The Heritage of Trudy & Jessie
By Deer Roberts
Photos courtesy of the Davis Family
That her daughter would be the death of her was no idle observation. Unknown to Jessie Clawson Davis, her toddler had a near death experience during the throes of a high fever. Floating around the family home, experiencing the warmth and nurturing aspect of the next life, the baby had lost all fear while hoverin’ above the kitchen table watching her family eatin’ fried chicken. Now Trudy would try anything. The only match for her fearlessness was her precocious will. She was her own little lady.
On a horse with brother Bill.
One utter-madness story that is handed off within the Ramah, NM family stories is one when Trudy was just a little tyke. A little tin cup was left hanging in the barn. Every morning little Trudy would go to the family cow and help herself to a cup of milk for herself or her kitten. (Imagine a two-year-old takin’ on milkin’.) One afternoon, her older brother went over to the barn to milk. He came running up to the house in lather, yelling to his mother the cow was sick. Jessie said, “Well, what’s the matter with it?” “I don’t know! Her udder is bright red; maybe she’s got a bad infection.” Both ran down to see about it. Well now, if they didn’t find a box of Mercurochrome lying on its side. Jessie knew at once to start grillin’ you-know-who. “Trudy, were you down here this morning?” “Yep.” “Did you do somethin’ to the cow?” “Yep.” “Well, what’d you do?” “I painted her.” Well, why’d you paint her?” “I wanted to have pink milk.” . . .
At three, Trudy marched herself across the street and ordered up a haircut from the local saddlemaker, Kirk Clawson. (Guess that was the local barber in those back-country days.) Looking at her beautiful blond Shirley Temple curls, Kirk inquired as to how she wanted it cut. Up in back, long on the sides. Okay. While the haircut proceeded, the fellow asked Trudy if she’d like a little belt (No, not whiskey). Yep. With her name on it? Yep. With little red roses? Yep. Well, it will take about a week. Will have it ready for you then.
Little Hellion
When Jessie saw her daughter her heart wrenched. “What have you done?!” The answer rocketed Jessie over to Clawson to bawl him out and Trudy to the woodpile to hide. She was sure she was stunning in her new do, and she was, to say the least. But everyone was acting just stunned. So no one could find her. She didn’t crawl out ’til the end of the day. Jessie went from wretched to frantic. But it was nothin’ compared to the way she hit the roof when the belt and the bill came in the next week.
Then there was the time at around four years Trudy harnessed up the family horse, the bit across its forehead, hitched up to the fence and climbed on. She was heading across a field when her grandfather saw her and yelled. Looking back she didn’t see the clothesline. Got laundered and pulled off that horse from right under her chin, she did. Landed hard. Broke her arm.
Jessie, a lady to the core, scrubbed that plaster cast white weekly, applying white shoe polish to brighten it up, and stringing a beautifully printed scarf across it, replacing the less lovely sling. The fuss and love still registers.
Trudy’s older sister, Gloria had 16 years on her. One day a suitor came a-callin’ with a beautiful big heart-shaped box of chocolates. Secured on top, beneath the cellophane, was a lovely brush and comb set. Gloria thought it way too wonderful not to relish for a while. She set it on the hearth for all to admire. It stayed that way for several months before she was ready to chomp into that first chocolate. She opened the cover . . . to an empty box. A hole had been cut out of the back. Little Trudy had fished out every candy across the months without a single sign the box had ever been disturbed. Trudy still blushes, when that story is told, to her roots. “You shoulda shared,” she’ll still insist, defensively. She knows she’d done wrong. But Gloria still boasts her toddler cleverness, chocolates aside.
Trudy was six or seven when her little brother, Steve, got a new BB gun. She got to be a pretty good shot. Had Jessie known she gotten that way, in part, by having Steve put a stick or old cigarette in his mouth so she could shoot off the tip, Trudy would probably have been leathered to an inch of her life, though that wasn’t her parents’ way. Fortunately, Steve never had an eye put out and Jessie never found out.
Trudy and Steve
But there was the time Trudy outdid herself, even to herself. “Run across that field over there, Steven, and let’s see if I can shoot you.” Steven, totally besotted with his older sister, did whatever she told him. Off he went. She nailed him in the temple. Down he went in a heap. Thinking he was putting her on when he didn’t get up she ran up. “You okay? You okay?” But he was definitely out cold. When he came to, he yelled he was going to tell their ma. She thought, “Now wait a minute. We got to think about it before we do somethin’ bad.” Somehow she talked her little brother outa that one. But she had learned her lesson.
Not one for the indoors, Trudy ditched school her junior year over 80 days before Jessie found out. “As long as I’ve missed this much, I may as well just not go,” was Trudy’s solution. Jessie’s was, “Guess you’ll be in high school until you’re 35 before you get your diploma.” Jessie reigned. Trudy finished.
Always one for a challenge, Trudy couldn’t resist an unbroken horse during her senior year. Jessie was always telling her to be careful, hang back. Not Trudy. One day while she was climbing on her spur hit the side of the horse by accident. Lord! Did that horse buck! With every buck, Trudy’s unsecured footing sent her spurs back into the sides of that horse. She hung on. Eventually the horse quieted. “That was some ridin’,” Steven quipped. The next day, at the local rodeo he chided the cowboys yelling from the stands, “What’s wrong with you?! My sister can ride better than that! Can’t you stay on that horse? She can!!”
But that year, Trudy did slip from a horse, or rather the saddle she was on did. She landed hard, couldn’t move. Not for five minutes. Not for ten. Jessie sweated over her. Eventually they got the men to move her into the old car. The move cost Trudy. Then a bumpy ride on the dirt roads up to Gallup for medical help. Trudy wouldn’t cry, but damn it hurt. She’d broken her back. The doctors made the move to keep her hospitalized for a week. “I’m goin’ home,” stated Trudy. “They need to keep you,” pleaded Jessie. “You know I’m takin’ myself home,” insisted the patient. Jessie did know. It was no use arguing. Trudy took the bumpy ride back. Her parents tucked her in at home, having to adjust her head, her legs. Trudy couldn’t move a thing. After a week of this, she decided enough was enough. She needed the land. “Steve, go out to the barn and get the crutches.” Ever faithful, Steve got them. Miraculously, Trudy pulled herself out of bed, but didn’t get the four steps to the bedroom door before passing out. Jessie burned the crutches and threatened Steven within and inch of his life. Trudy stayed abed.
After graduation, Trudy worked a bit as a teaching assistant, but ultimately decided to do a stint with the Marines during the Vietnam War era. One fella she dated, Terry Savoth, 20, of Metuchen, New Jersey, was killed within weeks of gettin’ to Nam. His family insisted she accompany his body home. Tough for a nineteen-year-old. She still mists when recalling the experience. And his obit is still cherished in her personal scrapbooks. Trudy doesn’t forget.
When she got out of the armed services, Trudy worked for a while in a girls’ reformatory. There was one little hellion there, Barbara, who would greet her each day, ambushing her with a kick or a slug. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” Trudy remonstrated, but Barbara always would. At twelve, it would take three big men to try and contain Barbara, though she was a skinny little thing. At the same time she was kickin’ Trudy she was writing, “I love Trudy” on the walls. She did love Trudy and didn’t quite know what to make of it. One wonders whatever happened to that kid.
The kid that hated school ended up teaching. Trudy taught in Grants and Albuquerque, in the worst schools and neighborhoods. Spent a lifetime there, exercising the same patience and tough love her beloved Jessie had given to her.
Having kids didn’t totally evade Trudy. During the decade of her forties, she foster-parented some sixty kids. She never got to follow up on them though. System won’t allow for it. A lot of investment, with no knowledge of the results. Trudy can get teary-eyed when asked about it, but no regrets. She passed it on, Jessie’s love.
When I first met Trudy Davis Wilson, she was already retired, but still teaching special-ed kids down at the Navajo Reservation in Pinehill, NM. Like her mother before her, she is the best of New Mexico. Energetic, effervescent humor twinkles and earthy, good heart emanates from her. Children know BS when they see it, none better than the Navajo. And they will test and test the waters to make sure. I know. I substitute teach in that system. Your heart has to be good. Those children give her their best and thrive under her tutelage. While they know a candy bar or Popsicle may be earned for good performance, one can see they are crushed to disappoint her. Treats are no comparison to the warmth of her heart. In the wild world of the rez, this woman who was a wild hellion in youth is a safe harbor; a place of goodness for the children she meets.
More later…
