Tom Landry died last

weekend. So, did Charles Schultz. So did Maud Adcock.

Tom Landry, of course, was

the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys professional

football team. For some 29 years, he led "America's

Team" to victory after victory before stepping down

into retirement and into pro football history. Landry

left coaching, but the Cowboys continued their winning

ways. His legacy lives on.

I grew up under the

influence of Charles Schultz and his Peanuts comic strip.

In fact, Charlie Brown is older than I am by some three

months. On the last day that Schultz's final comic strip

appeared in the Sunday paper, the Peanuts creator died.

But in books, and magazines, and television reruns,

Peanuts continues. Schultz will soon be honored

posthumously by a congressional gold medal. His legacy

lives on.

Maud Byrom was born during

the spring of 1912, the oldest child in a very large

family, to a farming couple in Coweta County, Ga. She

would graduate from a high school that no longer exists,

Starr High School, in Sharpsburg, and would fall for a

young man named Elbert Adcock with whom she would share

long walks, taffy pulls, and hay rides. On Christmas Eve,

when Maud was 25, she and Elbert would kneel in the

sanctuary of Turin Methodist Church and be pronounced

husband and wife by the Rev. J. W. Hancock. Elbert would

flush with embarrassment as he knelt at the altar,

remembering the hole in his shoe that was now visible to

the congregation.

But, these were Depression

years, so the congregation understood. It wouldn't be an

easy time ... work was hard to find and the farm chores

the couple shared were rigorous. "Little

Charles," their firstborn, would die at age 5,

creating enormous anguish for the young couple. Three

other children would be born to Elbert and Maud,

including a set of twins, in the following years.

Perhaps it was the

difficulty of the Depression years or maybe it was the

loss of their precious child, but the couple would do two

things that would make an enduring difference to those

who would come after them.

First, in 1959, the Adcock

family bought 80 acres of land, just outside the small

town of Senoia, on Ga. Highway 16. In those days, the

property was in the "boondocks" part of the

county, far away from the activities of the nearby towns.

On this land, Maud and her husband raised cows and pigs

and farmed the land.

Maud, never one to shirk

hard duties, milked the cows, canned the vegetables, and

kept a garden. In fact, she would have a garden every

year until she was past 83 years of age. Even at 83, she

would water the garden carrying two five-gallon buckets

full of water. She made clothes for the children, churned

her own butter, and often worked outside the home to help

the family finances. The Adcock children would never have

to have holes in their shoes.

Over the years, the couple

made some of their land available to their children and

family members. Slowly, over time, nine houses would be

built on the family land as the Adcock clan defied the

modern trend and maintained a close extended family, with

all the members living near and helping each other.

Secondly, Maud would never

lack for small children in her home again. All of the

love that she would have given to "Little

Charles," she poured into her other children, her

grandchildren, and even her great-grandchildren.

After Elbert died,

completing 53 years of marriage, Maud, who was now

"Granny" to everyone, continued to serve as the

matriarch of the family, wipe away the tears of children

large and small, and feed the hoards of children that now

descended on the Adcock land.

It wasn't unusual for the

grandchildren to bring home friends who would always be

welcomed with a hug and something to eat. The children

fished in the lake, rode the cows and pigs, chased the

chickens and consumed copious amounts of fried chicken,

butter bean sandwiches, dumplings, and peach cobbler. She

never complained. She never turned away a child and, in

fact, would help to actually raise many kids - some

her own, some not - over her lifetime.

Then her health began to

fail. As leaves falling from a tree signal the coming of

winter, subtle signs told the family that Granny was

slipping into her final time. For a brief time, Maud went

to a nursing home but, then, the family that she lovingly

cared for over the years determined that she would come

home. Bringing her home was easy. The hard part lay

ahead.

Keeping her home was

emotionally draining, time consuming, and extremely

expensive. But keep her home they did, sacrificing

themselves for her as she had for them. Even in her last

days, she was reaching out from her bed to touch the new

generation of children, toddlers and babies mostly, that

now lived on her land. Just a few months shy of her 88th

birthday, surrounded by her family, she quietly joined

Elbert, Little Charles, and Jimmy, another son who died

two years ago.

The chapel in Newnan was

filled to capacity with family, friends, and others who

had sat at her table over her long life. On a bitterly

cold, rain-swept Sunday afternoon, her family gathered at

the cemetery in Senoia to tearfully say good-bye. As they

held each other and wept, the pounding rain finally drove

the family from under the tent and back to their cars.

Most of them went back to the land that Elbert and Maud

bought 41 years ago. Her legacy continues.

[Father

David Epps is rector of Christ the King Church. He may be

contacted online at [email protected]. For

additional information, log in at www.ChristTheKingCEC.com .]