Lula Mae Bucker

Lula Mae loved to read, especially anything having to do with medicine and was often jokingly referred to by family and close friends as “Dr. Bucker”. She was extremely knowledgeable about medical facts and her family often consulted her before going to a physician. For one year, after graduating from high school, she worked saving her money which she then used to pay for a year of study as a student in Methodist Hospital’s Nurse Training Program. When she and Bob were married, her career plans were put on hold and took a back seat to the responsibilities of being a wife and the rearing of four children. She finally was able to fulfill her long time dream of becoming a medical professional in 1982 when she graduated with honors from Ivy Tech, having earned her degree. She worked for several years at Arvin Industries in Franklin as a nurse.

Lula Mae was a kind and caring person and throughout her life would give of herself to others. She would taxi people all over, taking them to doctor appointments, grocery shopping, or any other need.

She showed her love to her family by offering advice about life in general. No family member could go outside in the winter without her making sure that they had their coat buttoned, and hat and gloves on. She would remind her children to take their vitamin C, Omega -3 Fish Oil caplets, and other vitamins to keep blood flowing, heart pumping, and to keep flu and colds at bay.

Lula Mae loved her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren. Elias, Addie and Evie loved going to Grandma Great’s (or Grandma Grape, according to Evie) to eat popcorn and apples, which was always on hand for such times. On her passing Addie was worried about who would pop the corn now, because “no one could do it as well as Grandma Great.”

Oh, her love of pets, especially her grand-doggies. Bill’s dog, Bucket, often ran out of the gate and chased her down the street just to be with her because she would bring her chicken scraps. Ed’s dog, Joey, would wiggle and spin around in circles every time someone would say, “Want to go to Grandma’s?” She loved to feed and watch the birds. But she did not like the squirrels that were always eating the bird seed, and always tried to think of ways to prevent that.

Bob remembers though, she was not too fond of a certain goat that was tethered to a concrete block so that he could go around eating grass on the farm. The goat butted Lula Mae and tore her hose, so Lula Mae grabbed the goat by the horn and let him know who was boss.

Through the years some of her hobbies included gardening, especially flowers, traveling, cooking, quilting, reading, and the gun club which was a catalyst for forming many of their long time friendships. She also loved eating out at various restaurants, her favorite being Lotus Gardens, and of course her favorite waitress was Mae.

Lula Mae was a wonderful cook. Our family enjoyed the fruits of her labor; some of our favorites were her persimmon pudding, fried chicken with milk gravy, and coleslaw. She would often say “you can’t keep house without a pressure cooker”, and her’s was in use quite often, turning out meals of chili, vegetable soup, beef and potatoes, chicken and noodles, and chicken with yellow rice. However, our family enjoyed her apple pies, made from the transparent apples picked from the trees that grew on Grandma Dake’s lane the most.

Apples, apples, apples, Mother loved apples and shared her love of them with everyone. Each year from the time of first harvest to the end of the season often meant trips to Gregory’s Orchard to purchase bags and bags of apples and cider. Which she would share or cook in every way known to man. We had apple sauce, fried apples, stewed apples, and best of all her apple pies, which most recently were sugar free. During apple season, every visit ended with, “here’s a bag of apples for you to take home”, or a phone call “I just made an apple pie, why don’t you come over and get it”.

The grandchildren would always be fascinated with her antique apple peeler, watching the apples spin around and the peelings come off in one long slinky like string. But she much preferred peeling with a vegetable peeler. She would look up with a smile, because almost every time the peal of the apple would also come out with one long slinky like string.

She even shared her baking skills with her church. For several years, with the women of the church, Lula Mae, along with her mother and daughter would bake apple pies all day, from 6:00a.m. to 6:00p.m., for their church bazaar.

Lula Mae was a passionate writer and often sent letters and notes to others. Her cards were an expression of her heart and often left you with a warm feeling.

Traveling was one thing she missed as she got older, until the last few years she would spend her winters in Florida; she traveled to Canada, and made two trips to Hawaii.

One time she went on vacation with Bill’s family to Canada. The hotels were filled up in the area so they stopped at a campground with electricity to sleep. Lula Mae cleaned out the trunk and got in, while Bill’s family was in the car, she said it would be more comfortable. It started to rain and everyone started to laugh because they saw the trunk lid slowly come down, because Lula Mae did not want to get wet. It was quite comical, and yes she slept there all night happily.

She loved all flowers, especially pussy willows, tulips, daffodils, peonies and lilacs. She would make beautiful floral centerpieces for birthday celebrations, church functions, funerals, and for the Mooresville High School Alumni Banquet. She and other members arranged live flowers picked from their yards and daffodils from Link Observatory estate to make the banquet special and beautiful. She would wait nervously hoping lilacs would be in bloom to add an additional special touch. Some years it was too early, or frost bite would ruin the blooms.

Lula Mae also helped quilt a quilt to be given as a door prize to someone that paid their alumni dues. She made a poster board that sat on an easel along with the quilt, displayed in a store front window in uptown Mooresville. The quilt was given as an incentive to increase the alumni membership. With little money in the early days of the association, the members had to be creative, making the decoration from Links daffodils along with whatever could be found in the yard definitely created beauty. She loved flowers and using what the good Lord provided.

Lula Mae enjoyed genealogy and was a store house of our family’s history. Her knowledge of family and the past were part of her personality. She would note and commit to memory stories told by our ancestors, while we often let them go in one ear and out the other. She was not only a store house of family history, but also, the town she lived in. Her memories and the information she had gathered over the years of Mooresville’s history made her a double store house of information.

Family and friends were important to Mother; she treasured the time spent with them, especially the grandchildren. However, in 1971 a void was created in her life that would never be filled when Dad passed away, making her a widow at the young age of 42.

A few years back Ed replaced the threshold at the front door of the long time (since 1880) Family home on Harrison Street with a new one. Mother insisted that the old one not be thrown away and had Ed put it in the storage shed beside her home on South Street. Ed just couldn’t understand why she would want to keep the old thing and she didn’t offer an explanation.

Not long before she passed away Mother told Lynn the story of how Grandpa and Grandma Bucker had gone to Florida to visit Aunt Beth and celebrate Sandy’s ninth birthday so she and Dad stayed at the Harrison Street house for a short time when they were first married. She said that Dad had carried her across the old threshold stored in her shed the day they were married and that she wanted it to be buried with her when she died. We are sure Mother was thinking that Dad would be waiting to greet her and once more carry her across it, only this time to heaven.