Sun Herald reporters take turns writing the "obit of the day." When our names come up in the rotation, we are tasked to find someone who recently died who may have a great story to tell.
What we've found is that everyone has a story if you know what questions to ask the people who knew them best.
I've written some doozies. From the one about a baby born with only half a heart who taught her daddy about faith and fight to the grandpa who ate hog jowls every morning until his death from a heart attack.
I'm always blessed to find someone whose life amazes me. And I always regret that I never met them before they died.
That was the case yesterday when I ran across the printed obituary for Pauline Anna Raynes Royal. The first line of her obit intrigued me: "The world has lost the most amazing lady."
I set out to find her family.
After several calls to the funeral home, I got a number for her daughter. After listening to Paul Simon sing "me and Julio down by the school yard" on her voicemail, I left a message then started searching online for phone numbers of others in her family.
I called Mrs. Royal's church and was given the same number I'd just called. "I just talked to Ellen not five minutes ago," Father Paddy told me. I tried again, and when Paul finished singing I left another message.
I tracked down a son in Gautier whose home phone has been disconnected and a daughter in Maryland, who, understandably, was not home. It was worth a shot though.
Then I tried the grandchildren. Fortunately, I chose well when I plugged one of the granddaughters into Facebook and found a page for her. We even shared two mutual friends, though one of those was an Ocean Springs restaurant and the other was someone I don't remember ever meeting or speaking to but ended up on my friend list because we must have had friends in common.
I left her a message and within a few minutes she called me back. Through her I was finally able to talk to her mother, the woman who wrote the original obituary printed in my newspaper.
Ellen told me some of the stories she remembered about her mother, a woman who "enjoyed dancing through life, and life enjoyed her."
Pauline Royal loved to dance. When Ellen's father was still alive, the Royals went dancing almost every weekend. That's amazing when you consider that Miss Pauline suffered from polio during one of her pregnancies. But her husband stretched out her leg muscles and exercised her legs daily until she was able to walk, and then dance, again. "With loving help from her husband, Pauline conquered polio," her daughter wrote in the obituary.
Pauline lost her husband to cancer, but then she almost lost him again. She kept his ashes in an urn at the home he built for her on the water in Gautier. In 30 years, the house had never flooded so when Katrina was coming, Pauline was going. But she left her husband's urn there.
Of course, Katrina was a storm like none other and the home was gone and so were Mr. Royal's remains.
Fortunately, they found him safe and dry in the debris in the front yard.
Now the Royals will be together again, their ashes mingled in the same urn. It's what the couple who were married for 53 years would have wanted.
They'd learned the secret to loving each other, even when it seemed impossible to do so. "They respected each other," Ellen said. "They supported each other in everything."
Miss Pauline taught me much after she died. Be a better speller, love with all my heart and never stop dancing.
Everybody has a story to tell. We just need to hush up and listen to what they have to say.
Click here to read my story -
Sun Herald obit of the day: Life was a dance for Biloxi woman
Peace,
Donna
Here's a little lagniappe:
Hog jowls and catfish made Gulfport man happy
by DONNA HARRIS
Sun Herald
Breakfast may have been King Darden's favorite meal.
He fixed it for himself every morning and it was always the same menu.
The retired janitor loved pig from its ears to its feet, but it was the jowls, sliced up like bacon and fried, that he picked to go with his sausage, eggs, grits and biscuits.
Darden died March 8, a week after he made 86 years.
Services are at 1 p.m. today at the Morning Star Baptist Church in Gulfport.
Darden celebrated his birthday at Catfish Charlie's in Gulfport surrounded by family.
"He tried to fill himself up," daughter Martha Brown said. "He ate as much catfish as he could hold. We'd tell him all the time about eating all this fried stuff, but he said he wasn't going to die hungry."
He didn't want others to go hungry either.
He volunteered for Meals on Wheels for several years after he retired, sharing hot food and a kind smile with those who couldn't get out as good as he could.
"He met a whole lot of people, and got really attached to a whole lot of them," Brown said. "It was more than just a job to him."
Darden never met strangers, and once they were friends, they never left his home empty handed.
"He wasn't going to let you leave his house without giving you something," daughter Sylvia Dorsey said.
