a Mother's Day honoring

A Eulogy for (Clara) Jean Beaman Walker July 22, 1910-December 7, 2005
by her son Henry

A woman:
a daughter, a sister, a wife, a mother, an aunt, a widow,
a grandmother, a greatgrandmother,
a teacher,
an inspiration to all who only had to know her
to love her
and to be loved by her,

family always so important:
second daughter so they named her Clara
for father Clarence,
for the youngest Chickie she was “Little Mother,”
and she loved the story of selling fruit cakes
so they’d have money for Christmas
she and Margie racing down Kingston Pike
to deliver and get paid
and stopping to get Santa for Chickie
at the only store still open,
parents and brothers and sisters
so much a part of her identity,
of who she became,

learning always so important:
following her curiosity and her mother’s charge
to get a college education
and continuing on into a masters
and sending half of her paycheck
from her first teaching job at Englewood
home to Magnolia Avenue,
and teaching till she got married and lost her job,
Depression rules to share the few jobs available,
as a girl reading the Congressional Record to her grandmother
who waited for a pension
from her husband’s service in the Spanish-American War,
and who gave Jean chocolates Grandma didn’t care for,
as an adult poring over every day’s newspaper
every week’s Time, the Nation too,
teaching sex education to other PTA mothers,
she and Daddy even counseling,
teaching English, a favorite, and home ec,
loving to cook with kids, who “cut her time to double”,
spreading the mysteries of sugar caramelizing,
a marble slab, a white sauce, angel biscuits,
and summer transparency applesauce,
a favorite story described her as “lost”
till her parents found her in the icebox
eating butter,

every memory wound up with the memory
of what she ate then,

a feminist, will always so important:
she started her own business,
Camp Chewase during the Great Depression,
and hired her sisters and husband,
touching lives and making money,
teaching character,
building the cabin and renting it to pay for it--
we kids giving up our rooms for summer tourists
when Gatlinburg was crowded,
spring and fall she’d teach a full day in Knoxville,
drive to Gatlinburg,
strip and make the beds, clean it all,
even the tub no one was going to use,
drive back to Knoxville
and teach a full day the next day,

Daddy dies,
companion, friend, helpmate, half of her,
and she holds the family together:
Johnny finishing Duke and Columbia Law School,
Henry finishing Duke and UNC,
Clarence finishing UT and Vietnam,
and after her kids were grown and needed her differently
time to help Gatlinburg:
supporting all the good sides in political battles,
a liberal to the core,
EMS folks still appreciative of her effort, successful,
to keep the service in town,
advising on the Convention Center
and the Foothills Parkway,
at every City Council meeting,
all invited back to the cabin
for cake and coffee and politicking,
her Letters to the Editor a legend,
the mountains so important to her:
a “National Park Founder” says her certificate,
hiking with her long-legged father,
out the door to watch any visiting bear,
the Cabin on the Creek a gateway for
children, grandchildren, and, yes, greatgrandchildren
to learn to love forest, stream, and slope,
the longer the cabin can work as such a gateway
the better,
combining family, food, and nature in a favorite story
of sweetened condensed milk fresh peach pie,
plus whipped cream, at Laurel Falls,
including a thermos of coffee, her good friend,
snow cream the way to best celebrate the white stuff,
so like her mother whom she described as never stopping working,
till her body said “no.”
and throughout it all her life was love,
when all else fell away
and she wasn’t sure
who was around
and what was happening
her unconditional love still beamed from deep within,
when sleep and dimness kept pulling at her
enter a little child into her room
and her face became radiant,
eyes sparkling,
her life was love
when Whitney and Clarke’s kids:
Devon, Morgan Jean, Caitlin, and Liam,
have visited her,
her face has been radiant,
her eyes sparkling,
hand firm,
as she knew them,
as she loved them,
as they loved her,

as was true, and is true, for so, so many of us,

her life was love.