[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 24 (Thursday, February 8, 2007)]
[House]
[Pages H1402-H1403]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1830
                           MAE CARDELLA CARR

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Franks) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. FRANKS of Arizona. Madam Speaker, it is such a privilege for me 
to stand in this Chamber to honor and

[[Page H1403]]

speak words of tribute to a beloved lady, born Mae Cardella Fox on a 
cold December day in 1913. Mae was the essential coal miner's daughter 
and grew up in a small miner's camp close to Habersham, Tennessee.
  When she was only 11 years old, her mother died of pneumonia. Being 
the oldest daughter at home, she bravely embraced the crushing 
challenge at her age of maintaining a household and cooking for her 
siblings and her father.
  When she was 16 years old, just as the Great Depression was falling 
upon America, she married another coal miner by the name of Earl Carr. 
The two of them were deeply committed to each other, and by themselves 
alone, using only hand tools, they built their first home, a log cabin 
on Pine Mountain above Morley, Tennessee.
  When Mae was still in her twenties, her husband Earl was in a 
terrible accident when a coal mine caved in, killing many of his 
friends and breaking his own back and disabling him for life. When 
rescue workers reached him, he had already begun to dig himself out.
  To take care of her severely injured husband and family, Mae began to 
take in laundry and clean houses, and she said she canned every kind of 
berries that grew in the Smoky Mountains. The older children gathered 
and sold holly at Christmas time, and the entire family gathered coal 
that fell from the tipple where the train cars were loaded. They said 
sometimes the workers would deliberately throw out coal for the 
families.
  As the children grew in number and in stature, the family would 
travel to Florida in citrus season to pick oranges. It was there that 
my first memories of Mae and Earl Carr were born. I can remember at 4 
years old waking up before daylight and climbing into a tarpaulin-
covered truck, called a doghouse, and going to the orange groves to 
help pick oranges with Mae and the rest of her family.
  To find better work, the family moved to Colorado, close to Juanita 
Franks, one of Mae and Earl's married daughters. While they were there, 
a grandson with a missing palate and a cleft lip was born to Juanita. 
Mae lovingly helped feed this little baby with a pill cup and an 
eyedropper until surgery could be performed. Madam Speaker, this is 
only one small instance of all of the acts of love and devotion this 
precious woman bestowed on every member of her family.
  Mae Carr loved Jesus and her family more than anything else in life, 
and in all of the joys and struggles of their lives and 64 years of 
marriage, Earl and Mae Carr became the patriarch and matriarch of a 
family that would number 11 children, 47 grandchildren, 76 great-
grandchildren, 22 great-great-grandchildren, and two more on the way.
  A few days ago, in her 94th year of life, I was called to the bedside 
of Mae Carr, who as it happens, Madam Speaker, is my precious 
grandmother, and who was called home to meet her Savior on February 7, 
2007.
  Among her last words to me were those contained in a phrase I had 
heard her say many times before, and expanded just this once. She said, 
``Trent, the truth will stand when the world is on fire; and the truth 
will still be here when the world is gone.''
  Madam Speaker, if all of us in this institution and this world could 
learn the reverence for truth and the love for humanity personified in 
this four-foot-eleven coal miner's daughter, the entire human family 
would be nobly transformed.
  I will cherish those final moments with her for the rest of my life, 
because her mind at the time was still keen and perfectly lucid, and I 
was able to tell her not just how much I loved her, she already knew 
that, but I was able to tell her how much we were grateful for her 94 
years of loving all of those about her, for loving life, and for making 
this world a better place to live. And, most importantly, Madam 
Speaker, I was able to remind her that indeed her life was a profound 
victory and that all of her dreams had come true.
  Because you see, Madam Speaker, Mae Carr's dreams, though profound 
beyond words, were simple dreams: a family to love and nurture and 
support, children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and even great-
great-grandchildren who would learn her heartfelt love for God and her 
fellow human beings. Her family now stands as a living testament to her 
life and her noble dreams fulfilled. And her greatest dream, Madam 
Speaker, is also now fulfilled as she stands in the presence of her 
Savior and has heard His eternal words of victory, ``Well done, my good 
and faithful servant.''
  The truth will stand when the world is on fire, and the truth will 
still be here when the world is gone. Mae Cardella Carr.

                          ____________________