Mama would sing to us. Lots of different songs, but always at bedtime and during car trips. Sometimes she’d buy sheet music for the piano. And she’d play and sing.

I remember “Frankie and Johnny,” a song we loved, “The Abba Dabba Honeymoon” and “Carolina Moon.”

She also loved to listen to the radio, and sometimes in the kitchen after supper when we were washing the dishes, some tune with a good beat would come on and Mama would dance with a damp dishtowel in one hand.

She was a great dancer. She used to tell us about the dances she went to when she and Lilly were girls in Washington, N.C. This was during the big band era, and they would dance from the beginning of the evening until the end.

She’d talk about the evening dresses they’d wear and the boys they danced with.

She had an album of Duke Ellington and Louis

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