To
the woman who taught me how to cook...
Mable Cloe
McDaniel Robbins
Birth: Feb. 22, 1912
Fort Scott, Bourbon County,
Kansas
Death: Mar. 12, 1998
Guthrie, Logan County,
Oklahoma
Burial:
Greenwood Cemetery, Eufaula,
McIntosh County, Oklahoma
Plot: Section i, Row 2
Mable was a woman who could
do almost anything with just a little of nothing. Born the fourth of seven
children, it wasn't long before Mable became 'mother' to her family after the
loss of her own mother to cancer and a younger sister to mental illness. She
worked very hard throughout her teen years, eventually becoming a maid and
nanny to a governor of Kansas before meeting and marrying Sidney R. Robbins and
having a large family of her own... a task made even more difficult by the fact
that she and Sid spread their kids out so it was more like having three
families than just one. Through the
Depression and WWII, she clothed, fed and made sure the first four got an
education, then - when she thought her diaper days were done - along came the
fifth child to challenge strength, patience, stamina and will.
Mable wasn't an outgoing
woman; she wasn't free with kisses and 'I love yous', but if determination,
dedication, and refusal to surrender to hard times can be counted as evidence
of her love, then Mable was one of the most loving women who ever drew breath.
Requiescat in pace, Mama. We know... and thanks for teaching Donna and me how
to cook.
And
to the man she cooked for, for over 50 years...
Sidney Russell
Robbins
Birth: Feb. 13, 1904,
Indian Territory, Choctaw
Nation
Death: May. 15, 1987
Eufaula, McIntosh County,
Oklahoma
Burial:
Greenwood Cemetery, Eufaula,
McIntosh County, Oklahoma
Plot: Section i, Row 2
Born in Indian Territory, the
9th of 10 children, Sid grew up both motherless and fatherless after the deaths
of his mother from gangrene and his father from typhoid. In a time and a
situation where he and his siblings could have become the dregs of society, the
family managed to stick together through the determination of the oldest
brothers and their grandparents, Tom and Bette Dee. Sid didn't know he was
living through 'hard times'; he had nothing better to which to compare them...
he rode the rails to find work, eventually married and had a family of his own
while playing commercial league baseball and refinishing furniture. His claim
to happiness was his children and their spouses and the grandchildren and
great-grandchildren they gave him. His claim to fame was his soft heart and his
tales of big fish. He grew the *best* tomatoes. He loved Canasta and Spades -
and there was no one who could beat him at dominoes.
He was my daddy. And I miss
him still.
Clarence Robbins Family
Memoirs
Stephen Alva Van Cleave
Memoirs
Tales of the Van
Cleave Elders