Mamie A. (Covault) Heckman (1912-2006)

COVAULT, HECKMAN, GOOCHEY

Posted By: Ken Akers (email)
Date: 3/25/2012 at 14:45:19

http://broussards1889.com/services.asp?page=odetail&id=2780&locid=
Broussard's Mortuary (Beaumont, TX)
Mamie Heckman
July 9, 1912 - September 12, 2006
Mamie Heckman was born July 9, 1912 at home, on a farm in Southwestern Iowa. She was a young one in a large farm family, and grew up doing chores, riding the family pony to the nearby store (one mile away) if needed, cleaning the pony’s stall, pulling weeds in the fields and generally growing up in a strict Methodist household on a farm where horses provided the power to work the fields, and farm work started before day light and needed after dark.
She was born and raised in a simpler, bygone era when there were no automobiles, no electricity and no running water (on the farm at any rate). Baths were once a week, in a washtub on Saturday night. Heat came from the kitchen stove or the heating stove in the living room. You slept upstairs in a COLD bedroom, with several kids in one bed to save space and help keep warm. When the blizzards came everyone stayed indoors except for the older boys who had to go outside to bring in wood for the stove. The summers were HOT, and air condition was unknown. Life was simpler, and travel was very limited. Houses were small and cramped, and privacy was hard to find.
She married a nearby farm boy and started farming on rented land in the year of the Depression. Hard work, no money, and few rewards. Children came along, two sons, a daughter that died in childbirth, and a final, third son. Over the years things got a bit better, but severe allergies (they called it Asthma or Hay Fever) during the harvest season finally drove the family off the Farm and into the high Colorado mountains where the plants were different and the Asthma disappeared.
She lived in Colorado for about twenty-five years. She separated fro her husband, then cared for him ten years later as he died of colon cancer. Moved to Iowa again (the allergies were less severe in her older years) and cared for two of her brothers and two of her sisters as they died of cancer or heart trouble.
She moved into a retirement complex in Iowa where she lived alone for about ten years. Bur her abilities faded as the years moved on, and she found it almost impossible to pay the bills, keep the checkbook balanced, and generally exist on her own. Her son, Jerry, helped her move to Beaumont in September of 2000 to live in a small town house on the west edge of town. He saw to her day-to-day needs until June of this year when she moved into a Nursing Home. Then she broke her leg in late August and never really recovered from the surgery and shock of that experience. She died late in the night of September 11, 2006, age, 94 years.
She has on living sister who is in the last stages of Alzheimer’s disease. She has two living sons, Jerry (70) and Ronald (69); numerous grandchildren; and great grandchildren

Note: Mamie A. Covault's parents were William Roy Covault and Amy Addie Goochey, who lived in Greeley twp., Audubon co., IA.

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