Emmaline Ruth Johnson grinned into the telephone receiver as she spoke to her mother.
“Mama, I did it! I’m in the Army!” she shouted into the receiver.
Emmaline was ecstatic! Finally, she had done the one thing everyone in her family in Charlotte had told her she couldn’t and shouldn’t do—join the Army. She was on her way to doing something none of her other family members, male or female, had done. She would have bragging rights on this.
“Honey,” Maybelle replied through the shared laughter, “I am so proud of you!” Tears welling in her soft brown eyes, Maybelle wished her beloved Alton could be there at that particular moment to share in the joy of their daughter. Oh, how she missed him!
“Mama, we start training tomorrow,” Emmaline continued excitedly. “We have our uniforms and everything! Mama, some of this stuff is sooo ugly,” Emmaline dramatized, laughing as she shared with her mom how some of her new friends looked as they paraded in the barracks halls wearing different items of the uniforms.
Maybelle laughed with her daughter as she described the uniforms in detail. Looking around herself in her kitchen, she knew that life would not be the same without their Emmaline around the house. However, she was willing to forego her daughter being at home so she could find her place in the world, and prayerfully, in God.
Maybelle acknowledged that life had not been the best for Emmaline Ruth Johnson. She had been rejected, put down, and all together pushed out of Charlotte because of the way friends and family had treated her. Although Maybelle felt sadness in her heart, she knew that her daughter had made the right and only decision in this season of her life.
“Honey, enjoy the journey,” Maybelle advised her daughter as they prepared to hang up.
Maybelle had much to think about now. Emmaline had asked permission for her younger sister to come and live with her once she received her permanent assignment. Maybelle thought it would probably be a good idea, but she would think on it. She pondered on the request to see what Alton would have decided had he been there. Maybelle wanted the best for her children. If that meant they needed to leave Charlotte, then so be it.