
ABOUT
My Mother's Memoir
Most of this website will be my mother's written memoir, except for the inaugural post of her eulogy written my me, her eldest daughter, Martha Mason. Perhaps along the way, in time my mother's voice will turn into my own as I begin to write my own story but for now this is dedicated to perpetuating her story for posterity.
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Past is Prologue
The suicide of my Father’s first wife and the disgrace of my maternal grandfather were responsible for my parents meeting and marrying. Lucy Garth Bragg and Nathaniel Givens never knew each other, but their unfortunate life choices are the reason I exist.
Margaret Givens and Harry Bragg, my parents, were an unlikely couple. He was 33 years older than she was but they fell in love and hoped to fulfill each other. I was the child, though not the son, they wanted.
By the time I was 18 I had gone from only child, the last of the Braggs, to adult orphan. I had many advantages but I always felt the need of reviving a family, once numerous, but scant in my generation.
Only Me No More is a memoir that reveals family secrets, lauds family strengths and champions the miracle of the current generation’s achievements and promise.
Book One starts with the last letters my maternal grandmother wrote to my grandfather weeks before their marriage in January 1897. The couple’s youngest child, Margaret Kirk, was my mother. I am her namesake. This part is presented as fiction and incorporates Spencer, Hollingsworth and Givens and Bragg family stories. It ends with my birth. [November 6th, 1933]
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Book Two has four chronological sections
1933-1955
1955-1961
1961-1968
1968-1978
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