Living Room Talk with Grandpa

“Striving with all of your abilities to do good is what I tried to do.”

In the small, dusty farm community of Ashland, Oklahoma, Fred Maddox was born on May 15, 1930. He was the last of seven children born to Victor and Roxanne Maddox. Roxanne was English and Dutch, and Victor was Irish. Fred also had a half brother, Guy who was born to Victor and Eva Maddox. Eva was Victor’s first wife who died of tuberculosis when Guy was five. Several years after the death of Victor’s first wife, he married Roxanne. One of Fred’s first memories as a child was when he was four years old. He remembers when his mother sat down and talked to him and his sister Louise, and explained that she was going to the hospital. That was the last memory he had of his mother. Roxanne went to the hospital to have a hysterectomy and because of surgical complications and hemorrhaging she died during the surgery. Victor never remarried, despite the attempts made by Fred’s older brothers to find their father a new companion.

When Fred was 14, he remembered when it was just him and his father living together. One morning Fred woke up and his father was sitting on the side of the bed. Fred got out of bed and went around to sit next to his father. As Fred sat down next to his father and put his arm around him, he noticed that his father was crying. His father was crying and was looking a picture of his first wife. Fred quietly asked him what was wrong. His father replied: “I was just thinking of my first wife. There’s no love like your first love.” Fred’s father told him how kind and strong she was and how much he missed her. Losing his first love, Eva, and then losing his second wife, Roxanne, was a great struggle for Fred‘s father. Growing up without a mother was one of the greatest struggles for Fred as well. When Fred was fourteen, he remembered the effects of not having a mother. “I came to realize the impact on life of not having a mother, which bothered me a lot. I would frequently ask God why I didn’t have a mother.” Fred believed that not having a mother helped strengthen his character and helped him rely on himself to do things on his own. Fred would have the responsibility of cleaning the house and doing the laundry¾chores a mother would typically take care of. Fred did not mind doing the extra work, but has always questioned why his mother was taken away from him at such a young age.