Hope, Love, Abide: Love Stories

By Anna Smith

This book is on long life and on long marriages. Looking at family and friends who emphasize building relations of hope, care, and friendship over time. Life and fruitfulness are a blessing and gifts of God. This book is a look too at marriage in America. Anna Smith is a retired social worker who gave thirty-one years of service in Child Welfare Service. She spent her last working years in Adult Protective Services. She and Aaron A. Smith, PhD are the parents of two adult and married daughters and the grandparents of six grandchildren. Anna was born in Meadville, Mississippi. It is detailed in this book why she and her family moved from Mississippi to Illinois, then to California. She and siblings were raised to know we are part American Indian. When she asked her mother if she knew what tribes we are from? Mother replied, "Sho' I know!" and is detailed in this book. Her father and mother talked with us children of God and Jesus. Her father told us children to stay in school and to achieve, all of us siblings are high school graduates. Her oldest sister became a registered nurse. Anna graduated San Jose State College (now University) and Howard University.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Christian Faith Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Nov 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098023751

Book preview

Arcola/Death

When my sister, Arcola, died in 2015, at eighty-two years of age, she left Robert Irving, her husband of sixty years, six sons, daughters-in-law, and grandchildren. It hit me hard and heavy. I was not ready for her to leave us, but many people are not ready for loved ones to leave them, but we must accept the will of the Lord.

Robert Irving was a military man, and Arcola and the children moved a lot to keep up with him. Wherever they moved, they were with each other. I had first learned of Robert Irving when I and younger sister, Vera, were in elementary school in Phoenix, Illinois, and Arcola and our sister, Betty, were students at Thornton Township High School in Harvey, Illinois.

While a student in high school, Arcola was also a piano student at the Chicago Conservatory of Music in Chicago, Illinois, where teachers expressed, Arcola had the makings of a concert pianist. She filled our home with classical music, but she also played songs that we could and did sing while she played the piano. Although she was a talented pianist, Arcola had said from nine or ten years of age that she wanted to become a nurse.

Arcola came home from school one day saying, They better find him, they better find him, they better find him, in a tearful, trembling voice. We, at home, did not know who she was referring to or what had happened. Arcola explained that Irving, as she called him, was her high school friend, who was then in the United States Army and with the soldiers at war in Korea. In the newspaper, Robert Irving had been listed as lost in action. Some weeks later, Arcola reported to us Irving had been found.

Our brother, Wayne was born in 1950. We had been four girls for a long time, so Wayne was a novelty of newness to us, and I became a middle sibling.

Arcola graduated from Thornton Township High School, Harvey, Illinois, in 1951, the same year I graduated the eighth grade at Calvin Coolidge Elementary School, Phoenix, Illinois. Following our graduations, we moved to San Jose, California, as our father, Monroe Pickett, a cement finisher by trade and a foreman on his job with a work team, had frostbitten spots on his feet that hurt in the cold weather of Chicago, Illinois, where he worked, mostly.

Doctors there were considering to amputate his feet, when in 1950, a company contracted to build the McDonnell Douglas Aircraft Plant in the area of Los Angeles, California, contacted Dada, as we called our father, offering him a cement masonry job, to go with them to help build the plant. While in the warm weather of Southern California, Dada’s feet felt better. After six months to nine months there, Dada returned to our home in Illinois. He told us he wanted us to move to California as he felt he could live there with his feet problems, in the warmer weather.

Arcola said she wanted to live near Berkeley, California, and attend college there. When Arcola discovered that hospitals trained and educated women for the registered nurse degree, she opted to go that plan. She went first to San Jose Hospital, which ran a nursing school. Arcola was told she did not qualify. Knowing that she had good grades and that she had taken college preparatory classes in high school, she felt hurt. And then, with Dada saying, Racism is out there, don’t let it stop ya! and All ya got to do is try, Arcola then went over to the Catholic, O’Connor Hospital. There she was told she more than met entry requirements and that she would be their first black student! Arcola enrolled, and she graduated from the Catholic, O’Connor Hospital School of Nursing in San Jose, California, in 1954. The next year, 1955, I graduated from San Jose High School and entered San Jose State College. In 1956, Arcola and Robert Irving, United States Air Force, married in San Jose, California.

When Arcola died, my daughter Amy came with me to comfort me. My minister, Rev. Alan Gould, telephoned that I hang onto my faith. Indeed, I am thankful and so very thankful and grateful for the many blessings the Lord has shown and given to me.

Amy, granddaughter Mia, and I went to Arcola’s funeral in Wichita, Kansas. We drove there in my car. As Arcola laid in her casket, a group of flowers were there including a potted flowering plant from Sister Vera and a standing bouquet of flowers from my sisterhood, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority. My church, Allen Chapel, sent a letter of expressions of sympathy that was read and heartfelt.

I was wonderfully surprised that many of their friends and family came to Arcola’s memorial. A woman remembered meeting Arcola in Anchorage, Alaska, where both their husbands were stationed at the Alaska Air Force Base. Another friend, a man from Illinois, noted his surprise that Robert Irving had located Arcola after she moved to California. Another woman spoke of Arcola’s work which included hospital work as a surgery head nurse. Then she became a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA). After she finished nursing, Arcola became a businesswoman with Mary Kay Cosmetics and encouraged others to enter that business.

The evening before the memorial services, a rosary was held for Arcola, at her church, St. Francis of Assisi Church, Wichita, Kansas. The choir loft was filled, lifting their voices to the heavens. Arcola had sung with that choir, perhaps the only black choir member.

Through this all, I began to have thoughts of writing a book on love, of a promise kept, for God is love.

Aunt G came also to Arcola’s memorial services, a widow in her ninety years of age (Niece Diccy H., drove Aunt G and Diccy’s daughter to the service). Aunt G said Arcola was her first niece. Aunt G is the widow of the late Medic Eugene P. Hayes, my uncle who is among the honorees at the National World War II Museum in New Orleans, Louisiana.

With permission, Arcola’s husband, Irving, provided me with a copy of a poem written by Wanda Beneke in 1998 titled My First Christmas in Heaven.

I see the countless Christmas trees around the world below. With tiny lights like heaven’s stars reflecting on the snow.

The sight is so spectacular please wipe away that tear, for I Am spending Christmas with Jesus Christ this year.

I hear the many Christmas songs that people hold so dear, but the sounds of music can’t compare with the Christmas choir Up here.

I have no words to tell you of the joy their voices bring, for I am spending Christmas with Jesus Christ this year.

I can’t tell you of the splendor or the peace here in this place. Can you just imagine Christmas with our Savior face-to-face?

I’ll ask him to lift your spirit as I tell him of your love, so then pray for one another as you lift your eyes above.

Please let your hearts be joyful and let your spirit sing, for

I am spending Christmas in heaven, and I’m walking with the King.

Arcola—how did my sister get that name? I lived near an Arcola Street in San Jose, California. Here in Montgomery County, Maryland, I live near an Arcola Avenue in Silver Spring, Maryland. On the Internet, I saw