“Love lifted me,

Love lifted me,

When nothing else could help.

Love lifted me.” (Lyrics  of a traditional Hymn written and composed by James Rowe).

A lifetime friend and neighbor, Ollie Jane Dunaway Cheshire passed away at the end of last week; she’s someone I often saw working tirelessly in her beautiful yard. Many times I would “honk” my horn and wave to her, as I drove past her home about two miles south of the Eight Mile Still,  and she would lift her hand and acknowledge me.

I wrote her a note this  spring regarding the beauty of her wild azalea that was in full bloom. She took such pride in her flowers, plants and shrubs. Her yard was always a showpiece. That wild azalea this spring, though, was magnificent and put on a pageant of beauty that was a natural and mirror image of the soul of its tender.

She was born in the late 1930’s here on the Woodpecker Route.  Her parents, the late Mr. and Mrs. Harry Dunaway (Mr. Harry and Mrs. Ethel, nee Ethel Tomlinson)  lived and worked on the farm of the late Mr. and Mrs. Joseph W. “Joe” McAlpin.

Back to my friend, Ollie Jane Cheshire.  She was a wife for sixty years, married to Leon Cheshire, a wonderful wife, a mother of two sons, Chris and Greg, a grandmother, a dutiful daughter, a hard worker. She worked, I know, as a teacher assistant at South Hamilton Elementary School for many years. She was always faithfully attending and supporting Long Branch Congregational Methodist Church here on the Woodpecker Route.

She will be one of the last of her “type” of ladies; those who were born in a place, who lived their lives in a place, raised their families the place of their birth and were laid to rest, as she was not six miles from her childhood home.

She was born when agriculture reigned supreme as the way of life in rural north Florida. Her father and mother were both hard workers. She knew about stringing tobacco, taking tobacco  off the stick, getting up early to pick vegetables, picking any and every kind of fruit—figs, plums, pears, blackberries, blueberries and huckleberries—which most of these young children don’t know a thing about, and all about making jelly and preserves from them.  

She learned about canning vegetables and making jams and jellies; not for show, but to have for survival and for the family to live on during the winter months. This was a way of life in rural north Florida for many years captured beautifully by the late “Aunt” Nancy Morgan in her biography “Out of the Pocket.”

She loved where she lived, and she could tell stories and had an infectious laugh. Her voice had a distinctive north Florida lilt to it, that to me sounds like home and music. She was born before this part of the world had electric lights. They did not come here on the Woodpecker Route till the late 40’s. She attended and graduated from White Springs High School, now South Hamilton Elementary.

A wonderful story related to me by a lifelong friend, Linda Finley, now a prominent attorney at law in Atlanta, Georgia, a Baker County Florida native of Macclenny, and the maternal granddaughter of the late Representative and Mrs. Joe McAlpin, Mr. Joe and Mrs. Lizzie (nee Elizabeth Cone) White Springs. Linda’s mother, Mary Elizabeth, was their daughter and Linda’s dad, the late Maines Finley, spent many days at the farm now owned by Reynard Wilson just north of Long Branch Congregational Methodist Church on the Woodpecker Route.

Linda  send me a Facebook message and stated that Ollie Jane and Leon, had a winter garden with cabbage, collards and mustard greens, and that the deer were giving some of it a fit.

My friend decided she would take care of the deer, bought herself a hunting license, took her rifle with her to the clothesline which was not far from the garden and downed Mr. Buck right there in the winter garden one morning.

She was that kind of lady, and she was a lady.  She loved those around her, but she protected and looked after what was hers. The venison back strap I understand made a tasty supper served with some great mustard greens. She was a native daughter of the Suwannee River Valley region, and she respected nature and revered it, but she was pragmatic. In the flat woods of Hamilton County, one had to be for survival.

Jane was gravely ill for the last several weeks of her life. She wanted to come home, to her home here on the Woodpecker Route, and her wish was granted.  She died “at home,” and in the place she loved best on this earth surrounded by those she loved best. What a gift. What a blessing.

Jane got her three score and ten and then some.. She was 78, I think, and I never thought of her as a senior citizen, I never thought of her as anything but vibrant, a home loving person, a great neighbor with a soft voice, a loving friend.

Rev. Randy Ogburn, White Springs native, County Commissioner for District 4, and pastor of Watertown Congregational Methodist Church near Lake City, as well as Rev. Tommy Lindsey, pastor of Long Branch Congregational Methodist Church, White Springs, both grew up not a stone’s throw from Ollie Jane and Leon Cheshire. They knew them and loved them and did a beautiful job telling of Jane’s love of friends, family and flowers and her love of the Savior.

Tom Tomlinson, White Springs, also a resident of the Woodpecker Route and a dear neighbor as well as  a cousin to both Olllie Jane and Leon on two different sides of the family (sorry I don’t have enough space to explain it and a lot of you wouldn’t get it ) sang one selection “Wish You Were Here” that talked about the beauty of heaven. He did a wonderful job.

For Jane, I believe the portals of glory will be complete with beautiful flowers and that will make heaven “just right” for her, but they will have to let her work in them, because she will want to do that and won’t be happy without a rake in her hand.

 Lots of folks were raking and picking up debris in our  little community which just came through a storm, here in our home “Around the Banks of the Suwannee,” and there are too many people to thank to adequately express appreciation to all in this column. So many helped out, encouraged, checked on individuals and facilities, and my hat is off to each one for their tireless devotion and dedication. We are a community here in our home Around the Banks of the Suwannee in good times and bad, in happy times and sad….we rejoice in the birth of a child, we congratulate those on a job well done, we mourn and grieve with those we have loved and lost and we remember, and we are gracious enough—if we were raised right and most of us were—to say “Thank you” when someone does something nice for us.

Thank you to all of you who enrich my life each day with uplifting comments about this column. It is a trifle, really. Not the type of writing that will ever land me in a journalistic “Hall of Fame,” but as I sat in the funeral home chapel on Monday at the funeral service of my lifetime friend, and, earlier in the weekend, as I saw a number of young people enjoying themselves earlier in the week, despite no electrical power down in front of Mrs. Lillie Bell Hutcherson’s home in White Springs for a family reunion that went on despite no electrical power, it drove home to me this fact.: life goes on and love never ends, and aren’t we thankful we live in a community where we can roll back the curtain of memory and rejoice in the lives, legacy and in the traditions of this wonderful place we call “home?”

When my life comes to an end, and I reflect upon all the memories, all the love, all the good times, not so good times, and times in between, I can truthfully say one of my theme songs will be in the lyrics of my very favorite hymn  “Love Lifted Me,” and it can lift you when nothing else will.

“Love so mighty and so true,

Merits my soul’s best songs,

Faithful, loving service too,

To Him belongs.

Love lifted me.

Love lifted me.

When nothing else could help.

Love lifted me.

Love lifted me.

Love lifted me.

When nothing else could help….

Love….Lifted….Me.”

From the Eight Mile Still on the Woodpecker Route north of White Springs wishing you a day filled with joy, peace, and, above all, lots of love and laughter. So blessed to be in the number “one more time.”