Her Road
If you turn off of Old Highway 78 in McCollum, you will find her road.This stretch of blacktop is named Rufus Tubbs Road, but ever since Rufus died in 1984, his widow Eula Mae Tubbs referred to it as “her road.”If you go a little further—a mile or so—you will find an old dogtrot cabin, built a hundred years ago, that became their home. Mrs. Tubbs, affectionately known as “Tubby,” spent a large chunk of her 98 years at that cabin in the middle of the woods, tending to her garden, cutting the grass, and making fried apple pies.For most of her life, Tubby happily embraced this role of homemaker, but she also wasn’t afraid to put her overalls on and get her hands dirty. She did yard work until she broke her second hip—when she was ninety. And she would often proclaim that NO ONE was to throw out trash on her road.
Her daughter, Patsy Herron, remembers her mother making quilts and cooking for widowers who lived in the vicinity of her pastures. “She had about fifty acres, and she would take food to people whose wives had died. She cooked for those guys,” says Patsy.Her granddaughter, Melissa Gann, will remember the resilience of her efforts. ““One time, she was carrying a plate over to a house, and when she got there, there was no one at home. But there was a dog on a chain. She went inside the house and set the food down but when she came back out, the dog attacked her. Luckily, she fell away from where the dog could reach. But that didn’t stop her from cookin,’” says Melissa.
Gene Herron, Patsy’s husband, also has fond memories of his mother-in-law. “She was a brave woman. You’d really be surprised what that old lady did,” recalls Gene. “She lived quite a life.”As a young girl, her road led her to Crossroads school, West Jasper School, Central Middle School, and finally, Walker High School. Soon after, her road led her to Rufus Tubbs (b. 1895)—a World War I veteran, Private First Class—on August 26, 1933, when she was but eighteen years old. And her road led her to bear three children: Billie Joyce Mahalak of Spruce, Michigan; Ronald Tubbs of Hazel Green, Alabama; and Patsy.
For years, Tubby faithfully attended Midway Church of Christ near her home. Patsy still has the newspaper clipping from when Tubby and a group of ladies gave teddy bears to children.“She was in church every time the doors were open,” says Melissa.Patsy remembers a story that demonstrates the extent of Tubby’s faith. “At one time, we [Patsy and Gene] didn’t go to church. One day, I called mama and told her that we went to Woodland Trace Church of Christ and she cried.”
The family laughs when they recount the time they played a trick on Tubby. One day while her mother was gardening, Patsy slipped a rubber snake in a flower pot. When Tubby saw it, she grabbed it and began to chop down on it with a hoe. Later, Patsy asked her, “Mama, didn’t you know that was a rubber snake?” Tubby opined, “I thought it looked kinda funny because there wadn’t no blood.”Her road eventually led her from the cabin to her penultimate home, Ridgeview Nursing Home in Jasper. “She had been to Ridgeview twice already for twenty-one day stays, but on the third time, she said, ‘This is where I ought to be.’”She lived there for the last five years of her life.
At Ridgeview, Tubby naturally won the much-sought-after “Miss Ridgeview” contest her first year at the facility. Over time, she began to win the hearts of nurses, staff, and fellow residents with her smile and clever wit.“She was always making people smile and laugh,” says Patsy. “She was some more lady. She was a mess, but she was my mama.”Her road also led her to turn down surgery that might have extended her life a little while longer. In the end, she was satisfied with the life she had lived.“She lived 98 years, 7 months, and 1 day,” says Patsy. “She died just after midnight on August 9.”
The memories of Eula Mae Tubbs will be good ones. She could peel an apple for you, mow a hillside, stich a quilt, make you split your side with laughter. And while her images will live in timeworn scrapbooks and Olan Mills photographs, the legacy she left behind will be remembered by friends and family in these vignettes of her amazing life.And it is those little things—those simple little intricacies of life—that she left for those she loved when her road finally led her to her heavenly home. In the end, Tubby died the same way she lived:Proclaiming her road. 78