By Clif Knight  

I remember my mother as an extremely hard-working woman who rose above meager circumstances to become a patient and understanding mother who raised seven children and lived a Christian life to age 95. 

My memories of her surfaced on Mother’s Day when First Baptist pastor Dr. Clayton Speed devoted his sermon to the subject of mothers and the impact they make in the lives of their children. 

My mother started going to school when she was seven years old. Children didn’t start at five or six years of age then. I suppose the reason was that we had to walk about two miles. My first school was in a church. Every community usually had a schoolhouse, but this one didn’t. They used the Baptist church where we had to sit on old homemade benches. There was an old wood-burning heater in the middle of the building that kept us from freezing. One teacher taught the first through eighth grades. Some of the pupils must have been 20 years old by the time they completed the eighth grade. 

Ruby Perry Knight was born on August 6, 1911, as the eighth of 15 children born to Daniel Bascum Perry and Susan Francis Brown. Her ancestors immigrated from Ireland in the late 1700s or early 1800s. 

Some of the attributes that described my late mother were: She exemplified hard work and taught its value to all of her children, she was a gifted craftsman who excelled in styling and making clothes for family members, she was a talented cook who was well known for her ability to fry chicken and bake fried fruit pies, she was slow to anger but capable of disciplining five boys when they misbehaved, she was a devoted Christian who took her family to church anytime the doors were open.