Courtesy Stancil Reunion Archive

Donna Moore Padgett

While people typically have a favorite color, Mother had an obsession with blue, especially Wedgewood blue. In my early childhood years, Janet, Daddy, and I were depressed by the dingy-appearing blue paint in our living and dining rooms on Old Wilson Road. The first dining room table and chairs I remember were painted a lighter shade. (These were removed to my consternation when I was nearing kindergarten-age. Where were we going to eat? Mahogany-stained dining room furniture replaced them, alleviating the blue in the house.) Yet, when we sat down, we ate off Wedgewood-style dishes. When Mother had shattered enough of these, hand-washing dishes or handling them, Mother bought a new and slightly different Wedgewood-style set after I had left home, but, of course, Mother served meals on these dishes when family visited.

Mother didn't just think blue should be on furniture, walls, dishes, and replacement carpet, once Mother and Daddy moved to Northgreen. As is true of Daddy's branch of the Moores, I had blue eyes, though they're really blue-green, probably because Mother's eyes were, surprise, green—bright and terrifyingly green when she was angry—and my eyes will look whichever of these colors that I wear. I appreciated having eyes that ranged in color from blue through blue-green to green by my late teenage years and was as likely to wear the other shades as blue.

But don't think Mother dressed me in green. While I remember a cute but scratchy white organdy Christmas dress with candy-cane red stripes, a beautiful Peaches ‘n Cream peach flower-patterned organdy-over-taffeta Easter and first-grade graduation dress, and a comfy pink cotton Easter dress with a smocked pastel-flower embroidered bodice, the majority of my childhood clothes were blue. There was a scratchy, curly teal wool coat with leggings that actually matched my eyes, but I was too short then to know or care. I disliked the unusual color. Another comfy blue cotton dress I enjoyed wearing—in fact, Mother dressed me in it often—but the shade was dull. One Easter I wore a dress with a white bodice and a navy checked skirt and matching navy checked jacket. With it all on, it appeared that I was wearing a navy-checked suit. The Easter bunny had left me a corsage with a pink carnation and pipe cleaners bent into bunny ears, blue tipped pins for eyes, pink netting in the background, and a blue bow. Only this corsage brightened the darkness of my outfit, accessorized with shoes and a purse in black patent leather. My cousin, nine months younger, arrived at Grandmother's in a pink suit, a warm contrast with her brown hair and eyes. I was envious. I was a girl. Everybody knows girls wear pink—except Mother. She said blue brought out the blue in my eyes. I guess a viewer could appreciate that, but the wearer didn't.

Don't think that Mother's obsession with blue clothing ended when I outgrew childhood. If I didn't advise her differently, chances are, any clothing she bought for me later would be blue. Some of it was pretty, like a light blue nylon gown and robe in my teens and a navy nylon gown and fleece robe in my thirties. A light aqua outfit was too pale with my fair skin and dark hair in my early forties, though. From my earliest childhood blue as Mother's color choice was predictable.

Mother and Daddy had various cars over the years. Their first was a '49 Chevy, dark blue. Mother's favorite was a 1990's Buick Century—a metallic medium blue. When they shopped for a new car, Mother dismissed a dealer's stock because of a lack of chrome. The dealer got in a model decked out in chrome—and blue. Mother and Daddy had decided not to buy at the time, though, so a car ordered to match her preferences never came into her possession.

She picked out a coffin in light metallic blue with a lot of chrome, though. Janet and Daddy thought we should get a cheaper model. We were using her money, and she had picked out the coffin, which would complement the lace blue clothes she also had picked out to be buried in. I said, “Let her have what she wanted.” I thought her spirit would rest easier in the afterlife (and I wanted her to rest easily) if she went out in chrome and blue. Mother couldn't get enough blue.