The Gum Lady

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Lydia Akerman spent many years of her life embittered by the loss of her mother, but through the help of a neighbor and the welcoming arms of the Landenberg United Methodist Church, her life has become a daily list of blessings and giving back to others The Gum Lady

By Richard L. Gaw Staff Writer

Let thine hand help me; for I have chosen thy precepts. I have longed for thy salvation, O Lord; and thy law is my delight. Let my soul live, and it shall praise thee; and let thy judgments help me. I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments.

Psalms, Chapter 119

In a strictly spiritual sense, the life that Lydia Akerman lives now may be dramatically different than the life she once lived, but in many ways, the people, places and things that have informed her life have remained undramatically the same.

Born in January 1942, Lydia Richardson was the fourth of five children to Maurice – everyone called him “Johnny” -- and Mary Richardson, and was raised in a yellow, twostory house on Broad Run Road in Landenberg, on property purchased by her grandfather in 1908. For children who grew up in Landenberg in the 1940s and 1950s, their world was confined to the space between home, school, church, the Landenberg Store and the natural wonders of the land – the ponds and quarries and hillsides that served as stages for their adventures.

Adjacent to the house was Richardson’s Garage, where

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her father supplied the area’s vehicles and machinery with kerosene and gasoline, and where he also performed car repairs, inspections and welding.

“Landenberg at that time was mostly dirt roads, and you were lucky if you ever saw a car go by,” Lydia said in the home she and her husband Bill have lived in since 1968, which sits across the Broad Run Road home where she grew up. “You could go down to the local stream we called ‘The Big Creek’ with all of the neighborhood kids, as well as swim over at Kelton’s Quarry.”

It was her father’s shop, however, that became a second home for the young girl, because it was here where Lydia Richardson came to the first realization that life could have a hardened edge to it – a certain gruffness – that she saw manifested in the form of the chisled hands and sweatembossed faces of the farmers who came by to see her father about a leaky valve or a broken tail pipe.

‘I was very angry’

It was there that these men delighted in teasing and giving her a nickel every time she used a swear word in front of them, and by the time she was ten, Lydia Richardson had not only hustled her way to a part-time job, she had developed the vocabulary of a longshoreman.

Following her graduation from Kennett High School in

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Photos by Richard L. Gaw

Lydia and Bill Akerman were both raised in Landenberg.

1959, Lydia began work as a secretary at the NVF Paper Mill in Yorklyn, where as one of the only women on staff, she made her mark as a secretary in an office full of men, countering their swear words with a big and brassy set of her own.

Then, in 1960, the strong young woman was devastated from loss, but rather than relinquish to the pain, she began to build a proverbial wall around her emotions that would last for the next eleven years.

“My mother had just died, and I was helping my father raise my kid sister Linda who was ten years younger than me,” she said. “I could have just accepted my mother’s death and gone through the pain of it, but instead I carried myself like I was tough, because I felt I had to.

“I used to think, ‘No one is ever going to hurt me again like that.’”

Following their mother’s passing, it was generally accepted by her father and her siblings that Lydia would simply “take over” for her deceased mother.

“I was very angry,” Lydia said. “My mother had just died and I am working full time at NVF and helping to raise my

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kid sister and take care of my father in my mother’s absence. By then, I had two older sisters who had their own families and homes just down the road.

“On Sundays, they used to come over for family dinners, and on one Sunday, I told my father, ‘Daddy, I am tired of this crap. What the hell do they think this is, a diner?’”

‘Bill Akerman will stop by here one night’

Into Lydia’s self-contained wall, Bill Akerman began to slowly chip away.

Raised on Chesterville Road, the young Akerman, who was a friend of Lydia’s

Continued on Page 50 The Akermans were married on Sept. 9, 1961, fi ttingly at the Landenberg United Methodist Church.

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brother, often rode his bike to Richardson’s Garage, where he’d get a quick welding job, repair and an earful of good ribbing from Johnny. When he graduated from Kennett High School in 1956, Bill began dating Beverly, but little did he know that he had caught the eye of Lydia Richardson, who was 15 at the time.

“Daddy and I would sit on the swing at night when we would see Bill going to Bev’s and he would tell me, ‘Bill Akerman will stop by here one night. Don’t you worry,’” Lydia said. “At the time, my older brother, Monte, ran around with a lot of boys in Landenberg who rode motorcycles and drove hot rods and smoked and drank beer, but Bill did none of that. One day, my father told me, ‘You are not allowed to go out with any of your brother’s friends…except that Akerman kid.’”

Eventually – and true to Lydia’s father’s word -- Bill did stop by and on Sept. 9, 1961, the couple was married at the Landenberg United Methodist Church, moved into a house trailer at the corner of Saw Mill and Broad Run roads, built their home on the same property in 1968, and welcomed their son Bill in 1963. True to the family tradition, Bill followed his father as an industrial electrician and is now the co- owner of Akerman-Hannum

Continued on Page 52 Lydia with her younger sister.

Electric – and lives just doors away from his parents with his wife of 35 years, Debbie.

In their proper order, love, marriage, a child and a home arrived in Lydia’s life. Anger, her lingering possession, would not leave.

‘...and that was all there was to it’

In 1971, Lydia, still a vibrant part of NVF and a young mother and wife, was diagnosed with a malignant thyroid. At the time, she thought her diagnosis was merely a nagging roadblock to a busy life, not a first step to what would become the dawn of a transformed life.

“I was resting in my room at the old Memorial Hospital in Wilmington after my surgery to remove the thyroid, when my surgeon – Dr. Edward Mechanic – visited me,” Lydia said. “He looked at my bandaged neck and he told me, ‘You are a lucky person, Lydia. You were born under a good star.’ I asked him, ‘Just what in the hell do you mean by that?’

“He told me that the Lord was looking after me. He said, ‘If you had not had your thyroid removed and just had it radiated, it would have taken care of your thyroid but it would not have killed the malignancy, and you wouldn’t have too many years to live.’”

For the next six weeks, Lydia recuperated at home from her surgery, and over that time, she would welcome and visit concerned neighbors. One of those neighbors was Lynne McMullen, who lived on Saw Mill Road. Quickly, the two women forged a friendship, and whenever Lydia would visit Lynne, she would find her playing and singing gospel songs on the family piano or reading from Scripture at the dining room table.

“Lynne knew that I was hurting – she saw the bitterness inside me, yet she never judged me,” Lydia said. “I had never met anyone who was so at peace, so content and so joyous that she glowed. I just saw something in her that I wanted.

“It was then that she told me about Jesus. I asked her, ‘So how do I get this Jesus?’ She said that all I had to do was ask Him into my life, and ask forgiveness for my sins, my bitterness, my anger and my hate, and that was all there was to it. When I got home later that day, I knelt down and prayed that God would take this pain and anger and bitterness away from me and a weight like a ton of bricks was lifted off my shoulders.

Lydia, as a child in Landenberg.

“About six months after I came to Christ, my oldest sister Mary told me father, ‘All Lydia talks about now is how Jesus helped change her life. I am worried about her. She needs to see a doctor or be locked up.’ My father patted Mary on the back and said to her, ‘It’s the best thing that has ever happened to Lydia.’”

The Gum Lady

It is a rare visit to the Landenberg United Methodist Church during a service or a celebration to not find Lydia Akerman. From its ministries to its membership – from its pews to its people – she has become one of the church’s

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unofficial matriarchs, who can be found in the kitchen preparing the annual chicken dinner, other fundraisers, giving hugs and greetings to other church members prior to and after service.

She makes small gift bags for visitors of the congregation and sends follow-up cards to the visitors. She has taught all grades of Sunday School and led women’s prayer groups, and nearly every Sunday after service, she hands out chewing gum to children – and anyone else who requests a piece. The moniker “Gum lady” has stuck; on the occasion of his wedding in North Carolina a few years ago, Josh Boyd – who grew up on Coopers Hawk Lane and whose family had known the Akermans well through the church – sent his wedding invitation addressed to “Mr. William Akerman and the Gum Lady,” and when Lydia and Bill arrived at the wedding, they left wedding gifts for Josh and his new bride, that included a case of chewing gum.

“There are no strangers in Landenberg Church as long as Lydia Akerman is there,” Bill said. “People tell me all the time, ‘I wouldn’t have returned if it weren’t for Lydia. I will always cherish her warmth and understanding.’”

Recently, Lydia introduced herself to a young woman who had arrived at the church for the first time, and whose expression immediately showed sadness and grief. She later told Lydia that she had just lost her grandmother. Lydia wrapped her arms around the young woman and they prayed together.

“The first step in the reordering of my life was to realize that the God who created this universe cared enough about me that He died for my sins and chose that perfect time for me to recognize Him,” she said. “I believe that I had to live the first part of my life in anger and resentment in order that I could be a witness to that same pain and be able to help someone else.

“I know now that had my mother not died when I was

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18 and left me to live through all of those years in that private pain, I would never be able to help another person who lost a parent or a loved one when they were young. To me, that is what the Landenberg United Methodist Church is all about. Christ gives you two things: to love the Lord with all of your heart, soul and mind. The other is to love your fellow man as yourself.

“I am not here to judge but to love, and God has given me the heart to love other people.”

To contact Staff Writer Richard L. Gaw, email rgaw@chestercounty. com.

In addition to being regular parishioners and volunteers, Lydia and Bill regularly attend Bible Study at the Landenberg United Methodist Church.