A very visible feature of the small town of Decatur is the NAPA store, started by brothers Tommy and Buddy Massey, both deceased. The store is now owned and managed by Tommy’s sons, Jason and Mark. Their mother Ann and younger brother Nick also help with its operation. I asked Ann if I could write about her, as I knew a little of her life and testimony.
Charolette Ann was born Sept. 10, 1946, and was brought up in Little Rock. Her parents were Ansel “Uncle Bigun” Deen and Arlie Dee Posey Deen. Also in the household were her mother’s two children, Harold and Ilene. When Ann was six, her mother died, which meant she lost three members of her family at the same time, as the father of Harold and Ilene took them to live with him. This was very traumatic to her, and she had a hard time with it.
Her father was one of 15 children. He had been chosen to stay home and work the fields, so he had no education. But he did the best he could to take care of Ann, with the help of her grandmother and her daddy’s niece Eunice, whom she calls her other mother. As Ann got older, she went with him when he had to shop or take care of business, so she could read things to him; otherwise, people would try to cheat him.
It was a hard life, with only a wood stove to cook on until Ann was about 12, and with no bathroom. They lived on her mother’s Social Security of $46 per month, and the $5 per day her father earned when he was given a chance to work at the sawmill, which was maybe once a week.
She remembers the rabbits they used for food many times, as she helped her father skin and prepare them to cook. They also had chickens and grew vegetables. She says it was a hard life, but she was adamant to say, “I am proud of my upcoming. I know what hard times are, even though that’s all I knew at that time. Only now with changing times can I look back and see the inconvenient times compared to how it is today.”
In 1964 Ann met her husband Tommy Young Massey, when they both worked at the shirt factory. They married in 1966. After the boys Jason and Mark were born in 1967 and 1969 respectively, they had a girl Shawn Massey Tolbird, who is now a surgical nurse at Anderson’s hospital. Nick came along in 1981. Tragically, in 2002, while they were on vacation, Ann’s husband died of a heart attack.
Ann Massey went to church growing up. She says, “I joined the church when I was about 12, but there was no relationship with Christ. I wasn’t saved.” Then she recalled, “I got grown and made some bad choices, as all of us do if not saved. My husband and I did not live a Christian lifestyle. I was 32, and I began to feel unsatisfied with my life. I was concerned about the kids being raised in an unchurched home.”
“I found out later that a friend that I went to school with had been praying for me for four years. That shows that prayer works, for God started dealing with me. Another friend came and invited me to church about this time. I went and that’s when the Lord really started dealing with me. After about three months, in 1978, I accepted Christ in my life, and I then knew what a personal relationship with Christ was. I was met with opposition but was determined in what I came to know as a relationship to the One that died on the cross for me. I have never regretted my decision and can’t imagine not having Christ in my life.”
She indicated to me that it was during that three months that she really counted the cost of becoming a church-going Christian, because of the change of lifestyle for her family. She went on to say, “Things have not been perfect, having been through hurts, but the good thing is, God has sustained me and was with me.”
