3 minute read
A Legacy of Grit, Gumption and Grace
By Barbara Chesser and Noelle Bartl
New York Times best-selling author and ENMU alumna (BS63 summa cum laude), Barbara Russell Chesser, Ph.D., recently wrote a book about her extraordinary grandmother. Family members helping with research include Phillip and Rita Russell, Lewis and Marilyn Chumbley, Charlene Hutson and Carolyn Holder. Remembering Mattie: A Pioneer Woman’s Legacy of Grit, Gumption, and Grace, tells the amazing life story of Mattie Kinney.
During Mattie’s childhood on the wind-swept plains of eastern New Mexico in the early 1900s, she survived a lifethreatening rattlesnake bite and as a 10-year-old coped with the heartbreaking death of her mother. At age 22, her husband died in the flu epidemic of 1918, leaving her with three young daughters. Calamities continued, including the death of her second husband and father of her three young sons—one died on his first birthday. Colorful family history describes how Mattie triumphed over tragedies yet helped family, friends—and strangers—overcome their struggles.
During the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl while many lost their homes, even as a widow Mattie found a way to buy a house. While others suffered unemployment, she “landed” jobs because of her willingness to work “long and hard.” While others went hungry across the United States, she fed her family as well as others. While many widows depended on relatives, Mattie took care of her family and helped additional ones.
Mattie (as she preferred to be called) respected and treated everyone with dignity. One of many examples—Mattie routinely provided rides for her employees. She needed the workers, and they needed the jobs. Her rides were a practical solution for both.
Rearing her children and owning restaurants throughout the years, Mattie also opened her home to at least 17 family and friends attending ENMU. With a roof over their head and home cooking like her famous oven-fried chicken, homemade rolls, apple pie with “cinnamon redhots”—and generous servings of love and laughter—these fortunate ENMU alumni treasure their college days.
To say thank you, family and friends are establishing the Mattie Kinney Memorial Scholarship Fund. As Dr. Chesser wrote in her book, “Even those descendants who never met Mattie are touched by her life through the various threads of gold she spun into a lasting legacy–that cord of grit, gumption, and grace that connects us all, in large ways and small, generation after generation.” And now this scholarship in memory of Mattie Kinney will continue to change the lives of future ENMU alumni.
Family and friends are invited to support this new scholarship by making contributions to the Mattie Kinney Memorial Scholarship Fund at the ENMU Foundation, ENMU Station 8, 1500 South Ave. K, Portales, NM 88130 or by calling toll free 888-291-5524 or 575-562-2412. Be sure to read this biography about a very special woman and how she touched countless lives, including numerous ENMU alumni.
