Written by Al (Buddy) Meadors as it appeared in the Arvin Tiller/Lamont Report Supplement Oct. 14, 1998:
 

   Alpha means first; beginning.  In astronomy, it means principal or brightest star in a constellation.  She was the sixth child, first girl, of Shuler and Melda Meadors, and if her middle name, Omega, had expressed the exact meaning of its definition, I, Pierce, Shuler "Boots", Sue or Thelma wouldn't have been born.

   Omega in the Greek means the end, but Dad and Mom didn't know Greek; Alpha was one of eleven children.  Perhaps our mother was trying to say to Dad - Now that we have our first girl, Alpha, let it be our "Omega" - last child; but love and nature are all Greek to some.

   Alpha has always been religious, spiritual, a Christian.  She and Ester Rucks were baptized in the Little Mulberry Creek, a few hundred years old at the time of her baptism.  Neither the cold, chilling nights of winter, the hot humid days of summer, not the stingy red rocky clay hills of the Southern Ozark Mountains could steal her innocence, youth, or strength.

   On July 29, 1936, in the middle of the Great Depression of the thirties, our family (except three brothers, Catha, Oral and Paul, who were in California) left Arkansas for Weedpatch, California.

   We drove a new 1936 dodge pickup truck and pulled a trailer, loaded to the brim with bedding, cooking utensils and personal clothing.  The Grapes of Wrath was written about the wrong family!

   Dad, Mom, seven children, a cousin, and two hitchhikers from Amarillo, Texas spent four hot, noisy, dusty, exhausting days on Route 66 famous - not the song of the Sixties, "route 66."  On the fourth day of our trip, thirteen miles west of a garage/service station and grocery store, and three miles before the little desert town of Amboy, California, Alpha's carefree world suddenly and violently turned upside-down.

   For months tearful, lonely, sad, hard days and night haunted her.  The right rear tire on the overloaded pickup blew out, killing Mother, our baby sister, Thelma and injuring others.

   hospital in San Bernardino, where Mother and daughter died within a few hours.

   The two hitchhikers, who were not seriously hurt, went on hitchhiking.  A scoundrel of the worst kind stole our trailer and all of its contents one hour after the accident.

   Ray, an older brother and the Sheriff looked for the trailer for two hours without a clue.  Alpha is almost sixteen and now has the responsibilities of a forty-year-old mother.

   She cooks, washes and irons for the sad, lonely, motherless, crying brothers and sister.  Once I saw her comforting Sue, and as the tears were wiped from the motherless girl, they would reappear immediately.

   A closer look and I saw that the tears were from Alpha's eyes.  Dad's memories of happier days and other seasons kept haunting him to go back home.

   We did in the fall of 1937, just in time to pick cotton in Safford, Arizona on our way to Mulberry.  After a week or two in the cotton fields I became ill.

   Because of my cold, Alpha suggested to Dad that we go home before my illness worsened.  We left the next day.  Her care and concern at sixteen years old was apparent.

   The days, weeks, months and seasons passed slowly.  Cotton fields in the fall in Arizona, Spinach patches late in winter in the bottoms near the Arkansas River, Strawberries in May in the Ozarks, and back to Weedpatch in June was building a stubborn resistance in Alpha and I.

   Our traveling days to Arkansas have ended for a while.  I went to live with the Parish family in Weedpatch, and Alpha starts working for Eve Stockton near DiGiorgio.

   Chuck Franklin, a young, strong, handsome boy from Oklahoma via New Mexico, had met Alpha a year earlier, in 1937, but because of their Nomadic lifestyles they hadn't the opportunity to know each other as love expects and demands of those who will be married April 16, 1939.

   Oral, the second oldest brother, will give her away.  Alpha worked for the DiGiorgio Fruit Corporation as a grape and fruit inspector, for Eve Stockton of the Derby Farms and Bakersfield City Schools in the Cafeteria.

   Chuck and Alpha are living one mile east of Arvin on Highway 223.  This hot August day in 1939 wouldn't bring any surprises but it would tax the two-bedroom honeymoon cottage to its living capacity before the day ends.

   The red, rusting, beat-up Dodge pickup truck rattling speedily down White Wolf grade passed the farm house where Chuck and Alpha are living.

   Dad was invited to the April wedding, which was five months ago, but just perhaps he thinks the ceremony is this evening and with a little luck and the speed he's traveling, he'll make it on time.

   Alpha opens the front door to tell Chuck it's about time for his afternoon bath in the irrigation standpipe that carried water to the thirsty crops around Arvin.

   She open her mouth and yelled, "Ch-Ch-Ch-Chuck, there goes Dad and the kids! Go get them."  He jumped in the Chevy, slamming the door shut as he starts the engine and roars toward Arvin.

   As luck would have it (we used to say), signals hadn't been installed on the east end of Arvin at the rail road crossing.  Chuck makes a feeble California rolling stop at the sign and pulls in front of Dad, signaling for him to follow the Chevy.

   By the time the "King of the Road" Shuler (you all thought it was Roger Miller from Erick, Oklahoma) had pulled in front of chuck's "Standpipe Sauna", Alpha has set five more plates on the table.

   Her supper guests have arrived early.  All of Alpha's younger brothers and sister, and sometimes an older brother, for the next four years would on many occasions, live with her and Chuck.

   It was said by some concerned people that Alpha shouldn't be burdened with extra responsibilities since she has only been married a year.  She answered burdens are not heavy if they are loved ones.

   Karrol was born in 1940.  Her babysitters are uncles and an aunt, off and on, until November of 1941.  That's the year Dad married Bertha Peters.

   December 7, 1941 gives Alpha new worries, fears and concerns.  She has four brothers and a husband that will have served their country some time for the next four years.

   By the grace of God, prayers, and good luck, they all come home safely.  Tommy was born in 1942, Anita in 1945, and Lonnie in 1949.

   Birthdays are celebrated, school events are attended.  Tom and Lon attend college, receive honorary degrees, and are employed according to their vocations.

   Karrol and Anita follow their professions as life goes on.  Holidays are special times to the Franklins.  Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, birthdays and long weekends find Alpha's old-fashioned cooking the center of attention:  turkey, dressing, gravy, green salads, pies, cakes, sons-in-law, daughter in law, grandchildren.

   And we thought family get togethers were a thing of the past - you should have attended their 50th wedding anniversary.  Tommy, their oldest son, has cancer.

   All of the family's love, care, finance, prayers and medical skill are pledged to his support.  He dies at Scripps Institute in La Jolla, California.

   Alpha made sure that Tommy wouldn't be forgotten.  She and Chuck moved into Tom's house to be close to the other children and Tom's surroundings.

   Revival Tabernacle in Lamont was, for many years, the home church of the Franklins.  Since moving to Bakersfield, they and other family members are ministered by Rev. Duane Meadors of the New Life in Christ Church.

   Their pastor is Alpha's cousin.  The Pentecostal Church at Weedpatch was her home church as a teen-ager.  she believed in supporting the church with her attendance, family and money.

   The little Mulberry baptismal ceremony, when she was nine years old, continued to bless her.  The long hot days of summer for seventy years have come and gone.

   The most productive season has just ended.  The berries are picked, the apples stored, the corn is in the crib, the melons, wild fruits and grapes are preserved.

   But there are other seasons.  Some say fall is the best time of the year.  The brilliant lustrous colors of the oak, maple, liquid amber, persimmon and the wild cherry leaves blind us with prejudice.

   Nature is beginning to hibernate, and if the cycles are interrupted, the colors of the rainbow will be void in nature.  Seventy years of brilliant falls have come and gone.
]
   Winter is not all bad.  Snowflakes, one by one, no two alike, all different, slowly, slowly, cover the scars of the plow, harrow, hoe, disk and scythe.

   Weeds, cane, corn and cotton stubble that cover the ground with their ugly, sharp points eventually become buried in a blanket  of indescribable shapes, contours and shadows.

   Some say the snow is cold, colorless and cruel, but have you ever caught just one big beautiful snowflake in you hand and felt pain?

   No!  You hold it gently, carefully, softly, turning your face to the side so your warm breath won't melt it before its time.  You hold your breath, hoping time will stand still;  that you might keep your prize a little longer.

   You blink your eyes to clear the moistness so you can get a sharper image, and in the twinkling of an eye it is gone.  Now you feel the sharp, cold sting of pain, the snowflake has changed its shape, not its existence.

   Your snowflake has taken on a new dimension.  We reach out to touch it, turn our head to breathe on it, blink our eyes to see it one more time.

   Breathe on it, but its in His hands.  The snowflake has changed its shape not its existence.  your prize has taken on a new dimension.

   We can't see the vapor.  Man's life appears for a little while, then it's done; buried below the canopy of the winter snow.  New life if travailing.

   The stubble, tares, weeds, leaves of fall and last season's harvest leavings are changing, softening, silently composting.  The snow has become an insulator from the harsh cold winds of life.

   Alpha's winters have passed.  She's covered with a blanket of insulating love, and the cold winters of sickness, the hot summers of lost loved ones, and the tears of fall in cotton fields can no longer moisten her eyes.

   She has passed into the eternal spring of her new life; not just seventy years of the four seasons.  Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the hear of a man, things which God hat prepared for them that love Him.  Amen.

This Eulogy was written in memory of Alpha Omega Meadors Franklin,
who passed away May 22, 1991 and was interred May 25, 1991.

Personal reminiscences
The Arvin Tiller/Lamont Reporter
9717 Main, P.O. Box 548, Lamont, CA 93241, (661) 845-3704