person’s life. Some of us have had more birthdays than others (though some of us would rather not admit this).
There’s a special birthday coming up soon. It’s just one more birthday in a long line of birthdays—a line that began one hundred years ago in November of 1922.
Shortly after the end of World War One, Joseph Pate and his wife Tillie Mae Davis moved from Georgia to Monticello. The couple had been married six years. They had a stillborn child in the early years of their marriage, and in 1922 they were rejoicing over Tillie Mae’s second pregnancy. Both parents hoped for a boy, whom they planned to name Joseph after his father. But when the child arrived on November 13, it turned out to be a girl.
Slightly disappointed, Joe and Tillie Mae named their little girl Josephine Davis. They would later welcome a second daughter, Emmala, into the family. The boy they longed for would never arrive, but they quickly realized that Josephine was better than any imaginary son. Of this time Tillie later wrote to her oldest daughter:
“We were disappointed when ‘Joe’ happened to be ‘Josephine,’ [but now] I wonder how we could ever have wanted a boy instead of a girl. Your sweet, happy disposition has filled this home with sunshine and joy.”
Sunshine and joy seemed to mark young Josephine from her infancy and throughout her life. Full of energy and bubbling over with enthusiasm for life, Josephine (better known by her nickname Dodie) always lent a brightness to her surroundings.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Monticello was still a very small town, yet it offered many excitements for youngsters. Dodie enjoyed shopping at Harris’ Grocery with her mother. She and her mother did many things together. In 1930, a golf competition was held. Tillie Mae won the adult competition and received a five-dollar gold piece as prize. Later that year, seven-year-old Dodie competed in a golf tournament advertised for “very young people in town.” At the completion of the competition, the youthful participants celebrated their achievements with ice cream cones for all.
Sweets were a special treat for Dodie and her sister. When she had a penny or two, Dodie loved to slip into Mr. Jones’ candy store. She knew he would have a supply of licorice in hand. It was a rare treat that couldn’t be found in other grocery stores around town.
Dodie lived with her family in a house on Pearl Street (the same house she lives in to this day). Pearl Street was unpaved when she was born, and it remained that way for many years. Her father Joe Pate owned the Ford dealership in town. With a father in the automobile business, Dodie spent more time in vehicles than most of her peers. Riding in the latest models wasn’t as much of a thrill for her as it was for many. Instead, the thought of riding in a wagon drawn by a real mule was enough to thrill Dodie’s childish imagination with excitement. She reminisced:
“I don’t think I ever rode a mule in my life. But there was a black man and his wife who brought their vegetables into town. We knew them real well, and they passed along our street each time they came to town. They’d stop along the street because we all wanted to get those vegetables. And I remember climbing up in that wagon, and they let me ride for a block or two in the wagon with the mule. I thought that was so neat.”
Small thrills such as this would remain a lifelong memory. Other simple pleasures would make a lasting impression. One such pleasure was a new dress Tillie Mae purchased for her daughter. Red with white flowers, the dress was everything Dodie loved: bright, vivacious, and bursting with life. “I loved that dress!” Dodie recalled decades later. “I thought I looked so good in it!”
With each passing year came another birthday, another moment to celebrate a growing life. As she grew from childhood into a young woman, Dodie’s smile seemed ever present. Her cheerfulness continued to bring sunshine to every room and every activity, whether she was playing golf, attending church, or simply churning butter on a neighbor’s lawn.
Those years of childhood ended with the arrival of World War Two—but that’s another story.
It’s time to celebrate a birthday. Why? Because a hundredth birthday is a once-in-a-lifetime event. It’s a time to stop and remember a life that has brought so much love, so much caring, and so much sunshine into every life it has touched.
Happy Birthday Dodie! We wish you all the best in this hundredth year of life. And may you have many more birthdays to celebrate in the future!
Those years of childhood ended with the arrival of World War Two—but that’s another story.
It’s time to celebrate a birthday.
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