Texas Woman Widowed Twice and Becoming An Eagle

Chapter One

Life with Eddie

1961

I met Eddie Williams for the first time at my sixteenth birthday party, which my friend Elsie Cummings threw for me at her house. I didn’t know she had invited Eddie, but that night ended up being the first day of the rest of my life.

As I primped for the party, my mother baked a big birthday cake for me. We had so much fun that night at the party, and Eddie and I hit it off from the beginning. Soon after, Eddie asked me for a date and we started dating and love embraced us.

One day, Eddie came to see me at my school Rio Vista High School in Rio Vista, Texas, and he asked me to go to his car with him. I wondered why he showed up out of the blue and why he wanted me to follow him to the car. As my curiosity mounted, I began to grab that moment and I got excited about it. I thought it must be important for him to drive all the way from Fort Worth to see me in the middle of the day—especially when I was still in school.

Being a Texas girl, with big Texas thoughts, I rolled ideas around in my head. Were we going to the Texas State Fair? Then he could be taking me horseback riding, which I loved to do. Or maybe he was going to buy me a horse!

All kind of thoughts raced through my mind. I began to imagine some lavish, important event, although I couldn’t figure out what it would be.

When we got into his car, I started talking. “What is so important that it would make you come to my school to see me?” He avoided my question and changed the subject, just talking about anything and everything, being nonchalant.

Then, all of a sudden, he asked, “Will you marry me?”

 I could not even imagine that this was why Eddie had come to see me that day! I pondered and paused, and a smile crept across my lips.

“I have only one thing to say to you, and that is yes!” I exclaimed.

He gave me a small box and I opened it up; inside was an engagement ring. “It is so beautiful!” I said. I was so happy.

A month later, Eddie wanted to have a serious talk. “I have been drafted into the Army,” he said, “so we will have to put off the wedding.”

I was disappointed, but I knew there was nothing we could do. Apparently God had something else in mind. But first Eddie had to get a physical, and he didn’t pass it. So the wedding was back on.

Eddie and I were married at Crestmont Baptist Church in Burleson, Texas. We had a very nice wedding. I sang the song “I Love You Truly” to Eddie during the ceremony.

After the wedding was over, we had to climb through a window to leave because Eddie's friends were trying to play a trick on us to separate us for the night. Someone had warned us about their plot, so we escaped. Eddie's friends were all good people, but they liked to play around.

I was a young bride of seventeen. Nine months later, I gave birth to my first child, Angela.

Eddie and I both adored our daughter. Eddie had to go out of town on his job. Angela was just born and I did not want to be alone. I went to stay with my parents, Oscar and Dorothy Curington. This was better for me so my mother could help me get used to motherhood. Mother made Angela a bed out of a dresser drawer. My daddy would help me during the night when she woke up. In the middle of the night, Angela would be wide awake, looking at us happily. But if we turned the light off, she would start crying. Daddy would warm her bottle and help me feed her.

Then for three months Eddie and I moved close to Eddie's parents, Robert and Quilla Williams. They loved Angela very much and often took her places with them. I was close to Eddie's family. We all liked having fun together. Quilla would buy Eddie, Angela, and me matching Western shirts. Angela was so cute in her tiny Western wear. We all were born in Texas, so we liked that Western style.

One day, when Eddie's sister, Daia, came home from church, Eddie and Daia’s other brother Shorty started making fun of her.

"Leave her alone!” I told them. “She is so cute and she is sincere about God, so don't bother her anymore. It wouldn't hurt any of you to go to church, too."

Daia, Berniece, and I became good buddies. We all stood up for each other and we walked a lot together around the north side of Fort Worth.

Eddie and I liked to ride horses and we did this a lot. We also liked to dance. Many people in our neighborhood would go to the Wagon Wheel, where they had a big band. Harlan and Alice York owned the Wagon Wheel. We were like a big family when we all got together.

Eddie, Angela, and I were in a horrible car wreck. We had gone to Oklahoma to bring my sister, Barbara Ann, to Texas. Two days later we took her back to Oklahoma. We were on our way home to Texas, when the accident happened. Eddie and I were both tired. I had just taken Angela out of her infant seat and was holding her; Eddie was at the wheel. We both just fell asleep. Then I heard Eddie say, “Danva, we are going to flip over!” Fear gripped me! I knew there was nothing that I could do except to hold onto Angela as tightly as I could. As we flipped,

I felt my head hit the top of the pickup. My life passed before me in that instant.

I didn’t know if this was going to be the last day of our lives. I felt such anguish and pain as the pickup rolled over and over, ten times, until it knocked me out. I was a Christian, but I did not know how to take my authority then, as I know now.

 It must not have been our time to go to heaven, because we survived, even though the pickup was flattened. Angels must have come to our rescue. I remember waking up in the ambulance and asking, "Where is my baby?”

The emergency workers told me she was fine, but I screamed, “I can't hear her!"

I looked up at one of the workers in desperation. “Spank her and make her cry so I can hear her voice," I pleaded.

He didn’t really want to, but after I insisted, he gave poor Angela a little smack. She started crying. When I heard her, I was so relieved.

Then I remembered my husband and called to him. “Eddie? Where’s Eddie?” I was frantic.

“He’s right here in the ambulance, lying on a stretcher, just like you are,” the man explained.

“Eddie, are you all right?” I shouted. I couldn’t keep the panic out of my voice.

I could hear him wince as he replied. “I’m in a lot of pain, Danva. I think the pickup landed on my back.”

I ached for him, but there was nothing else I could do.

After we arrived at the hospital, doctors put Angela in an oxygen tent. “Why are you doing that?” I asked. I wanted so badly to hold my baby, not look at her through a tent.

“Do you know what happened out there?” a nurse asked.

“We were in a wreck.”

“Yes, and after the truck tumbled around, your baby was just lying on the highway,” the nurse said. “A lady stopped and picked her up to keep any cars from hitting her.”

Tears streamed down my face. I praise God that a stranger saw Angela and was quick to pick her up. My baby only had a little cut on her head. I knew she could have been killed and this was very heart wrenching for me. Especially being her Mom to hear this. I think taking Angela out of the plastic infant seat might have actually saved her from being crushed in the truck.