Broken but Fixable in the Potter's Hands

By Juanita Funkhouser

This book, Broken but Fixable in the Potters Hands, have a double
purpose. It was written as a tool to help me heal over horrible things that
I had to work though and be healed over. Plus this book was written as a
testimony of how God help me through these horrible things that I had to
deal with day by day. My psychiatric suggested that I would start a journal
of my hard times and how I overcome them. My problems that I had to
face started back when I was just a little baby on to adult problems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jul 3, 2013
• ISBN: 9781483639017

Juanita Funkhouser

I am Juanita Funkhouser from Prescott, Arkansas; a 57 years old mother of three beautiful children and grandmother of three beautiful grandchildren. I survived cancer twice, in 2000 with cervix cancer and in 2010 breast cancer. In 2003 God heal me of a heart disease. From 2005 – 2008 I attend New Mexico State University where I got an Associate Degree in Applied Science and Associate Degree in Universal Studies. From 2008 – 2012 I earned my Bachelor Degree in Universal Studies at Eastern New Mexico University. I am an All American Scholar and a Crimson Scholar.

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Juanita Funkhouser

Copyright © 2013 by Juanita Funkhouser.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4836-3900-0

                Ebook            978-1-4836-3901-7

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Rev. date: 06/04/2013

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Contents

Introduction

My Roots

The Baby Fits

My First Steps

Public School

I Am a Working Woman Now

Being Born Again in the Lord

Match Making Matthew

Juanita and Matthew

Unequal Yoke

Our First Home

Moving to the Big City

Birth of Samantha

The Move to Beaumont Texas

Heading Back Home to Little Rock, AR

Total Strangers Knocking

Ready to Build Our New House

What Went Wrong? January 1984

Pregnant

Divorce 1984

Starting All Over Again

Drowned in the Little Missouri River

Joseph Smith

December 1992

Thomas Brothers

Daddy’s Home Coming

Total Out

Finally a Good Paying Job

Get Out!

What Happen to Unto Death Do We Part?

Destroy!

Saying Good Bye to Dollar Store

The Ugly Word Cancer

Samantha

Get My Children Back

Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Black

Honeymoon in New Mexico

Rebecca Black’s Home Coming

Ladies Retreat

1,070 Miles Move

A New Heart

Moving to New Mexico

Ladies Days Out

New Hope Indian Mission Outreach Center

Seeing the Sites with Samuel

June Bug Helping Hands Ministry

Prison Ministry

New Mexico State University

Eastern New Mexico University

Home Again, Back in Arkansas!

Introduction

In the following pages you will find a ordinary country girl growing up to face things I would not wish on my worst enemy if I had any which I don’t have.

This book takes you through my birth, childhood, schooling, two bad marriages, the births of my three children, and my career (my many jobs) plus how I cope with the ideal I have cancer. Sound boring? Well read each page and notice the details. This book intritutes your brain. It will draw your attention. This book has laugher, sadness, happiness, heartaches, death, births, romance, marriages, divorces, courts rooms drama, abortion, child molesting, sex, good times and bad times.

In this book you will meet a woman that grow up with nothing accept love. Her parents were dirt poor. She was raise to love, and respect herself plus others around her. Juanita Brothers doesn’t take anything from anyone! Nobody was ever as stubborn either. Once she made up her mind there wasn’t any one thing or any one person that was going to sway her. At the same time she would rather give than receive any day of the week. This woman as a little girl took the teaching that her parents instill inside her and use it while growing up and during her life as wife, mother and employee. In this book I as the writer is trying to show that no matter how hard life get, there is someone that we can call on beside man that never let us down. That is the Lord our Savior. As this book will plainly bring out, Juanita was born into a humble poor family that had nothing but love to give their children and I return try to teach my three children the same love and values she was taught and how to use their teaching to bring them through any things that life throw at them.

I started writing this book in 1998 when my therapy told me to as part of my therapy. The writing of this book ended the year 2012. The editing took another year to complete. It is my testimony of how God (my potter) took the broken pieces of my life at different time in my life and put them back together.

Life is like a deck of cards. It depends on what cards are dealt to you throughout your life. One have to take life as it is dealt out to us and learn how to make it work for us so we can come out the winner. God is our only hope in coming out a victorious winner.

Almost all of the names have been change and the locations have been change. If it sound like it is make believe, everything is accept the incidents that each character done throughout the book. That was done to keep the privacy of each person in the book.

My Roots

My father was a Saw Mill Worker. He went to work at the age of 13 I believe at Gully Lumber Company. He was working at Gully Lumber Company in Little Rock Arkansas when I was born.

Daddy was 10 years old when his mother died. She died two days after his 10th birthday March 27, 1939. February 1940 my grandpa died of mouth cancer.

When Granny died none of her family was notified of her death or her burial. Grandpa for some reason or another didn’t like Granny’s family. He and his grown children buried Granny at Snell Cemetery in Emmitt, Nevada Co., Arkansas. When Grandpa died, his grown children buried him beside Granny at Snell Cemetery.

Before Grandpa died he had Daddy’s oldest brother to promise to take Daddy in and raise him after Grandpa died. He didn’t keep his promise. Daddy went from one sister’s home to the other until he was able to go to work then Uncle Michael took him in. Daddy paid him rent and broad. Uncle Michael was the one that introduce Daddy to his first beer when Daddy was a very small boy.

Daddy live with Aunt Tracy until a social worker came into her home and told her Daddy had to leave if they were going to give Aunt Tracy any welfare help. Aunt Tracy’s husband died leaving her with five children which the youngest child was six months old. Daddy heard the social worker tell Aunt Tracy that she would not get any help as long as Daddy was living there. So Daddy packs his belongings and move on to another sister.

Aunt Sue and Uncle Claude got married in 1940. Their marriage didn’t last until Death Do Ye Part. They divorce several years later. Aunt Joann married Uncle John the same year. Aunt Marie and Uncle Randy divorce after raising all of their five children. Aunt Joann remarried two times since then. Uncle John married Aunt Joann about that time. This marriage lasted until Uncle John died in 1966. Aunt Joann died 20 something years later after she remarried several times unsuccessful. She died single and living back in Emmett Arkansas where she and Uncle John first live after they got married.

Uncle Lester got married before or after Granny and Grandpa’s death. Uncle Lester married one lady that died giving birth to their first and only child, a little girl. He later married Jenifer whom they had a daughter and a son. Uncle Lester and Aunt Donna’s daughter Jean visit me when I was living in Dallas, Texas. That was the first time I had the change to meet her until she attended the Family Reunion I gave for ten years straight. She was raise by her mother’s parents who taught her that the family did not care about her and that they were all dirt included her father. She still believes that garbage.

So if you think about it, he was going back and forth to his sisters that were newlyweds. Their husband complains about Daddy being there under foot, in their way.

Daddy was the youngest of seven children. Daddy was born March 25, 1929 in Emmett, Arkansas.

My grandmother, was the daughter of Rev. Elijah Jeremiah Alexander Perser (know by some as Jerry) and Amanda Thomas Taliaferro. Granny’s parents are Dr. John David Boughton Taliaferro (a doctor that study in French) and Ruth McClound. Dr. John Taliaferro was also a doctor in the army. It is my understanding that John Taliaferro also was a Baptist Preacher.

My grandmother taught her children the value of life. It stuck with some of her children and some of her children drifted from her teaching. It was told that she was a very spiritual person. I was told that many years ago she attended a church here in Little Rock Arkansas. The Lord was bound to be moving in the service because my grandmother started shouting in the spirit. Some of the proper women that were members of that church at that time took it on themselves to put out the fire that the Lord had put inside my grandmother’s soul and heart. These proper ladies throw buckets of cold water on my grandmother. What better to dampen the spirit of the Lord then several buckets of cold water throw by some very righteous women? It go without saying, my grandmother didn’t ever show her face inside that church again. The teachings and value that my grandmother taught my father never left him. Even though Daddy didn’t always live a Christian Life, his mother’s teaching never went too far from him. Daddy later on with the help of my mother taught his four daughters that same value that his mother taught him at a very young age.

June 1951 Daddy married my mother whom was born April 30, 1932 to Donald and Mary. Donald is the son of William and Eliza.

Eliza is from Switzerland. They were very important families in Switzerland.

Granny is the daughter of John Davis and Nettie, the daughter of Edward from Germany. John Davis is the son of Andrew Jackson and Malitala.

Mother and Daddy elope and got married. They married at Emmett Methodist Church in Emmett, Arkansas.

Mother and Daddy dated unknowingly to Grandpa. Grandpa ran off Mother’s first love. Daddy would come over to see Mother. When Grandpa walks in the door, Daddy would start playing marbles with Mother’s brothers. Grandpa never knew they were dating until the day after they got married. He came in from the fields and asked Granny where Victoria was. Granny said that Victoria married Thomas yesterday. Grandpa threw a fit. He went out trying to find them but when he found them, Mother’s oldest sister that went with Grandpa talk him into leaving them along. Grandpa would leave for a few days and come back later. He was a share chopper. When he found Daddy and Mother, he intended to make Mother comes back home without Daddy.

Daddy’s sister-in-law Joann is Mother’s first cousin. That how Mother and Daddy meet. They meet at Uncle John and Aunt Joann’s home.

Mother’s first love was a bald head man she knew.

The Baby Fits

Nine months after Mother and Daddy got married Mary was born. Daddy didn’t want any kids because he was afraid he would die and leave them to fend for themselves like he had to do at the age of ten. March 6, 1952 Mary was born at Little Rock Arkansas. When Daddy found out Mother was pregnant with Mary he threw what Mother called the Baby Fit. He claims he did not want any snotty nose kids. He was really afraid he would die and leave Mother to raise the children if they had any.

Mother, Daddy and Mary moved to Port Arthur Texas for a few months. Uncle John said, Moved to Port Arthur, That is the place to be. Jobs and Jobs and Jobs on top of Jobs were out there waiting to be had. Sound like what we hear on the television when the Bravely Hills Billie come on the television. Well, guess what? They went to Port Arthur and—Yes, they could not find any work out there. Mother said that they got them an apartment and Daddy finally found a job working for Brown and Root Construction Company. When the job of laying down the streets that they were working on was over, the Construction crew packs up and moved to another location. Daddy, Mother and Mary pack up and moved back to Arkansas to Little Rock.

July 3, 1955 in Conway Arkansas Janet was born into this growing family. Remember the Baby Fit? Well, Daddy threw that fit again when he found out Mother was pregnant with Janet.

July 8, 1956, only one year and five days later, another child was born into this family. Daddy again threw his famous Baby Fit. Daddy and Mother lived on Wild Cat Road in Little Rock at that time. Daddy works at Gully Lumber Company. This was walking distant from their home. Neither, Mother or Daddy drove then. On the 8th of July 1956 a big eight pounds girl twenty two or twenty three inches long was born.

Mother and Daddy were hoping for a boy with this pregnancy. But I was not born a boy. I was another little girl. Even though I was a girl, I look just like my father. I even try to walk like my father and talk deep like my father. My father was my hero. It pleases me for someone to tell me I look just like my father. Or to hear someone say that there was not any doubt about who my father was, I look just like Daddy. I would throw my shoulders back and gin from ear to ear. I was then and still very proud to know that I look like my father. I always wanted to be a tom boy. I went hunting and fishing with my father. I like playing out in the woods making play house with junk that was throw out in the woods like old lumbers, old cans, old wooden boxes and junk that can be use to make a play house for my baby dolls.

So I was not only a tomboy but I had my famine side also. I love to play with my doll furniture and dolls and my play house too. I grow up saying I was going to work at the Bryant Saw Mill at Bryant, Arkansas where my father had been working for years. When I graduated from High School I went to one of the foremen at the saw mill, and ask him for a job. He almost laughs at me. He promises when he needed someone he would call me. He never calls me. At the age of 17 years old I was a very skinny young woman. I only weigh around 85 to 90 pounds then. I figure when the foreman took one look at me, he laughs inside himself saying to himself that I was too small to work at a saw mill. He was only being kind when he said he would call me when he needed someone.

Mother had trouble giving birth to me. She was paralyzes for a short while after I was born. The doctor didn’t want her to have me. He was afraid she was going too died having me. She insisted on having me and we both were OK after birth. Mother wanted to name me Gloria but Daddy with his speech problem could not say Gloria. So they decided to name me Juanita. Yes! That is me. I am Juanita. I was born in CorDonna Hospital in Little Rock Arkansas by Dr. Charles Arnold, MD. I was Mother’s biggest baby at the time of birth. All my sisters weighed less than 8 pounds when they were born.

Yes, there one more child born into this family. June 9, 1959 Sarah was born. Mother had trouble giving birth to Sarah also. Mother was paralyzes a little longer after Sarah was born. The doctor did not want Mother to have Sarah either because he was afraid Mother would not be able to have Sarah or worst. He was afraid Mother would die giving birth to Sarah. But again, Mother insisted on having Sarah and they both were fine after the birth of Sarah. Guess what? Remember the big famous Baby Fit? Well, Daddy did not throw any fit this time. Mother asked him what about the Baby Fit he threw each time she got pregnant. He asked What the use? You going to have the baby anyway and she is going to be another girl!

Mother had three miscarriages in between Mary’s birth and Sarah’s birth. Daddy always said the three miscarriages would have been his boys if Mother would have been able to have them. But he and Mother were gave the chore of raising four daughters which he dearly love.

But after the problems of having Sarah, Mother had her tubes tied and call it quit on having babies.

That is have my family came about.

My First Steps

I had problem learning to walk. I was at least two years old when I finally started walking. Well, I was two years and three months old when I started walking. I was at Uncle Michael’s house playing with my cousins and I decided to get up and walk. Uncle Michael had several children and one daughter Cindy was the same age as me. I took a few steps and fell. Mother went to help me up when I fell, but Uncle Michael said for her to let me get up on my own. I set there a few minutes and got up and started walking. I never stop walking since.

I had weak ankles and knock-knees which were stopping me from walking. The county health nurse Mrs. Betty Thorerson would come down at least once a week to help Mother work with me, to help teach me to walk. I had to wear braces at night on my legs and ankles when I sleep. But once I started walking, I kept on walking.

After I started walking, while I was still two years old, one of the neighbor boys came over to play with one of my sister. I am not sure how old he was but he was not too much older than Mary if any. He picks me up and put me on a very low limb on an old tree in my parents’ yard. I could not climb up there on the limb by myself. Mother calls us kids in to get something cold to drink and everyone forgot about me being on that limb. I was left to climb down by myself. Since I was not able to climb down by myself, I fell off the limb onto the ground. I don’t remember if I hurt myself or not. I don’t remember being on the limb of that tree. But I remember Mother telling me about it after I got older.

Daddy was always a tall man. Until he turns in his 50’s, he was a very slim man. Daddy was six feet and four inches tall. Mother was always a short person. She is five feet and two inches tall. Mother was a very little person until she got in her middle age. When I was born Mother weigh only 80 or 90 something pounds and I was an 8 pounds baby. When Daddy died he weighed close to 200 pounds. Even though Mother gain weight, she lost most of it and at the age of 80 she weighs 107 pounds.

Public School

In 1962 a new bunch of recruits walked into Public School to begin a new way of life. We were all shapes and fashions, but with one common goal in mind—GRADUATION!

I can’t say I remember first grade or even second or third grade. I made straight S & S+ on my report card. On conduct was straight S. My sisters and I knew better for our conduct to show anything less than that because our Daddy would tear our seats up if we act up in class. I can remember my first grade teacher was Mrs. Davidson and my second grade teacher was Mrs. Harden. My third grade teacher was Mrs. Fortner. I also remember in the third grade we took turn cleaning the small fish bowl in Mrs. Fortner’s class room. One day it was my turn to clean the fish bowl. Well, I was always clumsy all my life. That day was no reception. I had the bowl in my hands holding over the sink and with my wet hands I drop the bowl hitting the faucet which broke the fish bowl. I was scared because I had broken the teacher’s bowl. I was afraid of getting in trouble with my teacher. I was also afraid too that my Daddy would wear my seat out if he has to pay for the fish bowl. I cry and cry with the fear I was in trouble. But my teacher was not mad and I did not have to tell Daddy he had to pay for the class’s fish bowl.

Fourth grade got harder. We started having reading problems in Math plus lot of reading in English, History, and Science. My grade started dropping. I did not know that I had an eye problem. I could not see past my noses. My parents did not know I had an eye problem. My eyes look like they were going to the back of my head which my parents thought I inherited it from my father and his mother and her daddy. Even though my father did wear glasses, Mother and Daddy thought I inherited it from the Brother’s side of the family. It was not until the fifth grade that I fail my eye test at school and got glasses that following summer. The eye doctor told my mother that I was almost blind. Today the doctors would call it legal blind but back then there was no name put to it.

I had spelling and unless I remember the spelling words, I failed the spelling test. See there was another problem I had. I was sound deaf. I could not hear my sounds in my words. I could not pronounce my words correctly. I could not read the words correctly. When the teacher call out the spelling words, I honestly thought I had study the wrong spelling lessons. But it was the correct spelling lesson. I got so I would remember the spelling words in order they were in the spelling book so I could spell them correctly even though I did not always recognize the words that the teacher was calling out. I just wrote each word as they were in the lesson. That work fine until the teachers decide to skip around on the spelling list and call out the words in any order. I would try to figure out which word sounded close to the words I remember and write down the closing one that I could turn up with. Some time that work and some time it didn’t. It works more with the weekly spelling test but when we did the 6 weeks spelling tests that were a different story. I could not memorialize that many words at one time. Even if I memorialize them I could not always tell which words was the same as the one the teachers were calling out. I had one teacher that call out the words breaking it down. Some time she would take a word like rawhide and make two words out of it so we could spell it easier. No one, even my parents, knew I had that kind of problem in school. I knew what was going on but did not know how to explain it to anyone enough to get help on my problem.

There was one boy in school that did know I had a problem hearing my sounds. But he was only a class mate and at that time he did not knew how to help me to solve my problems. It was not until the eleventh and twelfth grade that the school notices my sound deafness. The English teacher sign me up in a speech program that the school had just started for the student with low grades. It was almost too late for me at that age to help much but for two years I went to the speech class.

As I mention above, I didn’t failed my eye test at school until the fifth grade. The following summer I went and got my eye tested. The eye doctor in Little Rock told my mother and me that I was almost blind. When I started wearing glasses it was like a whole new world in front of me. I could see things I never saw before.

I remember Mother would tell us to look at the squirrel running up the tree a few feet away or the pretty bird perch on a limb nearby. I never seen any of that until I was right up on it. I never knew the beauty I was missing until I got glasses.

First things I remember after getting my glasses was walking around the block there in Bryant where I lived. I walk straight to my friend’s house.

He was a little boy at that time that I had a crush on real bad. I wanted real badly for him to like me. It meant a lot to me for him to like me.

He was outside in his yard when I approach his house. I walk up to him and asked him if I look better now since I was wearing glasses. He said I look all right with or without glasses but the glasses look good on me. That was good enough for me. I went on home because I had done what I came to do and I was happy with myself.

Before I got my glasses, I would go next door at Gracie’s house running and playing in the yard. I would run into the electric pole in her yard. The pole made out of iron. Man that did hurt. Or I would run into the wire from the pole to the ground. That hurt!

Daddy works at the Bryant Saw Mill. We were allow to go up in the mill if we had Daddy or another grown-up with us to get cokes or candy out of the coke machines or candy machines. We would also go to the mill to bring Daddy his lunch when he had to work on Christmas Day or Thanksgiving Day as security guard while the mill was close.

The saw mill had iron pipes or beams laying cross-way in the air supported by two iron poles on each end. I not sure but I think they serve as blocking off the area. Anyway the poles were eye level to me as a small child. Yes, without my glasses I would run into those poles before I seen them since as a child I didn’t always watch where I was going. It is a wonder I didn’t knock my head off or cause some kind of brain damage.

It was until the 9th grade before my math grades improve. It went from F to A+ almost overnight. My math teacher was Coach Ward. He would tell us our homework that day and the next day we would go over the homework and then turn it in. Then He would give us more home work and leave us along to do our home work.

My sixth grade Math teacher, Mr. Thompson, the principle, I was scared of. I knew he would not hurt me. But I was scared of him. He had a rough voice like my daddy, and when Mr. Thompson spoke to me he would call me Brother instead of Juanita. I would jump every time he calls me Brother. He never knew his voice was scarring the dogs out of me. Oh, he was a wonderful person, a good teacher, and a very good principle. I was just scared of him.

Mr. Nash was our 7th or 8th grade math teacher. I forget which, but maybe both grades. I can’t remember for sure. I did past his math class but with low grades.

Science was a horrible class for me to pass. Mrs. Welsh, my science teacher, said once that science was little too hard for me to understand. When I got into high school one of the requirement to graduate was two years of high school science. The school council consulted with my 7th or 8th grade science teacher (Mrs. Welsh) about me taking science in high school. They came up with the fact that I most likely could not past Biology or any other science class High School had to offer. With the agreement with the school broad and the superintendent Mr. Smithson that I could still graduate with my class in 1974 without taking all the years of science that they were requiring. I had taken three years of Home EC to cover the science requirement. We study Child Development in Home EC. So two years of Home EC were consisted a year of science. The school forfeits 1/2 years of science for me.

I was told by my school mates and friends that I could not pass Pre-Algebra. They all said it was just out of my reach. I have always been a person that if I was told it was impossible for me to do and I wanted to do it bad enough, I did it. I may not always did it successfully but I