Willa Mae Large

Buried at National Memorial Park Cemetery in Annandale, Virginia. Cemetery is located right on Rt. 29. Take 66 W to Rt. 29.

Willa Mae was born in Torrington, Wyoming. She was the seventh of ten children. When she was very young her family moved to a farm in Illinois where she grew up. She had told me (her daughter) stories of how mean her father (Jonah Baxter Large) was. He had a hot temper. She said that when she was little her father would get mad and go into the corral and corner one of the horses and beat it with a whip. She said she would go down into the cellar to hide because she couldn't stand the sound of it. She said she was very skinny as a child and her mother would sit her at the kitchen table and make her eat until she would vomit.

When she graduated from high school she was sent to Virginia to care for the children of her oldest sister, Myrtle. While there she met my father, John Thomas Smith. They met at a school play. In his part he was dressed like a girl. He asked her to go to the dance after the play and she accepted. They courted.

After a while she returned to Illinois to continue her education in business school. While she was there my father sent her an engagement ring and asked her to marry him. She returned to Virginia to marry him. Her soon-to-be mother-in-law, Maggie Smith, had a tea for her so she could meet all the ladies in the community.

Willa Mae's family was vehemently against her marrying my father. For one, he was a Southerner; and two, they didn't want her to marry - they wanted her to care for her sister's children.

She defied them and married him anyway. As she had children she swore that the abuse she suffered at the hands of her parents would end with her. I am so grateful to her that she had the strength to raise her children without abuse. The abuse did end with her. Her children all had children who had children and not one has been abused.

After the 11th year of her marriage to my father, he died of a heart attack at the age of 44. She was left with three children aged 10, 5 and 1. She raised her children by collecting Social Security Death Benefits and working menial jobs. She had a very difficult life. Her mother wrote her a letter after my father had died and told her "she made her bed, now sleep in it. Don't come begging to her for money."

My mother never went to her family for help. She was blessed because she lived by my father's family and they became her family and our family. They lived nearby and were always there to help her in times of need. What a source of strength and love they were to her.

Willa Mae sold the property that she and John had purchased 30 some years previous and was able to buy a nice townhouse and retire. Life was finally a little easier for her. But five years later she came down with a form of cancer called Multiple Myeloma. She battled this cancer for five years. She always had a positive spirit and was loving and funny all the way to the end. I never once saw my mother feeling sorry for herself or the situation she was enduring. She continued to make friends and be a positive role model for everyone she encountered. What a tower of strength she was.

On Nov. 28, 1985 she finally succumbed to the cancer and was finally able to be with my father again. All her life she had said she never wanted to go out with anyone; she was waiting to be with my father again. How pleased I am that they can be together for eternity.