( 2 / 7 / 2020 )

This will be a story about my mother, Jean Riseley.  It really tells you everything about her in a really short amount of space.  In fact, I had thought about giving it the title “Everything You Need To Know About My Mom.”  Of course, in some of my other stories I’ll be telling you more about her, so for now, this story is probably best left as is.

One day in the summer of 1999, mom was standing in the middle of her yard (on 12th street in Woodward, OK) with her thumb in the end of a garden hose watering her grass.  I was standing there talking to her.  We saw a young girl who appeared to be about 18 to 20 years old walking down the street.  She was walking a toddler on a leash beside her — as they sometimes did in those days.

You could tell by looking at the girl that she had some problems.  (I don’t know exactly how to say that other than by just saying it, and if you had seen the girl and her toddler, you’d know it too.)

When they got fairly close to us, mom called out to her "Hey, you, come over here."  The girl seemed surprised and looked over at us with an uneasy look on her face, like maybe she thought about taking off.  Mom called out "Yeh, you.  I want to talk to you."  The girl was a little hesitant and afraid, but mom kept waving her closer until she finally got up onto our yard.

Mom asked her, “What’s your name?” The girl said, “Louanne.”  Mom asked “And Is this your little girl?”

The girl nodded.  "Then mom asked her,  "And where do you live?'"

Louanne pointed back down the street from where she had come and said, "Up there" meaning some apartments that are about a block south of mom’s house on 12th street.  These apartments are on the other side of 12th street and a little bit uphill from mom’s house.  Some, and maybe all of them, are known to be section 8 (government) apartments.

Mom asked her several more questions which the

girl answered nervously.

Then mom turned and pointed to the front door of her house, which was only about 20 feet from where we were standing, and said,  "Well, my name is Jean Riseley.  And I live right here."

"If you ever need anything, and I mean anything at all, you come right here — anytime of the day or night — it’s all right.  You just let me know."

"And I’m going to get a piece of paper from my car right there and write my name and telephone number on it so that you can put it in your purse.  You call me anytime you want, anytime you need to.  And if you lose the number, come back and knock on my door and I’ll give it to you again.  Okay?"

The girl nodded yes.  And mom asked, "Do you need a ride?"

"No, not right now," the girl said quietly "I’m just going down there," and pointed down the street.

Mom said, "Okay, Louanne.  It was nice meeting you.  And you come back.  Okay?"

Loueanne said, "Okay."

One time, a person who didn’t know mom very well, heard this story and then asked me “Did she mean it?”

The answer is, "Yes, and in spades."  If that girl had called mom at 3:00 am the next morning and told her that she and her family had, say, broken down in Moreland, mom would have gone to Henry and said "Henry, wake up.  That little girl, Louanne, has broken down in Moreland.  We’ve got to get over there and get’em.  Don’t worry — if you can’t get them started, you can either tow them back tonight, or else we’ll just bring them all back, and then you can go get their car tomorrow.  If we bring it back tonight, we’ll just put it in the alley behind your shop, and you can fix it tomorrow."

[And, of course, our stepdad, Henry Ford, who was every bit as great an individual as mom was, would do exactly that.]

That’s all you need to know about Jean Riseley and Henry Ford.