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Clemmie McFadden holds a picture of her mother, Ruthie Taylor Anderson.

Profile Edition 2020

• McFadden shares her motherly love with all

At age 96, Clemmie McFadden is still serving as a protector of children. Her role as mother to many began early in her marriage and over the years she has taken many others under her wings.

A mother of 16 and wife to Willie McFadden, she lost four of her offspring at birth, raising 12 children in all. Today three boys and two girls remain with her.

"God giveth and God taketh away," she said, while sitting on her couch in her home in Spring Garden Apartments.

Her next birthday, 97, is May 24 this year.

"Our time is appointed when we come into this world," she continued. "I don't even worry about it. When He knocks at my door, I'm ready to go."

McFadden is one of the two oldest residents at the village Spring Garden. The apartment complex was once named Rankin Circle, and the name was changed when the village was completely refurbished.

She has overlooked, and still does, the many children at Spring Garden on West Woodward Avenue in Holly Springs.

She was born (Clemmie Taylor) on the McPherson Place outside Holly Springs toward the Hudsonville community.

After marriage to Willie McFadden at age 14, they began share cropping the land together. After that, her husband rented.

"We never owned," she said.

But you could say Clemmie McFadden has inherited the earth.

"I picked cotton, chopped cotton, slopped the hogs. I did it all," she said. "We raised cotton, corn, watermelons by the wagon loads. God is so good."

She began the habit of reading the Bible early and praying. She finished the sixth grade in the day when a sixthgrade education was like a high school diploma.

Soon after rising in the morning she does her morning devotional and at night she prays on her knees after reading the Bible.

"I have to give God the praise," she said.

Her Bible goes to bed with her and it is the first thing she reaches to touch when she wakens.

McFadden went to Powell Chapel and started school at Finley Grove near the Mississippi State University Experiment Station on Highway 7 North. Her teacher was Willie Burton, a cousin on her father's side.

Most of her children got their education in Holly Springs. Four attended college with two of them completing their college degrees.

Levi McFadden graduated Summa Cum Laude from Rust College.

Her daughter Carolyn McFadden, who works the second shift at Volvo as an auditor/bookkeeper, stays with Ms. Clemmie, as she is affectionately known, overnight. A sitter stays with her during the day and her sons Willie, William and Levi all stop in after work to see her and bring her a treat.

"Lots of people look up to her for her wisdom," daughter Carolyn said. "People feel they can come talk to her and get advice. She's like a mother to kids."

Having married at 14, Ms. Clemmie found the best job she could do was to help others and be a great mom to her kids, Carolyn said.

"My mom always got up and cooked breakfast for us (making biscuits by hand). A lot of people looked at her as a great mother. She said she didn't have a lot to give her kids but she could be a great mom," Carolyn said.

McFadden's grandfather, Henry Taylor, from Louisiana, was a minister, so Clemmie was brought up on the Bible. She lived with her grandfather for a time. They rode in a muledrawn wagon to church. Clemmie's mother Ruth had Clemmie dressed to go to church at 9 a.m. on Sundays.

"She bought a Bible for me and at about 10 or 12 she had me read it all the way through," Carolyn said.

Clemmie's grandfather didn't go to the doctor. He was a root doctor. Clemmie went to the woods to help him collect roots. They washed the roots, dried them and used them to make a tea.

"You didn't have to buy stuff from the store," Ms. Clemmie said. "It don't take a whole lot of money to live. Put your faith in God. That's what brought me to where I am."

She lived with her grandfather and grandmother until the age of 10 or 11.

She still remembers the one-room school house at Finley Grove Church. Each class would go up before the teacher for their lessons.

"That's where I belonged," she said. "Rev. Green is my pastor. Willie (her son) is a deacon."

As time passed, her mother Ruth Taylor Anderson married Eugene Anderson. Her mother had nine children.

"I'm not educated but I'm blessed. I'm better than blessed," Ms. Clemmie said.

She worked as a cook for Elton McIntosh, who ran Tyson Drug Store, and also kept house for him and was a sitter for his children.

She has a sister, Amanda Scales, who lives in Holly Springs, and a brother, James Henry Anderson, who lives in Evanston, Ill. She has a goddaughter Barbara Redditt, who lives in Atlanta, Ga.

Carolyn said her mother is still a mom to her children and to other kids in the community.

"I have learned from my mother that prayer works," she said. "She prays at breakfast and kneels down to pray at night. We didn't have much but it seems like God worked our life situation. She always told me, `just pray about it. God will take care of it.' God will take care of it. God will work it out.' "

"I admire my mom. She's just a good example of a mother. She doesn't complain much. Her Grandfather Taylor from Louisiana was white and married my grandmother."

Ms. Clemmie claims no special distinction. But she said she was an obedient child ­ a working child.

A banker asked her how she lived this long and raised her children to grow up and live responsible lives.

"I kept a switch in the corner," she told the banker.

"I'm a cook. I made biscuits for my kids' breakfast."

Ms. Clemmie talked to her kids when they were growing up.

"I tell people God led me through it. I did not push my kids but I would sit and talk to them. I made a living for my kids.

"As long as I have a roof over my head and food on my table, that's enough," she said.

"I never had to go to the jail to see my kids. Parents are not seeing after their kids today. They are just having them and not seeing after them. I always had milk and tea cakes after school for my kids until supper. I'm a cook. Feed your kids. Why can't you see after your kids? The government gives you food so feed your kids."

Rose Stone is one who calls Ms. Clemmie mother.

"I met Ms. Clemmie in about 1970," Stone said. "I had just graduated from college and a girlfriend and I were renting a house next door to Ms. Clemmie. Ms. Clemmie took me under her wings. She would invite us to come on down here."

She always had some food to share and she was like a protector to Stone over the years. "She had to raise her chil-

dren by herself, plus everybody else she came in contact with," Stone said. "She still has people who graduated from M.I. College calling her and seeing how she's doing. They drop in to see her when they are in town.

"She doesn't realize how much good she has done. She is a mother to those away from home. She's still trying to take care of grandkids and greatgrandkids. It's time for them to take care of her.

"She's been blessed all these years."

Holly Springs South Reporter

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