My mother always said "If you don't laugh, you'll cry. Laughing's better." She did a lot of laughing during her 86 years. Elva Hasty Thompson was born in Marietta, Georgia in 1933, and she left us today.
While it makes me very sad to lose her, because I will miss her terribly, I am also rejoicing.
Mom is in heaven, I am sure. The macular degeneration, arthritis, and hearing loss that plagued her in recent years are gone now. She is whole and perfect, and with the Lord. I know this like I know the sun will rise in the East tomorrow.
Mom was born at the height of the Depression and times were tough. My grandfather [Bob Hasty, who had played major league baseball for 5 seasons] had to stop playing minor league baseball and get a regular job. He went to work coaching the baseball teams for companies like Atlanta Gas Light and Foremost Dairy.
They moved a lot.
Mom was whip smart and always did well in school, despite all the moving around. My mom could read a book and listen to the teacher at the same time, and recall everything the teacher said. One teacher tested that, accusing Mom of reading during class, and Mom repeated her lecture word for word -- that was in high school. She kept reading in class but made top grades anyway.
After World War II the family came back to Atlanta. Mom was in 6th grade.They bought a beautiful old home on 9th Street and Mom rode her bicycle all over the area, and learned to swim at The Atlanta Women's Club.
Elva graduated from Grady High School in 1952. She went to the University of Georgia and got her BS in Education. She worked and got loans and completely paid her own way through college -- a really uphill battle but one that made her a strong person. She became a teacher. She made very little money but loved teaching and always told stories about those years and how much she loved her students.
In 1956 she met my dad, who was living and working in Atlanta, for one of his cousins. They married in February 1957, and moved to Augusta.
They lived in Augusta until 1970, and had two children, my older brother Bruce in 1959, and me in 1962.
Elva had a wonderful singing voice. She would sit at the piano and play and we would sing together from the time I was a baby. She played entirely by ear, and her arpeggios would have rivaled Liberace's. In her youth, she sang for weddings and special events around Atlanta, and did a USO tour and sang for the soldiers back from Korea. We rarely had a party when I was a kid that someone didn't say "Elva, sing for us."
"Smoke Gets in Your Eyes" was her signature song.
She was a soloist for the Men's Glee Club at the University of Georgia. She also soloed at First Baptist here in Atlanta, and sang at other local churches when they needed a soloist. Several times she sang in choruses for the Billy Graham crusades and she revered him.
When she married Dad and became a mom, she was all about being a mom. Even though it was a financial sacrifice, she stayed home with us so we would never come home to a cold empty house, as she had as a child. We came home to snacks and long chats with her.
Mom had a lot of hobbies. She knitted. She beaded sweaters. She did decoupage in the 70's. She loved to garden and grew amazing gardens. She loved to read and read voraciously, even after arthritis limited her to using a Kindle.
Mom was always an amazing storyteller. She had a fantastic sense of humor and could make just about anyone laugh. She had one date after Dad died, and the old man's tooth fell out during dinner -- a story she told with great amusement.
Mom became a widow in 1996 when my father passed away from cancer. She was only 61. She never wanted to marry anyone else, though. She laughed when Bruce and I suggested it. She stayed busy with her church and garden club, and took trips to the beach with friends.
When I adopted my daughter in 2004, Mom stepped in to be an amazing grandmother. She sold her house in Augusta and moved over here to help me, and what a blessing it was for all of us. When Michael came along a few years later she spent his first summer tutoring him and he thrived in school, skipping a grade after only one year. She always said it was her pleasure to tutor him because he was/is so smart. They had a special bond.
Mom was one of a kind. Smart, funny, always a fighter. She loved her friends and she had a lot of great ones. She loved her family and we all felt that love.
For the rest of my life I will hear her voice in my head. I will think of her when I smell a gardenia. I will remember all the great times we had together.
I will rejoice, because God gifted me with the best mama in the world.
There will never be another one like her. That's okay. She was my greatest source of love, my biggest champion, my best friend, and I am so grateful she was with me for so long.
I've posted some other photos below. Click on them to make them bigger.
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