Seester Strong

3 Sisters Racing: Judy Kay, NASCarla, and Kathy Beth

"We're sisters and we share things, but not our favorite drivers." Kathy Beth Russell - Jimmie Jimmie Jimmie
Yeah, share things like ALL of our DNA, childhood memories and traumas, ancestry, love of books, stubbornness, our voices sound the same, none of us can sing, we look alike. But there is so much more to being sisters than all that, of a supernatural level that's not easily explained. Especially to people who don't have sisters. Like my kids, brother and sister, different fathers - they just don't get the unbreakable connection we sisters share.
Today, May 21st, is Kathy Beth's birthday. If she were still with us in the physical plane, she would be 68. So, we are having an intimate little party - just us seesters, with Kathy Beth's favorites: chocolate mini donuts, circus peanuts, Jimmie Johnson props, and plenty of candles. Carla (big seester)

​Grandma Layton and her sister Carolyn were as close as sisters can be, that's why I'm including excerpts from her biography to illustrate that strong bond that lasts a lifetime and beyond.
From page 30 of Signs Along the Way: 
My older sister used to tell me all kinds of tales. At night we would kneel by the big double bed, our pink challis nightgowns with the high, ruffled neck and the long-ruffled sleeves trailing around our knees. Then Carolyn would begin: “God Bless my Dear Darling Mamma, God Bless my Dearest Father, God Bless my Big Brother, God Bless my Dear, Sweet Little Sister. Please, Dear God, give her more brains. God Bless the good preacher, God Bless my nice teacher, God Bless the self-sacrificed missionaries. Please forgive all my many sins and help me not to follow in the pathway of the sinners anymore. Amen.” In the same breath and one motion, she jumped in and pulled the covers up to her chin. Then I would crawl up in bed and we would cozy up like kittens under the homemade comforter.
From page 77, a letter from Carolyn Maude to her aunt Dorothy Maude:
I think a great deal of Elizabeth these days. I believe she’s due to have the baby about the fifteenth of April, just a few days at this writing. She never told me – the little bugger! Anyway, I can imagine great anxiety and great happiness. I wonder if I’ll be as wonderful an aunt as you have been. Funny about Elizabeth and me. What she has, I haven’t. And what I have, she hasn’t, yet we both are fairly happy.
From page 239:
Dear Carolyn, when Riley died in September, I couldn’t cry. Because I wouldn’t let myself. I thought, ‘Just what Corky (Alvera) needs, a weepy mother-in-law.’ If I were to have cried, it would set off an avalanche of tears from the five little inconsolable girls. They did cry, but it was mostly one at a time. Anyway, that was my reasoning at the time. So in holding my tears back, soon it became impossible to cry. Towards the last of November that year, I had been sitting reading and Glenn was watching television, a ten o’clock show, but he was tired, so decided to go to bed. Cloris Leachman was on; she plays such a frivolous character in that show. Her husband (in the show) had been dead for many years, and she decided to have his body moved closer. So, she made all the plans, and they waited the hour of the funeral. Everything was ready – the flowers, the preacher, the mourners and the organist. The casket never arrived. Days went on, the preparations dwindled, nothing happened. Then, the casket arrived. It had been mistakenly sent to France, and then back. So, they finally had the funeral. Cloris stood by that closed casket and weeping angrily said, “Niles, you went to Paris without me!” That had to be the most absurd statement I ever heard, and the floodgates burst opened. I guess Glenn must have thought I had gone nuts or lost my mind. Poor Glenn. He tried to console me, as Missi would console you, Carolyn. Anyhow, I got rid of those tears.
From page 240, a letter from Elizabeth to her sister Carolyn Maude:
Yes, I would say your pictures tend to be ones that appeal especially to men. They are certainly not weak or effeminate, ever. The lines are fine and often dainty and delicate, but always resolute, like you knew exactly what you wanted to do. This gives the whole picture an intenseness that I would say men tend to admire. But then you and I, too, have probably as many male characteristics as feminine. I know I am a radical woman’s libber. Glenn cannot understand why I’m not always content to sit on a cushion, sew a fine seam, and be taken care of. Kay, Carla, and Judy Hope are even more so. I predict that in 100 years this will be a matriarchal society. We are all aggressive, now where did we get that? Not from Mother, did we? Well, perhaps. She always got what she wanted, but in a different way. Nowadays I suppose one would say your pictures have a lot of “macho”, probably why they appeal to men. I would also guess that men have better judgment on pictures. Or should I say, “Their likings appeal to me.” Probably it is the strength and independence you get onto the canvas. All your pictures have a certain intensity and independence.
From page 267, a letter from Carolyn Maude to Elizabeth:
I do hope that Mr. Ault used a picture like this in his lecture, to show what the two main characters in the numerous drawings really look like. You are the most modest person I know. Here this lecture took place in the middle of January, and you are just now telling me about it I agree with Mr. Ault in one respect. I don’t think the talent shown in your drawings “just happens.” There is more than drawing – there is thought, study, emotion, and understanding. Everything you have felt in your whole life seems to be coming out in your drawings. I enclose a clipping about something entirely different which expresses it: “Your whole life has been a preparation". I feel that a lecture like this is far more complimentary than just a hanging exhibition would be. I am so proud of you. You were fortunate that two men like Don Lambert and Mr. Ault have taken an intense interest in your work, so that you aren’t “hiding your lantern under a barrel” as your modesty would otherwise have done. “Art Therapy” is even better than just amusing yourself and others with “pretty pictures,” and I think very few people could have done it. You can rightly feel that you are a leader as well as an outstanding example in that program.

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