Juanita Hendrix

You Will Know Them By Their Fruits

When Ron told me at 3:30 am Wednesday, August 12, 2020 that his mom died, I commented – among other things – that I wish I had known her longer. I’ve only been a Hendrix for a year, but have been part of the family from the moment Ron and I met and started dating 4 years ago. Though I didn’t know her very long, it didn’t take long for me to see the type of woman she was. Jesus stated, “you will know them by their fruits .. .” (Mt 7:15) and that is certainly the case with Juanita Hendrix. 

Good Parenting

After about a year of dating Ron, I mailed her and Charlie (Ron’s dad) a card. The card thanked them for raising this man who was caring, thoughtful, selfless, hard-working, and completely dedicated to those he loves. Those attributes don’t come by accident. Those attributes are a tribute to parenting done right. He watched and learned. As he told me the other day, his mom ruled the roost. As he described how his parents loved one another in their actions, their dedication to each other, and his dad doting on his mom – I had no doubt where Ron learned his own way of loving me.  

As I watched this family that would unhesitatingly welcome me as their own, I saw more and more of the fruits of her as a mother. Every weekend the adult children gathered on Sunday to sit down with her and Charlie to eat. Each of the three boys and one girl helped around their house. Whether it was to do the grocery shopping, cut the grass, roll Juanita’s hair, clean the house, pay for people to sit with her, run over in the middle of the night to help with an emergency issue – every single child of theirs pitched in. Other than an occasional phone call asking for immediate help, they didn’t ask their kids to do anything – the kids just did it. Just as Charlie had modeled while they were growing up, they doted on their mother. 

Matriarch

Whether she was called Juanita, Ebbie, or Granny, this 90 lb petite woman was undoubtedly the matriarch of the Hendrix family and of north East Lake.  She didn’t rule with an iron fist, but a love for people of all races and socioeconomic class, and apparently some amazingly delicious fried chicken. The neighborhood children as well as the friends of her own children, often gathered around her kitchen table in the small house in north East Lake, every evening. They would continue to gather around her table well into adulthood, bringing their own children and grandchildren. 

Christmas 

Christmas 2016 was my first Hendrix Family Christmas. Ron warned me there would be a lot of people there. I was shocked at the number of people who came to spend Christmas with the Hendrix family. There were former neighbors – white and black – who came to visit Granny, to let their children know this spitfire of a little white woman who just loved. There were the little children who gathered around her kitchen table who were now adults, bringing their own children to enjoy the good food and generosity they once enjoyed. There was extended family who viewed Ebbie more as second mom than an aunt or cousin. They had always looked to her for guidance and love and had been welcomed into her heart as easily as if they were her own children.  

That was also the Christmas she, at the age of 81, with a sly smile on her face, gave me a candle to use when Ron and I had “romantic time”! ha! That was when I learned of her mischievous side – and where Ron got his mischievous streak! 

Cook 

She was the maker of the cornbread. Everyone wanted Granny’s cornbread. When Ron jokingly asked her to teach me how to make cornbread, she said, “Tanya knows how to make cornbread, don’t you?” I replied, “Yes, I open a package.” She gave me that same sly smile with a bit of laugh and said, “come here” and then she taught me how to make her cornbread. It’s that smile and look on her face that I’ve been remembering the most. 

Mama 

I have learned over the last 4 years that Juanita was “mama” to a LOT of kids. She didn’t work outside of the home, so she kept a lot of children of family and friends through the years. And, kids who were friends with her kids stayed at her house so much that she fattened them up with her fried chicken and other food that they ate more dinners with her than their own mamas. I would meet all of these kids as adults. At each holiday, these now adult men with their own children and grandchildren came by to pay homage to their second mama. Their love for Juanita showed through as they took time from their own family Christmas and Easter to come see her, introduced her to their children and allowed them to be mothered by her as well. They just came. To be with her. To see her. To tell her they loved her. 

Legacy

Jesus continued with the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 7, saying “A good tree cannot bear bad fruit…”  Juanita’s legacy, the good fruit, is the way in which her sons treat their wives and the strong and independent daughter she raised. Her fruit is in all of the children, not her own, she fed, raised, disciplined, and loved. 

Her legacy is the words in her obituary, “…if she knew you, you were considered family. She was truly an expert at loving others well and in return she was well loved.”