The Noble Character: A Tribute to Miss Jane - Part 1, Girlhood.

This is a tribute to my dear friend Miss Jane. I’d like to tell you about her because, by God’s grace, she didn’t waste her life, and that’s probably the highest compliment any of us could ever hope to receive from anyone. This is not simply about the events and people of her life, but also about some of the things she taught me and how she influenced me, to the Glory of God. Thus, in reading about her un-wasted life, may you receive God’s grace to make the best use of yours.

She was born August 2, 1930 in Decatur, Alabama as Martha Jane Bradford, and she battled the name “Martha” her whole life the same way people battle the stomach flu. If she were reading this now, she’d probably give me a dirty look for even mentioning it. Her mother’s name was Tassie, a God-fearing seamstress who loved her daughter enough to give spankings, hugs, and Bible lessons at all the right times. I can’t remember her dad’s name, and out of respect to Miss Jane I won’t bother to research it. She always said with quiet loneliness that he left her and Tassie the same week she was born because he had wished she was a boy. I’m sure there was more to the story than Miss Jane shared, or probably that she even knew. It is interesting, though, that often the only thing that’s told about any story is the only thing that matters. He was never part of her life. About the only other thing I knew of him is that after Miss Jane was grown, he was hit by a car and killed while crossing a street in Decatur, and Tassie was the only one who bothered to visit him in the hospital to grieve his passing. If Almighty God ever sees fit to use a jury at Judgment Day, then I imagine that scoundrels like Miss Jane’s father will beg for the merciful saints they wounded to be on the panel.

Miss Jane believed the 1930’s was probably the last decade anyone could’ve been born with any real sense. The older I get, the more I think she was right. She was an only-child, and as happens with many only-children she was spoiled. However, her mom didn’t spoil her with toys and things: she was spoiled by good manners. Only-children who are spoiled with clothes and stuff grow up acting smug about their possessions, and they often become un-sharing snobs. Miss Jane never suffered this smugness because she grew up poor. Her toys were second-hand and her clothes were precious; but every correction to say “please” and “thank you,” to keep elbows off the table, or never to run or climb in a skirt, these were little Jane’s daily allowance. Tassie gave them so generously that her daughter grew to pity anyone impoverished of them. Miss Jane grew to wear propriety like a tiara, and was never more at home than among the well-behaved. That’s not to say she was never smug, but rather that if she was smug she had good reason for it: she felt her upbringing was better than other kids’, the same way a rich kid’s corvette is better than a skateboard. Thus she was living proof that money and wealth can never measure class.

Miss Jane came from a different era. Now when I say “different era,” you probably think I mean The Depression-Era-South, as opposed to our Modern Era (whatever that means). That’s true to a small degree, but it only tells you what century her body aged, and that she witnessed multiple-global-seismic-booms in technology, and that she was familiar with social and historical turmoil. But when I say she was from a different era, I really mean she was an “old soul” in the classic sense. To our techno-saturated, commercially-driven, no-time-to-learn-your-name culture, Miss Jane’s old fashioned sensibilities might as well have been from another millennium as just another generation. She was from beyond her own century. Her biases may have come from the 1930’s, but her heart and soul came from the time of kings and queens, of courtiers and castles, when Merlin had more influence than McDonald's. There was more of Camelot than of Cullman about Miss Jane. Rarely have I met a woman so stubbornly grounded in practicality and decorum like a duchess, while balanced by all the girlish wonder and enchantment of a fairy. All her best stories gave a wink toward mystery, toward a beloved time long forgotten. All her dealings followed their proper order with grandeur and charm. Dragons were real, and she wasn’t afraid to point out the absurdity of any man who didn’t have the chest to go and fight them. And no matter what anyone else thought they heard, the organ was the pinnacle of all instruments, because nothing else was as fitting for the majestic halls of royalty. She was regal, and she felt it every day. How odd were those of us who couldn’t feel it too.

And this is what I find most amazing about her: as a little girl, she inferred she was a princess without her daddy or Disney ever telling her so. When so many fatherless girls come to believe they are garbage, Miss Jane came to believe the Scriptures: that she was part of a Royal Priesthood, and that the Church is the Bride of the King. Best of all, she knew that she was the Church; thus, she knew she was Jesus’ Bride. From girlhood her faith was more of Romance than Religion. If you didn’t know this about her, then you probably misunderstood her deep affection for and attachment to the Church. My generation has odiously presumed, “I’m special, therefore the Church is special;” but Miss Jane got it right: “The Church is special, therefore I’m special.” She had an implicit sense of betrothal to her King. Maybe that’s why she could never marry: no mere man could live up to her battle-worthy Prince of Peace.

Miss Jane wasn’t completely fatherless, because she did have a father in the Faith: the Reverend Dr. Dale Oldham. Dale was her “Papa” and he walked her down the aisle to Christ. Miss Jane never mentioned him without the honor due a father. She was proud, beyond proud, to call him “Papa,” though I was never clear whether he gave little Jane the name "Papa" as a present, or if she chose it for him and informed him that’s who he was. Whichever way it came about, “Jane’s Papa” is who he was, and out of respect to Fate I’ll conclude they chose each other and the name “Papa” was spontaneously mutual. She always had an angle when she talked to you about him, namely, to make you jealous he wasn’t your Papa. For my part, it kind of worked. 

Reverend Oldham was the kind of man every other man should want to be, an honest champion. I’m not saying this because Miss Jane drew any realistic pictures of him; in fact, it’s very likely she ran wild with altruism, exaggerating all his good traits with equal blindness to his bad, like a politician backed into a corner. That’s not why I call him a champion. Rather, I want to be like Miss Jane’s Papa because he was the kind of man who didn’t protect himself from the loneliness of a little girl who had been left by her actual father. His hands were strong and tender enough to patch the scrapes of a little girl who didn’t belong to any man in particular, the same way a wounded bird belongs to no one in particular but you admire the man patient enough to mend its wing. Just the fact that Miss Jane kept bragging on him after so many decades is all I need to know to know the man was a shepherd, and a real daddy, and a true friend. In fact, these are the same words I use about God; thus, no better words could describe any man than shepherd, real daddy, true friend; thus, if any man thinks there is any higher achievement than to be a shepherd, or a real daddy, or a true friend, then he has exposed that he is an idolater. Such a wicked man should repent, and as penance he should teach a lonely little girl to be Jesus’ princess the way Dale Oldham taught Miss Jane. But even then, the next-best-man will have to live in Dale’s shadow, for it is a bold man indeed to convince anyone of their royalty the way Miss Jane held to hers.