On November 20, 2025, my mother, Lelia Hilda McGill, would have turned 112 years old. Though she has been gone for many years, her life, strength, and remarkable spirit continue to shape me every single day. This is my tribute to the woman who gave me life—and taught me how to live it.

A Childhood Marked by Hardship

Mama was born in Eucutta, Mississippi, one of seven children in a rural family that worked hard for everything they had. At just seven years old, her life was shaken by a tragedy that would have broken many people: her father was killed in a fight with his own brother over a cow. My great-uncle threw the hub of a wagon wheel that struck my grandfather, and sepsis took his life soon after.

With her mother overwhelmed and resources scarce, Mama was passed from relative to relative, never having a place to truly call home. Finally, at age thirteen, she was placed in a reformatory school. She stayed until the ninth grade, then left to work as a maid.

Life did not deal her an easy hand—but she kept showing up, kept working, and kept believing that something better was possible.

A Love Story Born in Unexpected Places

Mama met my father while working in the home where he was boarding. Daddy was forty—a widower whose wife had died from stomach cancer. Mama was nineteen. Their courtship lasted just three weeks. They married quickly, and their first home was a railroad car, because Daddy was an engineer on the Dummy Rail Line for the Wausau Lumber Company.

Daddy was also an alcoholic, but Mama was a woman of deep faith. Raised in the Eucutta Presbyterian Church, she was religious, steady, and firm in her convictions. She eventually put her foot down: if he wanted a family with her, the drinking had to end. And it did. Slowly, Daddy began attending church, and eventually he became a preacher.

Her faith didn’t just change her life—it changed his.

A Life of Work, Sacrifice, and Love

Mama and Daddy bought a farm and raised five children. I was the youngest of the bunch. Life on the farm was hard, and Daddy, for all the changes he made, could still be abusive—physically and mentally. Mama endured more than any woman should have to. But she endured it with strength, and she gave her five children steady love, safety, and encouragement.

She worked in the fields, kept the house spotless, cooked for the whole family, and somehow managed to keep joy alive in our home. To this day, I can almost smell her banana pudding, pineapple pudding, and fruit cobblers baking in the oven. Her biscuits were soft, warm, and unforgettable. She used to tell us, “We might be poor, but we can be clean,” and she lived that motto out every day.

Mama hummed and sang while she worked, her voice drifting through the house like a gentle balm. Her favorite hymns were What a Friend We Have in Jesus, In the Garden, and The Old Rugged Cross. Those songs became the soundtrack of my childhood—and the anchor of her soul.

For many years, she never drove. But when Daddy died—when I was fourteen—she got her driver’s license and went to work to support our family. She became a nurse’s aide at the charity hospital, and later a dorm mother at a school for the mentally handicapped. She poured herself into those children, teaching them how to take care of themselves. She won awards for her work, but the real reward was the dignity and compassion she gave her students.

A New Home and a New Season

In her seventies, Mama bought herself a three-bedroom brick house—a dream she had worked toward for decades. That house was her pride and joy. She kept the yard full of flowers, just as she kept her heart full of laughter and faith. She read her Scofield Bible faithfully and never missed church. No matter how hard her life had been, she always found something positive to say.

And her smile—her smile could light up a room.

The Final Years

In her mid-eighties, Mama suffered a fall that caused bleeding in her brain, which led to dementia. Even then, the tenderness she had lived her whole life with seemed to shine through the fog. She would look at me with that same gentle expression—the one that had carried me through childhood, adolescence, and adulthood.

Mama always allowed me to make my own decisions. And when a choice didn’t turn out well, she never said, “I told you so.” Instead, she’d simply say,

“Learn from it and grow.”

That was her way—grace always over judgment, patience always over anger, and love always over fear.

I Miss Her

As I look back on her life—her childhood pain, her resilience, her faith, her laughter, her songs, her sacrifices, her quiet wisdom—I realize how much of who I am came from who she was.

I miss her deeply. But I carry her with me: in the choices I make, in the love I give, and in the hope I hold onto when life gets hard.

Happy heavenly birthday, Mama.
Your legacy lives on—in me, in our family, and in all the people whose lives you touched.