Maxine (Lewis) Cummings' Obituary
Maxine was born the oldest daughter of George Lewis, a WWI veteran and farmer, and his wife Rettie Mae, in her grandmother’s country home, along with her twin brother Maxie. She was told that they were small babies, and her grandmother kept them warm in a dresser drawer with warm baked potatoes under a quilt. Maxine grew up on a variety of tenant farms, most in Red River County, TX where her father raised cotton. She did not have an easy life, but was safe, fed and loved. She survived Malaria twice. She talked of riding mules bareback, swinging from vines into the creek and what it felt like to be running across a field and have her shoe sucked off her foot by a cow pile. She was especially close to her twin brother, Maxie, but loved all of her siblings. Even to her senior years, she found it hard to talk about her baby brother who only lived a day and especially her little sister, Ila Gene, who died at 4 or 5. Her father was not in great health after WW1 as he was exposed to mustard gas in France. He did his best to provide for the family, even working for the WPA for a while. Her mother was kind and good to them. She was an excellent country cook and passed that skill on to Maxine, who was an even better cook. She said her father and grandfather were known to have made a little moonshine and that one very hot day when the preacher had stopped by to visit, the moonshine in the barn got too hot and the tops began to burst off of the jars with loud pops. Her father figured out what was happening and sent all the kids out in the yard to play (hoping the noise would muffle the popping of the jars). Maxine was smart and a good student, but was not able to graduate due to so many needs at home, but you would have never known that from her career accomplishments. She was determined to get off the farm and never pick cotton again. Her first paying job was in a cannery in Clarksville, TX, but WW2 gave her an opportunity to assist with the War Effort. She went to work at the Red River Arsenal as a Civil Servant, assembling cluster bombs. She would have a headache each night from handling the TNT as she filled the bombs. She said there was a big escape slide out the second floor, in case anyone dropped a bomb…”as if that would have saved us”. She worked graveyard shift much of the time and although she tried three times to see Gone With the Wind, she had to leave before it ended to go to work every time. When she and her friends had a day off, they would go out to the highway to hitch a ride to Dallas. Her friends would put her out by the road because she was the “pretty one”, and they would hide down in the ditch. When a car would stop, they would all run up out of the ditch and get in the car! I asked Mom if it was a terribly fearful time right after the bombing of Pearl Harbor pulled the US into the Pacific and then into Europe and the whole world was at war. She said, to my surprise, ”Oh, no, honey. We KNEW we would win the war. We never doubted. We were the “good guys”. (They were the greatest generation, indeed.) After the War, Maxine moved to Dallas and lived in a boarding house as she went to work for the Federal Reserve Bank, and moonlighted at the ticket booth of a local theater. She said that the bank was her favorite job she ever had. It was during that time that she told me she heard a man preach the true Gospel with sincerity and from The Word of God. That was Brother Milton Greer at Junius Heights Baptist Church. It was under the preaching of Brother Greer that Maxine trusted her heart to the Lord at age 21, and was baptized. Soon thereafter she met Adolphus Cummings on a blind date. She was not a “love at first sight” kind of person, but she recognized quality when she saw it! They were married on May 9, 1948 and were together until his death, sixty one years later. Mom never lost her natural beauty. Even on her death bed, one of the nurses stated, “She has such beautiful skin!” Mom was never vain, but thought it was always right to try to look your best for yourself and family – A good rule to pass on. Janet was born on April 11, 1953, and Nancy on September 26, 1957. They could not have had a better mother. She didn’t baby them, but was kind and good. She did the hard things that would make them grow up right, like making Janet wear a bar and braces on her feet to correct deformity and taking Nancy to the eye doctor frequently and having her go through three eye surgeries to correct her vision. Maxine was not easily ruffled. She was very matter of fact and did what needed to be done in each situation. Her general motto was, “It’ll all work out in the end.” I only remember seeing her cry one time as she tried to comfort our Dad, who was overwhelmed with grief after President Kennedy was shot on our city street. His motorcade had just passed by our Dad, who was standing outside the Magnolia Building where he worked in Downtown Dallas to watch the procession. Maxine did not need a book, other than the Bible to know how to raise her kids. She did not tolerate backtalk well. I remember one time when I was young and had heard a friend tell her mother, “I’m not going to be your friend if….”, so I thought I would try that on my mother. She laughed out loud and said, “You’re a kid! Why would I want you to be my friend?!” I was quickly put back in my place. On another instance, when I was a sassy adolescent, I smarted off to her and she whacked me with the yardstick. I said, “I am twelve years old! I am too old for you to spank!” She said, “Let me tell you one thing! I am bigger than you, and I am ALWAYS going to win the fight! She did, and I owe her my utmost respect. Being a sick child was never a fearful thing with Maxine Cummings as your mother. She was the most comforting caregiver. If there was ANY way she could make you feel better, she would do it. She was an amazing grandmother as well. We were living with them when Trent was born and, he was sick with many respiratory infections. Mom would hear us up, and get up to find Trent and I both crying. She would scoop him up and lay him up onto her ample bosom, where he would almost immediately relax and fall asleep. She was such a natural mom. Maxine welcomed both of her sons-in-law with open arms. I know she was proud of both of them. She said so. Mom did not utter a word of protest when we moved her two “Byrd” grandkids 1200 miles away to NC. It was the hardest thing to do that to them. As the Lord worked it out, after Daddy passed away in December 2009, she took Rick up on his offer to move her to North Carolina. She enjoyed her almost five years as a NC resident and was able to get to know Trent and Hannah well and spend holidays with family. Despite her declining health, she was happy and content. She was excited about the coming arrival of a great grandbaby. On February 27, 2015, she made her only trip to a hospital in North Carolina due to an infection that would take her life that very night. After stating, as was her custom, that she did not mean to “put us out”, she passed peacefully into eternity to see the face of her Lord. Remembering Janet’s Parents Adolphus “Doc” Cummings – October 1917 – December 2009 Maxine (Lewis) Cummings – November 1924 – February 2015 Janet’s Mother, my Mother-in-Law, Maxine passed from this life late on Thursday, February 26, 2015. On this event, I am able to look back at two lives that God was kind to, as they were kind to others. I can easily say about Doc and Maxine, what I remember my own Dad saying about a very few people and that was: “If everybody was like Doc and Maxine, we wouldn’t need any laws.” Some background: Doc was from Bardwell, a community near Ennis, Texas. Doc’s family included his parents, a younger brother and a younger sister. They earned a living from share cropping, as a living was available during his formative years. As he was old enough, he lived with an aunt in the Dallas area for employment. On a Sunday afternoon when he was about 24, Doc and his brother went to a showing of the movie “Sargent York”. When they emerged, the “Extra” edition of the Dallas paper was telling about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In short order, Doc and his brother were enlisted into the armed service. Doc served during the course of WWII in the Pacific supporting bombing missions in the Army Air Corp. After the end of the war, Doc landed at San Diego, and after working a short time in a bank there, returned to Dallas about 1946. In Dallas he found a job with Magnolia Pipe Line. Meanwhile: Maxine was from Clarksville, a community near Paris, Texas. Maxine’s family included her parents, her twin brother, a sister and four other brothers. Notable information there includes that they worked in agriculture, sometimes saving their shoes for the winter, and Maxine’s Mother often baked pies for locals in the community. During WWII, Maxine, while quite a youngster, graduated to working in an east Texas bomb factory, where the girls who worked there autographed the bombs that were headed to Germany and Japan. Later she moved to Dallas and worked at the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank. I do not know exactly how they became acquainted, but Doc and Maxine married in May, 1948. At some point thereafter, they purchased a new home, like a 2-1-1, in east Dallas. Janet was born in 1953 and her sister Nancy was born in 1957. As they grew up, their Dad continued at the same job and at some point with the successor company known then as Mobil. Doc believed in being properly attired and at work, ready to go, before the appointed time. His schedule was predictable enough that after school the girls could walk down to the end of their street and meet the bus that Doc rode back from his job down town. In about 1967, the girls were older and Doc and Maxine built a new home in east Dallas, a 3-2-2 so each daughter could have their own room. In the girls’ later school years, Maxine worked at the Safeway Corporate offices. Doc was able to fulfill his duties to work and not short his consideration of the family’s needs. Doc said, “Those guys who stood around the water cooler were actually stealing from their employer.” In 1983, at age 65, Doc retired from Mobil after 37 years. For many years, before and after retirement, Doc and his friend Otis Shaw, spent Saturday mornings maintaining the Church Busses for the Lake Side Baptist outreach ministry and on special occasions enjoyed the luxury of a breakfast at the nearby institution known as the Circle Grill at Loop 12 and IH 30. 2 I came into the picture, in January 1986, and became acquainted with Doc and Maxine, while trying to contact Janet, who I had recently met. The first encounter there was to remove a bedroom light and install a ceiling fan for Janet’s Mother. This was fairly easy for me, since I had the knowhow and plenty of tools in my old green truck. I was able to make quick work of removing the light box and installing a cross-joist support with fan box, sturdy enough to hang a hind quarter on, while standing on an inverted five-gallon bucket with no trip into the attic required. They considered me to be mechanical and a gentleman, since I made clear my intentions to “court” their daughter. Janet and I married in December, 1986 and for all of the nearly thirty years, it seemed that Doc and Maxine always looked at me with approval. Like everybody, they expected from others the motives, ethic and behavior that they themselves possessed and demonstrated. I am not aware whether they ever actually spent much time really “grading my paper”, but for all that time, I was never aware of any instance where they thought or spoke anything less than positive about me. If there ever was any doubt, they gave me the benefit which says more about them than it does about me. As the years passed, Janet’s sister, Nancy and brother-in-law, Rick raised a son, Trent, and daughter Hannah. In 2007 after 40 years in their second residence, they sold and moved to a senior’s apartment in Mesquite. While there, Doc recognized, perhaps with an officer’s help, that it might be good to quit driving. Doc made the decision and saw that he was no longer able to go to the mall to walk. His back hurt him some and like everyone that age his posture was not as erect. After his 92nd birthday he began to contemplate and left some notes for his obituary. Near the end of 2009 he told Maxine that he was having a heart attack. In a few minutes he was at the hospital with full care. He spent the evening for observation and got up the next morning feeling much better and asked the nurses what was coming for breakfast, and made a joke with them. He laid back down and a few minutes later, his doctor, while making her rounds, recognized that he was unresponsive. He passed peacefully minutes from being ambulatory and having the wit to make a one liner quip. In early 2010, Maxine moved to North Carolina and lived there in a senior’s apartment across from one of the famous Revolutionary War Battlegrounds. This North Carolina home was within five minutes of sister Nancy’s house and where Maxine could often see grandchildren Trent and Hannah. Maxine, in her time experienced various physical discomforts, and beginning years earlier was always excited and compliant when a doctor suggested with a little orthopedic surgery, this or that could be “fixed”. Maxine was as comfortable with a surgeon as she was with her hairdresser. However, as she reached her late 80’s she was clearly beyond the time to endure repair of one of her heart valves. She was OK with this and never anything but pleasant and serene. In 2010, Trent married Lauren and recently they broke the news of the expectation of a great-grandchild in July 2015. In early January, Maxine declined a bit in health and moved to an “assisted living facility”. More recently she told Janet and Nancy that Doc visited her and she had seen their long time pet, Buddy. On Thursday, last, after enduring the normal winter respiratory malady, she complained of fatigue and had the symptoms of a high heart rate with low blood pressure. She and Nancy were visiting the doctors, while exchanging “selfies” and jokes about the mules with Janet. After a short bit, while in the presence of Nancy, Rick, two doctors and a nurse, she peacefully breathed her last, being lucid and witty to the last minute. In Theology, it is clear and undeniable that God appoints some to grace and some to perdition and many to the range of consequences and experiences in between. It is also clear and undeniable from my study of Theology and my nearly sixty years of experience that obedience to simple principles like: considering others before yourself, as in “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” tends to be followed by consequences closer to grace and further from perdition. In my observation of Doc and Maxine, they clearly led lives guided by thoughtful modest obedience. Looking back, it is clear that Doc made career choices with consideration to the big picture including all of the intangibles, like how such a change would affect the family. Notable is, that it has been reasonably determined that Doc declined an opportunity to work elsewhere with Mobil, because among other undesirable consequences, the pet could not move with family. While Doc and Maxine came from modest and humble beginnings, their walk through life was rewarded with almost steadily improving circumstances. I may be wrong, but I think that one of the least desirable experiences in their life was when Nancy drove over a ridge and met the rear end of a hidden vehicle. That was the end of service for the ’65 Chevy and Nancy required some nose surgery. I am not even sure Doc or Maxine ever received a traffic citation. By obedience and grace, they were not visited with the numerous and various adversities that seem to interrupt almost everyone’s hope for a peaceful life. Maxine will be buried next to Doc at Restland Cemetery, following visitation from 9:30 am to 11:00 AM and memorial service at the Restland Memorial Chapel, located 13005 Greenville Ave, Dallas, TX 75243 on Friday, March 6, 2015. Janet’s contact points are: Phone: (361) 318-0259 E Mail: janet@westernrustic.biz Funeral arrangements have been entrusted to Restland Funeral Home and Memorial Park, 13005 Greenville Avenue, Dallas, TX 75243. In lieu of flowers, memorials may be made to: Cornerstone Baptist Church 5736 Inman Rd, Greensboro, NC 27410, or Lake Side Baptist Church, 9150 Garland Road, Dallas, Texas 75218.
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