Mary Eagle Frick
By Mamie Frick Page, March 1977
Slightly edited by Nelson Page

Mary was born 7 Aug 1886 in Liberty, Rowan County, NC, the third of 14 children of Eli Eagle and Nancy Ann Kirk. Like most of her brothers and sisters, she was tall, about 5' 8''. She had brown eyes and coal black hair.

On 11 Feb 1906 she married C. G. Frick who had grown up only a mile or so from the village crossroads. Life for Mary would hold many responsibilities, and they came early in her married life, a prolonged illness by C. G. and the birth of her first child before the end of 1906, five children in the first seven years of marriage, and eight in all.

Mary was a life-long member of Liberty Methodist Church and cherished her special privilege of living adjacent to both the church and the school. Long before it became popular to include women in leadership roles, Mary served on the Board of Stewards (the governing board) at her church and was a leader in church and community life. When the little Methodist congregation faced the need of a new church building there was much pessimism concerning their ability to raise the necessary funds. Mary's persuasion and encouragement helped get the project started. Her hard work and generosity helped complete it. With the assistance of her children she hauled stones from the farm for use in the foundation, watching with pride as the building grew and lending support and enthusiasm in every phase of the work. Mary's funeral was the second conducted in the new church.

Mary was intellectually curious, eager to learn, and took advantage of every opportunity to enlarge her horizons. Building on her seven years of formal schooling, she went on to educate herself. She was an enthusiastic member of the "Home Demonstration Club" where she learned to weave baskets, a hobby she enjoyed for many years. She did embroidery, crocheting, and sewed clothes for the family. Mary also produced many quilts, and each older child owned a special quilt made of fabric samples from a wholesale house with embroidery stitching and the child's name stitched in.

Mary loved the home and small farm and held things together with her careful management. At times she was alone on the farm with the children while C. G. was off on one of his ventures. In the spring of 1912 C. G. persuaded Mary to move with their four young children to Gold Hill so he could clerk in the general store. Reluctantly Mary made the four mile move, but two weeks later they returned to Liberty and Mary never moved again.

Cotton was the "money crop" on the farm, and Mary and the children spent many years helping support the family by raising the crop. One year they produced 12 bales of cotton. They also had a vegetable garden, livestock, poultry, and various projects to earn money. The children dug dock roots which were dried and traded at the local general store. Eggs were bartered for groceries. The boys cured and sold rabbit pelts.

Though the family was poor, the children were unaware because there was always food on the table and they were loved and cared for. They did not know that hard work, kerosene lamps, outdoor toilets, and no medical or dental care constituted poverty. Neither were they aware of the emotional and physical price their mother was paying. She kept the home happy and cheerful and seldom let the children know when she was lonely and things were difficult and discouraging. She was unselfish with a nice sense of humor and gave her family a deep security with no sense of poverty. She sang the old familiar hymns as she scrubbed clothes on a washboard – "Bringing in the Sheaves", "Will there be any Stars in My Crown", "On Jordan's Stormy Banks I Stand", and somehow her labor of love was turned into a festival. She made lye soap, a major chore, and the children took turns stirring the mixture of fats, Red Devil Lye, water and whatever else the formula included. It was boiled in the back yard in a huge wash pot over a wood fire. The soap rose to the top as it cooled and could be cut into squares and removed the next day.

The family's first car was a Maxwell, and Mary decided to increase her independence by learning to drive. With several of the girls in the back seat she cranked the car and started toward the church. Then, deciding to turn around, she pulled off toward the cemetery. If she had any idea how to stop she failed to put it to use in time. After bumping into the cemetery fence she always joked about a car being a good thing to get you to the cemetery on time.

The little farm house was crowded, and Mary first dreamed, and then planned in some detail a new house with more room and modern conveniences. She checked on a generating system to produce electric lighting, and she studied the necessary equipment to produce running water. Her dream seemed close to realization when C. G. decided to go into saw-milling. The farm was put in her name, the money went into the saw-mill, and the dream perished. A new blue bedspread which she had packed neatly away for the "new house" now became only a symbol of a hope never to be fulfilled.

Mary's greatest ambition was to give her children the advantages of an education. Without her planning and foresight none would have gone beyond the seven grades available at the school next door. From the time they started school she sacrificed to pay for periodicals suited to their ages. No public high school was available when the first five finished elementary school, so with their mother's help and prompting, one after the other, they entered Mitchell Home School (later Pfeiffer College) eight miles away at Misenheimer. At first Harvey and Fred were boarding students, but when Nelle, Lib, and Mamie were all ready for high school in the same year, a Model T Ford was bought and all five attended as day students. Then when Fred completed high school, the three girls entered the dormitory as resident students for the remainder of their high school years. Mary lived to see her hopes turning into reality with two sons in college and three daughters in high school. She died before the dream was finished, and with her death the dream faltered.

By the fall of 1928, having health problems, Mary seemed to have a premonition of approaching death. The last Christmas she bought the gifts early, placed them on the top closet shelf, and instructed the oldest daughter to get them down for Christmas if she was not present.

In late July 1929 she found herself facing surgery and tried to prepare the family for whatever might lie ahead. Her children were her main concern, especially the younger ones. Norman was only three.

Her condition was such that the surgery was only the beginning of the end. The cancer was beyond treatment. She died in Whitehead-Stokes Sanitarium in Salisbury on her 43rd birthday, 7 Aug 1929. Her last breath was a request, "Be good to Buddie." Buddie was Norman.

Mary was buried in Liberty Methodist Church Cemetery by the property line of the little farm and home she loved.

[This biographical sketch was written by Mary's daughter, Mamie, in March 1977. It has been slightly edited by Nelson Page. The notes below were added by Mamie in 1981. They are an exact copy of her original.]

Easter eggs were all red in our home. I looked admiringly at the array of yellows, greens, and blues some of my friends displayed, but Mama viewed the breaking of the egg shell as symbolic of the breaking of Christ's tomb and our red color was symbolic of the blood Christ shed for man. So we had dozens of red eggs.

A task our mother performed for many years for her church was the making of communion bread. She observed the symbolism of the Jewish Passover in adhering to unleavened bread. On Saturday she mixed a bowl of flour and water into a stiff dough with neither seasoning nor leavening. This was rolled very thin and cut into long narrow strips. After baking it was broken into small squares, symbolizing the breaking of Christ's body. The finished product was quite tough but we children liked it. I have never taken communion since my mother's death without thinking of her communion bread, neither have I seen any of its kind made by anyone else.

Correspondence between Mary and husband C. G. Frick, 1927:
http://lavonpage.com/family/external/cg-mary/cg-mary.pdf