THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, April 16, 1995 TAG: 9504120051
SECTION: REAL LIFE PAGE: K1 EDITION: FINAL
COLUMN: FAMILY LIFE
SOURCE: BY KRYS STEFANSKY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Long : 177 lines
MATTHEW HINES SR., 72, sat in the bare-walled living room of his rented Portsmouth house. He pushed his glasses up and kept looking for the card in his wallet where he'd written down the birthdates of his children.
``Angie was born in '64. No, '66,'' he said, poking a finger under pictures and searching little pockets in the leather wallet.
``No, Pop,'' said his wife, ``I think it was '67.'' Ozzie B. Hines, 69, leaned back in a corner of the plastic-covered flowered sofa, the mate to her husband's easy chair, and rubbed her smooth, unlined forehead. She studied the ceiling as if the birthdates of their 14 children were written there.
The Hineses, married 50 years last month, were in the middle of buying their first home. After a lifetime of going without so their kids could have everything, the retired couple was about to get a sweet payback.
Their children were helping them pay for the house.
Now, in their last few days in the rental on Chesapeake Avenue, its naked walls missing knick-knacks and packed boxes piled up in back rooms, it was hard to put a hand on anything.
Matthew Hines never did find the card.
Born in 1945, Priscilla is his oldest child at 49. Ronald and Donald, twins who died at birth, came next. Then Regina, Matthew, Elton - who died in 1990 - Gloria, Stewart, Geraldine, Cynthia, Eudell, Cedric, Terance - who died three years ago - and Angela, born, her parents finally agreed, in 1967. She's 28.
Their parents had reason to take stock of them recently. The couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary on March 18. Their children surprised both of them with a dinner to mark the occasion. One son-in-law, a preacher, married them again that day, and the children presented their parents matching wedding bands. The first time, they'd married without any.
``We're very lucky,'' said their mother.
Her children say it's the other way around.
``Their children have always been number one for them,'' said their daughter Cynthia E. Blackwell, a Portsmouth teacher. ``They would neglect themselves to care for their children.''
Today, the Hineses consider themselves blessed with their children and their successes. Four work in hospitals. One teaches school. Three work for non-profit organizations and one builds safes.
Even though some of the brothers and sisters thought owning a house might be too much for their elderly parents, all of them knew it was the couple's lifelong dream.
``It's something they've always wanted,'' said Blackwell. ``They never felt as though they could afford one. And even the children who thought they shouldn't do it, know that our parents will take care of it. They're both workaholics.''
Ozzie Hines was 17 when she met her husband-to-be. They noticed each other at a little grocery store at the corner of Main Street and Portsmouth Boulevard in 1943.
``It was Joe Davis' store and there was dancing in the front,'' Ozzie recalled, shyly laughing. ``That was in my sinful days.'' The store's juke box rumbled with Fats Domino's music as Matthew courted her. They fell in love and two years later were married in a friend's home by Ulysses E. Jackson, Ozzie's father, a minister who loved Matthew Hines as much as his daughter did.
To begin with, Matthew worked as a welder in the Portsmouth navy shipyard. He earned $45 a week. Ozzie was a full-time housewife. Babies started coming and coming and coming.
Before long, little children and diapers were everywhere.
``We had a clothesline full,'' said Matthew, laughing at the memory. His short hair is sprinkled with gray now. Silver-framed glasses sit on his nose.
His wife proudly recalls always keeping the children neat.
``I bleached and ironed all their diapers and their undershirts,'' she said. To stretch her dollars, she sewed for her girls. She also kept three neighbor children in handmade clothing, earning money to help with the household.
At the beginning of each school year, Ozzie Hines said, her children each had at least a week's worth of brand new clothes.
``We were the best-dressed kids in school,'' recalled Gloria McMillan, their seventh child, now a nurse. She remembers growing up in public housing in Lincoln Park, sitting on the porch at night after dark, talking. ``We all had chores. Mama always made us stick together, walk to and from school together and on rainy days we made up our own games in the house. It was fun.''
Within a few years of his marriage, Matthew Hines left the shipyards and spent the next 44 and a half years building crates at Norfolk Veneer Mills in Portsmouth. He retired seven years ago, but stayed on part-time until the summer of 1993.
As the family grew, Hineses still gave neighbors the impression they had more than enough.
``I remember one child telling me years later that when they were little they used to come over and see my biscuits stacked up so high on the table,'' Ozzie said, holding her hand level with her elbow. ``She said they'd run in and grab one and run back out.''
The family always ate their meals together. Their father said grace. The youngest children sat on pillows and phone books so they could reach their plates.
``We had Sundays together, and that was when we went to church,'' said Matthew, who sometimes worked six days a week.
Church, say their children now, helped keep all of them on the straight and narrow path.
``We did plenty of churchin','' joked Geraldine H. Reid, one of the middle children, a nursing assistant and nursing student.
Matthew did what he felt was right for his family, ``I just wanted the children to enjoy themselves. I loved having a big family. I just really enjoyed them.''
The couple stretched each dollar, but never argued over money.
``There wasn't any to fight about,'' said Matthew, grinning.
They butted heads about few other things, evidently so seldom that they can recall exactly the disagreements.
Like the time Ozzie sewed patches all over the pants her husband wore to his welding job.
``I really worked on them. Patched each little hole and he came and tore them all off,'' she said, chuckling, recalling how mad it had made her.
He's still sorry.
Ozzie said she figured out that marriage goes smoother if one partner doesn't try to be the boss all the time.
``Know what upsets them,'' she said, ``and try to avoid it.''
``We had our disagreements,'' he said, then grinned, ``but making up was sweeter.''
As the years marched by and the children grew up, they practiced what they preached.
``A marriage is a give and take thing,'' said Matthew. ``You've got to be willing to give some and take some.'' He'd started out telling himself that if he could make it a year married, he could go all the way.
He can't understand couples who discard their relationships.
``They hadn't thought about what holy matrimony is about,'' he said. ``You've got to love her and cherish her, not for one day but for life.''
And there's no room for a wandering eye.
``It's always going to look greener in another man's yard,'' he said. ``But you don't worry about that. That's his yard.''
``Ask God to direct your path,'' advises his wife.
These days, the Hineses' marriage is tranquil. The house empty of children.
``Thank God they're gone,'' said Ozzie, laughing at herself. ``We've enjoyed them, you know. But we're ready to spend some time alone.''
They'll be spending it in a brick and white wood ranch house in the Peach Tree area of Churchland. The HUD home needs a little fixing up, but it's nothing some of the children can't handle, said their mother.
``It has three bedrooms, two baths - one right off my bedroom,'' said Ozzie, ``a kitchen, sitting room and a garage.''
When they first went to look at the home, Matthew noticed a piece of paper stuck to the front door.
``It said `Jesus.' That's all, just `Jesus,' and I said this is our house,'' he recalled.
There's a swing set in the back yard. Perfect for their 25 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Buying the house and moving in has been a family affair. The Hineses' down payment came from one child's bittersweet legacy - money their son Terance left them when he died. The rest of the children all chipped in to pay the closing costs.
Their oldest, Priscilla, bought them a dishwasher.
``They're by themselves,'' she said, ``but when we all get together on special occasions, it's a bunch of us. And who wants to stand at the sink washing dishes?''
Eudell promised vertical blinds and paint. Regina and her husband want to furnish the den. All the sons and daughters said they'd help with painting and buying new carpet.
``I've got some good children,'' said Ozzie. ILLUSTRATION: RICHARD L. DUNSTON/Staff color photos
Ozzie and Matthew Hines just bought their first home, a
brick-and-wood ranch house in Portsmouth.
Besides helping pay for the house, the Hines children fixed it up.
Daughters Eudell Williams and Priscilla Birden, above, paint the
living room. Son-in-law Julius Blackwell, left, installs an
electrical outlet.
Photo
RICHARD L. DUNSTON/Staff
Rodriguez Hines, 12, rakes leaves in the back yard of his
grandparents' new home in Portsmouth.
by CNB