Everyone called her Mama Maybell. She was a big-boned woman who had a warm, inviting lap that small children would often crawl up onto to take a nap. She had raised ten children by herself because her husband had died at an early age due to a logging accident. She was a member of our church in rural Emanuel County, but none of the church congregations knew much about her as a young mother during the depression, who was raising her 10 children without help from her friends or extended family. Her daughter stood slowly up and walked slowly to the center of the small church and to give the eulogy. “Mama Maybell had lived a long productive life of 88 years,” her daughter humbly remarked. “Mama was a proud, Christian lady who would give you the shirt off her back. After daddy was tragically killed, she was determined to raise us without undue charity from concerned members of the church, because she felt they had their own problems”.
“Mama got the strange idea that she would close off our living room from the rest of the house and turn it into a small four table restaurant that would be open on Friday and Saturday night only for business. It would be called “God Provides.” “Money was slim and none” during the depression and Mama Maybelle didn’t want to over-charge for a home-cooked meal, so the asking price was a half a dollar a plate, which stayed the same throughout her business adventure.” “Mama gave fancy names and exotic terms to her mouth-watering dishes, but only she and the good Lord knew exactly or precisely what ingredients went into each dish. Many of you out in the congregation have had those same dishes on Wednesday night suppers or on Sunday’s dinner on the ground.” “My brothers were excellent hunters and also grew all the fresh garden vegetables that went into mama's exotic dishes. So mama was never without a storehouse of needed meat and produce.“
“If you order the delicious cob salad, most likely you got coon salad with fresh tomato, lettuce, and tender strips of crispy fried coon strips with homemade buttermilk dressing and a thin, corn hoecake on the side”. “And most customers couldn’t get enough of persimmon pie, which was known by only family members as possum pie. “By law there should have been more persimmon, but less possum meat in persimmon pie, which there was not. But if pork and beans can have more beans in their product, with only a small speck of pork, I believe we never broke any law.” “Today, mama being a proud Christian woman, wanted me to confess what actually went into her creations. She is sorry if you were satisfied with her sincere apology; it was for a good cause. And she never had any complaints.“
