Thank God My Mother Isn’t Here to See This

The Muldrow Family Reunion, Prescott, Arkansas, 1937. My mother, the future Mamie Weems, aged six, is seated in the front row, the first girl from the right. Her father, Calvin Muldrow, is seated directly behind her.

My grandfather was Calvin Luther Muldrow. One of a dozen brothers and sisters, he fought in World War I. Although he died when I was young, I recall his stories about how he survived the Great War. I remember hearing how he spent weeks in a foxhole in the Alps, sick from the malaria that nearly killed him. He returned home bearing the helmet of a German soldier whom he’d dispatched in battle as evidence of his…