The D.A.R.lings

My Mother and grandmother were proud members of the Daughters of the American Revolution.  My grandmother (we called her “Nonna”) was “regent” (president) of the Fort Worth Chapter of the D.A.R. 

My grandmother assembled the genealogy which, as a descendent of a man who fought for our independence in the American Revolution, enabled her to become a member of the D.A.R.  I wondered how much was accurate and how much was manufactured by some “expert” who collected a fee for providing the “proof” Nonna needed. 

To me these were merely lines on a piece of paper.  I knew nothing about these people.

After Nonna died, Mother became regent of the D.A.R.’s Fort Worth Chapter and expanded her role in the organization by becoming an officer in state D.A.R. in Texas.  She enjoyed going to conventions, where to attend banquets she dressed up in long gowns like a girl in a beauty contest. She looked pretty in her fancy dress and with a youthful face beneath a halo of curls.  Her strawberry blond hair never turned gray, even in her 80's. 

There were two other D.A.R. chapters in Fort Worth.  The Mary Isham Keith Chapter was the largest and more fashionable.  Mother and Nonna did not have much to do with them.  They had friends in the Six Flags Chapter which, as the name indicates, had close affiliation with Texas history.  Mother and Nonna were also members of the D.R.T. (Daughters of the Republic of Texas), although not officers.  Nonna was especially proud to be a member of U.D.C.  (United Daughters of the Confederacy), since her father fought for the Glorious South in the Civil War.

After Wally was transferred to Dallas in 1966, I joined the Dallas chapter of the D.A.R. but dropped out after the ladies listened with rapt approval to a guest lecturer who spouted conspiracy theories of the Kennedy assassination.  She vilified Ruth Payne.  “She had a Russian typewriter.” the woman said, as if that were a crime.  The D.A.R.lings applauded her talk enthusiastically, believing every word.  I left the D.A.R. that day and never returned.

The media described Ruth as “Marina Oswald’s landlady.”  I guess they did not know how to categorize her.  I knew Ruth as a Quaker who opposed all violence.  The last thing Ruth would have wanted was a rifle hidden in her garage.

Not much older than Marina, from the goodness of her heart Ruth had taken Marina in and provided a home for Marina and her babies.  Instead of taking money, as a “landlady” would have done, Ruth provided everything for Lee Oswald’s wife and children.  Ruth had compassion for this young woman who was stranded in a foreign country with an abusive husband.  

How did I know Ruth Payne?  We both lived in Irving, and we were both members of the League of Women Voters, an organization I preferred to the D.A.R.  I never joined the D.R.T. or the U.D.C. 

Mother also did not join the U.D.C.   She never forgave the Yankees who burned houses in their march across Geogia.  I guess that can be called “Gone With the Wind Syndrome.”  When Mother learned that her great-grandfather was one of those Damned Yankees, she conveniently forgot that ancestor.  Why didn’t she join the U.D.C.?   I will never know.  

My brother, George Preston Pattie, remained an unreconstructed Southerner like our grandmother.  He even said he wanted to be buried with a Confederate flag on his coffin.  This in spite of serving in the U.S. Air Force.  During his two tours in Vietnam he serviced planes returning from missions spraying poison on the forests.  He was exposed to agent orange, which probably caused leukemia.  He died at age 65 -- without the Confederate flag.