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Odd Fellows, fascinating tale

Orphans find their home in print

By LINDSAY BIANCHI
lbianchi@thecitizennews.com

The old photograph which graces the front of Fayette County resident Wilma McCann’s novel, “The Home” was taken on a sunny afternoon in the early 1920s. Little can be drawn from the squinting faces staring out at the reader unless you happen to know them by name: Jimmy, Frances, Ernest, Bob, and her mother Vergie. These were Wilma’s aunts and uncles, her mother’s siblings, whose story of life at the Odd Fellows Orphanage in Lexington, Ky., is told with loving recollection.

“I always wanted my mom’s story told because I felt that it was something that would be a beautiful story, a poignant story. And I wanted to bring out the grief, the sadness that they went through,” said McCann.

The five children were taken by their mother to the Odd Fellows Home in 1922 by Wilma’s grandmother, who is pictured with her children.

“The Odd Fellows Home came out of Great Britain and came to the United States in the 1800s. They established many orphanages throughout the United States, and they were first class, but that didn’t take away the hurt. They always felt that they were abandoned. They never got over it. My mom was 87 when she passed away, and two weeks before she died, she turned to my daughter and said, ‘She didn’t have to leave us,’” McCann said.

As fate would have it, the five children were never adopted and stayed together as a close knit group throughout their lives. Wilma’s grandmother left her children at the orphanage when her husband died of a ruptured appendix. She then married a man who already had five children. His wife had died and she raised his five children as well as having five more children of her own.

“She had a total of 15 children that called her mother, but she was never permitted to be around these children until they were much older because he would not allow it. “ McCann remarked.

The story is a heart breaking one, but it is not without hope.

“They would never talk about this to anybody outside this little group because it was an embarrassment to be raised in an orphanage. In the 20s they called them inmates. That’s what they had them listed as. But they were given the best of treatment. They got schooling. But they had to work at the orphanage. They all had duties.” Wilma remembers. “But they all did very well. They were such a wonderful family.”

The story centers around Jimmy, the oldest son who repeatedly runs away from the Odd Fellows Home. “I tried to remember everything that Mama and them told me and put that in the book, but at the same time I knew I had to do something else to make it more appealing. I took Jimmy and made him so that everything he did was fiction. I took the fact that he ran away from the orphanage all the time. And that’s where it all started.’

McCann elaborates, “Now like Jimmy, for instance, and I have this in the book because they all told me about it. One time when he ran away, the superintendent made he and and his friend mow the front lawn with girls dresses on. So that was their punishment. But it was a very good and very well run orphanage.”

Wilma began her literary sojourn while traveling. “I was on an airplane and I don’t remember the piece of paper but it was not a piece of legal paper or a pad. It was just in the corners and I was writing it and I just flew with it. And then when I got home I knew I had to go and finish it up.”

She knew she had a good start and just kept working on the story. “I carried a ringed notebook with me for a long time and when something would hit me and I would recall something that Mama had said or my Uncle Bob or any of them had said, I’d write it down and make sure I got it in there.”

So far, McCann’s book has kept her friends and neighbors reading into the wee hours. “One man told me, ‘I thought I was going to starve to death before my wife finished that book.”

Another neighbor read it and said “Wilma, I want to tell you that I’ve never read such a fascinating book in my life. I could not put it down. I read on it until 12:30.” In addition to a great story, the book is highlighted with illustrations by artist Lydia Ellis.

Wilma has finished two other books since “The Home” was picked up by Pleasant Word Publishing.

“One book is our real life story, mine and my husbands, with all the moves we made throughout the United States. And I’m giving credit to God. We really had a beautiful life. We moved so many times, you would not believe it. People don’t believe us, but we show them the names of the towns. We moved at least 100 times.” Her memoir is entitled “Pintos On The Station Wagon,” an odd title whose humorous origin is one of many anecdotes she recounts.

In addition, McCann has finished another novel entitled “Jewel,” a story born out of her own imagination. “It’s about a young girl in the early 30s who became pregnant and lived in the Tennessee mountains and what the community did to her. They made her stop coming to church. They made her stop coming to the hospital. I based it on things I have observed through the years, how women have been treated.”

Wilma hasn’t yet found a publisher for her two other projects. In the meantime, readers who love a good story based in fact can pick up “The Home” at Family Christian Book Store in Fayetteville. She will also be signing copies of her book at Barnes & Noble in Fayetteville at 1 p.m.