Frances Thompson was a Billionaire
“Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.”
This essay is dedicated to my aunts, uncles and cousins. I grew up going to Kansas for family reunions and vacations since both my parents are from Kansas. We have lived a lot of life together whose memories I treasure even though these days we don't really get to see each other. We were all impacted by Granny and those years.
Frances Outen Thompson was my grandmother. She was born on Valentines Day. She lived in Kansas. During my childhood in Texas, my mom would bake a double layer chocolate cake every Valentines to celebrate. We would call her for like 5 minutes which probably still cost $40 back then. So, of course, I was thinking about her this time of year. This year my daughter made the cake as we still celebrate and remember my grandmother — who to me was known as Granny.
But not just to me—everyone knew her as Granny. I was thinking about love last week, and it hit me really hard that Granny knew and understood love. The reason why was because she knew how to give away love, which is the noblest principle of wealth—it truly is better to give than to receive. She was really good at giving away unconditional love to people.
I know for a fact she was a woman of faith and for that reason she was able to be secure in herself and to give unconditional love because she received it. She was born in 1916 on a farm in rural Kansas just before the Great Depression Era. She knew poverty and suffering. She completed the eighth grade and went on to work. She had three marriages and six children over a span of several years. My mom is the last born of those six. When her third marriage ended, she told me she gave her life to Jesus. She stopped trying to manage things and stepped into a fuller life of faith.
What’s different about Granny is she didn’t just believe IN or ABOUT Jesus. She believed him. The live, active Jesus. In other words, she did what He taught. When someone asked him what was the greatest commandment, Jesus said, to love the LORD your God with all your heart, mind and soul and the second is to love your neighbor as yourself. Granny was in some ways a very free and simple person—she accepted people and listened and loved. She did worry about people and she prayed for them too, so that’s why I know she had her burdens. She lived on simple means and never had a lot of extra money. She lived in trailer homes or simple apartments and worked many, many jobs from Beechcraft factory to running a hotel, or nannying for people. When she retired, she wanted to stay busy, so her last “job'“ was greeter at Wal Mart. She LOVED this job. She loved children, toys, Care Bears, baking, cooking and animals and Wal Mart was a place where she could get all of her supplies to care for people. She was the greeter, so everyone knew and loved Granny. Not just at Wal Mart, but anytime I visited her we would walk and she not only knew everyone but was doing something for almost everyone on her routes whether it was covering mail or picking up a newspaper or having a conversation. She did so with grace and with all the time in the world. The original queen, not in a hurry!
She was a great story teller. All of our extended family time involved games, stories and lots of food My favorite time spent came with cooking together. Those were some golden years. We all marveled that how could all of us feel loved and cared for and listened to? She regularly sent cookies to all of her children and their families and many friends and neighbors.
We were all impacted by her abilities. If faith is the currency of heaven, I wonder if love is the gold? She spent every day reading her King James Bible and with her eighth grade education to me, demonstrated more than any scholar I have read on the golden rules of life. Granny made such an impact in the world because she believed Jesus and lived out loud what she read. She gave away, invested and deposited all the love she received from God into the lives of others. That’s what made her one of the richest people who has ever lived. Her life is such a contrast with selfish, self serving love that just takes, poisons and damages. Not just visible in current American society, but as a person of history- so far every social movement has been flawed, and in my opinion it’s because of selfishness. Granny gave what she had and boy, what a legacy. I have thought a lot about that kind of love lately and am trying to shift from believing about what Jesus DID to believing Him, living and active, and walking out what He taught, which is die to yourself and live again in God’s life and love. Granny got it and that’s why I thought this week, Frances Thompson was a billionaire.
Frances on the right and her older sister, Virginia on left. This was an unusual picture, as most pictures were of them on the farm in very simple attire.
That picture in back became more important later!
Her dog Sam was iconic on any of her walks. Here she is with my brother during a stay at her farm in Arkansas.
Typical action shot.
This is Granny with my mom. One of my favorite pictures!
