Taking Flight

I remember one time when she [Edith] was a baby, we left and went to Allentown. She wanted water all the way down there and she cried. You couldn’t stop at a filling station you would have to stop at a creek. We didn’t stop until we got to Allentown. She cried all the way there.
-Robert Paul, May 2004

Edith left home at the age of 18 and went to St. Louis, Missouri to live with Frances in 1957.
Recorded in family bible by Sarah Paul

by Edith Coleman
First of all I thank God for giving us a super-great-father. Of course when I was much younger, I could not understand for the life of me where did Mudear get this mean man from. I am saying that today as I write this but knowing me back then I was afraid to even think too long on that, thinking you would know what I was thinking. I was so afraid of you just like you were the "Boogey Man" but thank God today for that.

One day in 1968 the phone rang and you were on the line saying, "Look uh here... I am thinking about coming there for a few days if that is alright with y’all." Oh I got so excited! I said "Yes Daddy you all come on". You said "I am thinking about coming by myself. I am thinking about taking a flight." I was really in a total shock as Daddy is going to take a flight to come see me.

Then I thought, Daddy is coming alone, it was his first flight and I have never taken a flight.
Within the next two weeks on a Sunday afternoon in May, 1968 (I can remember like it was yesterday, not the month and year, as I had to ask you.) You came down the steps of that Eastern airline plane at Lambert Field walking to the building with your suit jacket swinging on your hand over your shoulder alone with about seven or eight other fellows. You all were walking and chatting like you all were on the way to a big conference. That was a day I will never forget.

I did not take a picture when the plane came in. I may not have had a camera, but took one of the plane after you had boarded and the plane was on its way out. I will never forget that. We have had many other great, great times in my life since I realized you were not the mean man but a Super Great Father. I love you Daddy!