We lost the head of our family December 5, 2020. We were so fortunate to have Minnie Risner in our family for a 100 years. I realized a few years ago she had many stories to tell so I wrote a book about her life. Some families will think about parts of a loved one's life after they died and have questions, but it's too late. Hopefully, Minnie's family will never have to wonder about anything that happened to Minnie, because their questions were answered. Minnie was an amazing Christian, wife, mother, and friend who excelled at anything she did. She led by example for her family and anyone else who knew her, and she was loved by everyone.
At age 9, she was in the timber picking greens for her mother to cook and found a pretty wildflower she just had to have. She dug it up and transplanted it in a tin can. An aunt saw how much Minnie prized that flower and asked if she could buy it. Minnie refused to sell. That was the beginning of her love for plants. She was taught by her mother about gardening and her Grandmother Jewell about flowers. She picked up knowledge along the way by reading to share with others. She was our Master Gardener. During warm weather, her company received a tour of her bountiful garden and beautiful flowers that she was so proud of. The next thing to do was sit on the front porch in the shade and drink ice tea while they visited.
Turning fourteen was the beginning of Minnie's growing up. School ended at eighth grade in Risner Big Rock one-room schoolhouse. The school sat next to Risner Big Rock House, the home of her future husband, Henry. Minnie became good friends with the young school teacher who lived with the Risners. In the spring and fall, the school was let out for six weeks so the children could help in the fields.
The spring of her fourteen year, Minnie planted corn for her Grandpa Harvey Phillips and her Uncle Jim while they prepared the soil and laid out the rows. Minnie was so quick at planting she had time to fish in the Myatt River while she waited on the next row to be laid off. One time she caught a very large fish and was very excited when she pulled it out of the water. She ran back to her grandpa to get help to carry the fish. In Arkansas's summer heat, Minnie hoed her father's cotton field. She helped her father with the milking, and her mother prepared her to be the immaculate housewife she became by teaching her cooking, canning, housework, and sewing.
Life for children was harder a 100 years ago and death was an accepted part of their life at an early age. At ten, Minnie went with her mother to her Aunt Emma's house to help sew clothes for stillborn twins. As soon as the twins were dressed, Minnie was allowed to see how well the garment she sewed looked on one of the babies. In her teen years, she sat at the bedside of a very sick friend with other teens until the boy died. All preparation for doing the same through her adult years.
Children didn't get allowance so during the winter Minnie set box traps and caught rabbits. She could kill the rabbits herself, skin, gut them and hang the hides and carcases on the clotheslines to freeze. She had customers in town who bought the meat, and someone bought the furs. She went on to become a good shot with a 22 rifle, because they lived in an area where poisonous snakes crawled in the yard, and blacksnakes were after her chickens and eggs. When company came for a meal, Minnie usually fixed fresh fried chicken. There weren't any freezers or refrigerators because they didn't have electricity, and they were lucky if they had an icebox. Minnie had a flock of chickens. The hens laid out, hatched chicks that became her chicken dinners. The lot the chickens were in grew grass as tall as the chickens. Just their heads showed when they stood up. Minnie got as close as she dared, sighted a rooster, and shot. He went down. She hurried to the spot, knowing she had work ahead of her before the company came. She had to scald and pick off the feathers, cut the rooster up and get him in the skillet. She was so glad she hit the rooster on the first shot, but when she picked him up she realized he was her flock rooster which wasn't good. She wouldn't have more chicks hatch that summer, and the tough rooster wouldn't fry well. She'd have to stew him or fix chicken and noodles.
Minnie was a great cook, but there was one time when she had made a cake that failed. In her day, there weren't cake mixes so she mixed a cake up from scratch, expecting her sister Ethel and Ethel's husband, Frandell Risner, who was Henry's brother. Minnie was hurrying and forgot the baking powder in the cake. The cake was flat when it baked. Minnie didn't want her company to see that horrible cake. Frandell would have teased her. So she threw the cake back under the front porch and made another cake. Her company came and she went outside to greet them. The family dog came out from under the porch dragging her cake like it was a delicious bone. Minnie had to confess what happened.
In Minnie's teenage years, she did have some fun times, and she was competitive. She'd find out when the neighborhood boys were going to have a horse race. She was so petite she had to climb on a tree stump to slide on her dad's plow horse. Minnie would take off to the country road to enter the race. More times than not she won the races. I teased her it was a wonder she found a husband. She was always better than the boys at what they did.
At fourteen, Minnie was playing hide and seek. She hid in her father's barn loft where she could see the tree that was base out through a loft window. When the coast was clear, she decided the quickest, least-watched way to get to base was to jump from the loft into the horse manager of hay and climb out the barn window. She didn't have the plan well thought out. The distance down from the loft was more than she thought, the hay manager wasn't as full of soft hay as she thought, and she broke her right leg. They didn't have a car so her father Fred went to the neighbor and asked him to drive them to the doctor. So for months, Minnie wore a cast which slowed her down. Trips to the doctor and shopping were made in the farm wagon in those days.
Minnie had something in common with George Washington. She couldn't tell a lie. When it came to questioning her about her health, she wasn't a complainer, and she didn't want to confide in anyone if she was ailing. She didn't like going to doctors or taking medicine. She wasn't raised that way a hundred years ago in the heal yourself days with herbs from the timber. So I'd asked if she was feeling okay. Minnie would give me a thin lipped smile and a slight nod yes. I soon figured out, she didn't consider that a lie when she didn't speak. Knowing that I confided in the last doctor she had so the doctor knew to watch the answer she got from Minnie.
Minnie had lived long enough to give sage advice when asked. I bent her ear more than once, and wish I had written down what she told me. The only advice I remember is when I told Minnie someone had given me something I didn't really want, but I took it because I didn't want to hurt the person's feeling. Minnie said, "That was good you did that, because that person may give you something next time that you really like."
At fourteen, Minnie was baptised in the Myatt River next to her future husband's childhood home and the school they both attended. Minnie always liked to read. Her favorite book up to then was Uncle Tom's Cabin until she was given her first Bible. She had read her Bible through many times. When we cleaned her house out, we found Minnie never had a Bible she didn't like. We knew that from her collections of them scattered around the house. She taught Sunday School and in the late 1980s when Henry and Minnie moved back south for four years, Minnie opened up the country church at Pleasant Valley they used to attend and became the lay preacher there. Her mother was the song leader. I'd always found Minnie meek and soft-spoken. I was surprised to see her stand in front of a congregation and preach. Her knowledge of the Bible gave her the confidence to deliver the message.
Minnie believed in the power of prayer. She kept an updated prayer list and before she went to bed, she prayed for each person on the list. What was amazing to me was when she added President Ronald Reagan to her prayer list after he was shot in the 1980's assassination attempt. That wasn't all, she sent him a letter telling him she was praying for him and a get well card. That got her a card back from the White House from Ronald and Nancy. I didn't know that until I was working on her book. I kept saying who does that? What an amazing thing for her to do. By the way, she still had connections to the White House when she turned 100, because she got a birthday card from President Trump and his wife in September.
Minnie looked forward to her family gathering in her large basement family room on every holiday and her birthday. She loved having everyone with her when they all had such busy lives the rest of the time. She'd never learned to drive so she loved outings to our place where we gave her tours of our garden and animals. As soon as we'd eaten, she'd be saying, “You can take me home now when you have time.” She didn't want to stay gone too long just encase she had company.
When I wrote Minnie's story I interview relatives and friends. In later years, Minnie attended the Christan Fellowship Church that used to be in Belle Plaine. Her Pastor Jack Andrews told me it never failed when he saw Minnie, he'd say, “How are you today?” She replied, “Aw, like common.”
I looked through some of Minnie's Bibles and found this handwritten passage in the back of a scuffed Bible she used so much. I believe she looked to that passage for comfort when her father died. He was not a well man and was severely burned by a grass fire he started. He'd have been in a lot of pain. Today, I think Minnie would again turn to that verse for comfort for herself, and I believe it applies to her. She was in pain from her broken wrist, and weary because at the end of her life she needed so much help at the nursing home.
Revelation 21:3-4
"And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, 'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
One thing I am sure of when Minnie stands before God, if he asks how she is, her reply will be, “Aw, just like common.”
