Gus Bounds: A Man of Faithfulness and Integrity

Gus Bounds in 1993

On April 18th, my grandfather, Gus Bounds, went to Heaven.  At the age of 96 years and 10 months, he had become the longest-living member of our family, second only by his mother who lived to be 96 years and 4 months.  Although we were in the middle of safe-at-home orders due to Covid-19, we were blessed to have been able to attend the graveside services held at my family's cemetery in Carnes, south Forrest County, Mississippi.  I have heard that there may be a memorial service later, but I do not know if that will happen, nor do I know if I will be asked to speak.  However, I would love for my readers to get to know my Grandpa through the eyes of his only granddaughter.

Grandpa was born in 1923, the oldest of eight children.  His mother Ida and his father Ben reared him to work hard and to serve God.  He helped his father farm and raise sheep from the time he was very small.  He grew up hunting and was an excellent marksman.  As an adult, he won awards for his skeet shooting and throughout his life brought home plenty of game for his family to eat.  He was also a talented artist.  I heard his sister, my great aunt Penney, say that after he went to town with his father, he came home and drew pictures of what he saw for his younger sisters and brothers.  As a boy, he was bullied and was injured very badly when a kid choked him.  He had to have surgery and for the rest of his life was unable to sing.  He learned how to box and he taught other boys how to box so that they could protect themselves from being bullied.  After his father died in 1941 from a stroke, he had to help his mother take care of his siblings.

In December of 1941, he married his high school sweetheart, Wilna Lee, when he was only 18 years old and still in high school.  He moved to New London, CT, where I believe he went to welding school.  After his first child, my mother Sylvia, was born, he became a boxer for a short time.  He then decided to join the Marines.  He moved Grandma and Mama back home to south Mississippi and enlisted in the Marines.  He fought in the Pacific Theatre of WWII and was a messenger boy on the front lines.  He claimed God's promises of protection found in Psalm 91 and made a promise to God that if he made it home alive, he would rear his family for the Lord.

Grandma and Grandpa reared three children: my mother Sylvia and her younger brothers Ben and Steve.  Grandpa was a very hard worker.  I've heard it said of him that, "There's no quit in him!"  He worked hard his whole life until he could not work anymore.  In addition to subsistence farming to provide for his family, he also worked at a furniture company and as a welder.  He worked at Ingalls Shipyard in Pascagoula, MS, for over 20 years helping to build huge military battleships such as the USS Ticonderoga.  When he retired in 1988, they had to hire three men to take his place!  It takes a faithful man and one of integrity to be such a hard worker!

Even after retirement, he didn't stop working!  He and Grandma moved back to the "Old House" which they tore down and set on fire before building the new house to take its place.  While the new house was being built, they roughed it by living in the new barn they had built just a few months before.  We lived just a short walk away; they could have stayed with us, but they enjoyed living simply in the same way as they had growing up.  Grandpa continued to farm, putting in large gardens and raising cows, chickens, ducks, sheep, and even some guineas.  Although he owned several old tractors (he loved the antique ones the best), he often used his donkey Deacon to do the plow work.  He also grew sugar cane that seemed to reach to the sky and cut it down by hand.  Every year, he enjoyed taking the sugar cane to be processed into sweet, delicious cane syrup which we all enjoyed poured over homemade biscuits!  In his downtime, he always found time to read the newspaper and watch the news on TV.

Grandpa read the
Christmas Story to us
from the Bible.

Grandpa read his Bible faithfully.  He was a lay preacher and Sunday School teacher for much of his adult life.  After he retired, he even taught himself how to play the piano using materials he ordered through the mail.  He proved his faithfulness to the Lord over and over by his devotion in service and in his relationship with God.  He never failed to mention God's grace and mercy in his prayers.



I had a wonderful relationship with my grandfather.  When I was grade-school age, he made a puzzle cut out of a floor tile and showed me how to put it together.  The Christmas I turned 11, my mother gave each of us a Rubik's Cube and a book that showed how to solve it.  We sat together on the couch and figured out how to work it together.

In 2005, when Hurricane Katrina hit, Grandpa chose to stay home even after Grandma and Mama evacuated to my brother Sammy's home in Alabama.  He hunkered down and rode it out.  His property didn't sustain any catastrophic damage, but it was still a mess from all the fallen branches and debris.  He had it cleaned up long before FEMA came in and even more quickly than others in the community.  He didn't wait for others to come clean up his property (although my brothers and cousins went down to help him - but they didn't have as much to do as they thought.)  By the way, he was 72 at the time, still spry for his age.

In 2007, I became engaged to my husband.  I knew that my Grandma would come to the wedding with my mother who was her caretaker; however, I knew there was a good chance that Grandpa would not want to leave home.  I knew that the best way to get somebody to be somewhere is to give them an important job.  I called Grandpa on the phone and told him I was getting married and that I wanted him to give me away.  I could tell that he wanted to say no, but after hesitating, he said OK.  When I came home about a week before the wedding, he was excited about it, and he asked me to take him shopping for a brand new suit to wear to the wedding.  I gladly took him to Belk's at the Turtle Creek Mall in Hattiesburg where he bought a very nice black suit and a tie to match my wedding colors.  (He was supposed to have been buried in that suit, per Mama's wishes, but I forgot to ask about that.)  I remember walking with Grandpa down the aisle and when my pastor asked, "Who giveth this woman in marriage?" he straightened up nice and tall and said with great pride in his voice, "Her granddaddy, Augustus L. Bounds!"  I will never forget that to my dying day.

Toward the end of my Grandma's life, she was very insecure and didn't talk much.  She digressed to the point where she would make one of several statements, "Where am I?"   "Where's Gus?"   "I don't know."  and "OK." I remember Grandpa answering one time with, "I'm right here.  You've still got me, Wilna.  Yeah, you've still got me!"  A man married for 70 years, he proved his faithfulness to his wife and to his family many times over by his example.

In 2010, I had my daughter Gracie.  From the time they first met when Gracie was a newborn until the last time they saw each other when Gracie was not quite ten years old, the two shared a very special, very close bond.  They delighted in each other's company! Grandpa loved to rub his whiskers on Gracie's cheek like he used to do to me.  Gracie loved to hug on her Papa and play with him.

Another favorite memory is when Gracie lost her second tooth in my mom's hospital room.  Gracie had slipped on the tile floor in her sock feet and busted her lip.  Grandpa was visiting in the room at the time or came in shortly after.  I saw him get a mischievous glint in his eye, and he pulled out the top plate of his dentures showing her how he can take his teeth out, too!

Grandpa was last allowed to attend our annual Bounds Family Reunion in 2017 when he was 94 years old.  His mental faculties had been declining for a couple of years.  At my mother's funeral two years before that, not only did he not recognize my brother's daughter, but he also didn't even know that he had grown grandchildren at all!  At that time, he had been going outside at all hours of the night (sometimes not dressed properly or for the weather) to do anything from getting the mail to feeding the chickens.  Despite all of the mental confusion to that point, the family reunion was the first time that he did not recognize Gracie, but he was fascinated by her.  He kept asking, "Who is that little girl?  She looks like Mother!" as he watched her run around and play with her cousins.  Although it made me sad that he didn't know her, my heart was warmed by the fact that his heart remembered her, even if his head did not.  We are very blessed to have had the opportunity to be able to take Gracie to see him as often as we did.  I think it is important for children to know their grandparents and great grandparents well.  It is well worth the time and effort to establish lasting relationships and memories.  Children need to see that those relationships are important and need to see that the elderly are valuable.

The last thing I want to tell you about my grandfather is his integrity.  Grandpa grew up in a time when a man's word was his bond.  One thing you can be sure of is that if Gus Bounds said he was going to do something, it got done.  If Gus Bounds said that this is the way it's going to be, then that's the way it was going to happen.  He never resorted to secrecy or deception to make things happen the way he wanted to; he was an honest man, through and through, and worked for everything he had.  He never asked for anything from anybody, but freely gave from the abundance of what God had given him.  He planted a large garden to help widows of the community.  He also gave to those who asked for handouts time and time again.  I am blessed to have known him for as long as I did and am grateful to God for his influence in my daughter's and my life.

Thank you for allowing me to tell you about my grandfather.  Those of you who knew him personally know what a great man he was.  He was loved and well-respected by many.  I told my daughter today that, although he was a quiet man, when he spoke, people shut up and listened.  I believe that's because he had God-given wisdom, and he allowed the Holy Spirit to work in him to become the embodiment of a man of faithfulness and integrity.

"A faithful man shall abound with blessings." Proverbs 28:20

"The just man walketh in his integrity: his children are blessed after him." Proverbs 20:7

Here is a slideshow I put together showing some of my favorite photos of Grandpa.
 

Eulogy for Sylvia Jean Bounds Gunn

My mother Sylvia Jean Bounds Gunn at my wedding

After a long five-month battle with cancer and other health issues, my mom went Home to Heaven on March 31, 2016.  My daughter and I had the privilege of spending most of that time with her caring for her needs. Her funeral was on Friday, April 8th, and I spoke about her life.  Following is the speech that I gave.

Good morning!  I am Ava Kinsey, Sylvia's daughter.  I want to thank all of you for coming today.  I also want to thank you for the love, support, and kindness that you have shown my mother and our family over the last five months.

Many of you know Sylvia as your cousin or your friend; some of you know her as your sister or your aunt; I have always known her as my Mama.  I'm not sure, but I think Mama may have been my very first word.  I have always called my mother Mama and it is the sweetest name I know.  This is why I prefer for my little girl to call me Mama.

Today I want to share with you a little bit about my mother's life as well as just a few of the things I have learned from her as her daughter.

One of my earliest memories is as a very young child, perhaps as an infant, being held with my head in Mama's hands and bounced up and down "wooo!" and seeing her smile at me.  All of my life, Mama has displayed a happy, positive, joyful disposition in all circumstances.  She truly embodied the Scripture that says "Rejoice evermore."

It has only been in the last few months that I have recognized just how important a mother's smiling face is to a child, even a grown child as myself.  The last three months in particular were extremely difficult for my mother and it was hard to see her countenance change from a cheerful one to one heavy with pain and sufffering.  I also think about one day in particular during the last few months when I saw a text on Mama's phone that tickled my funny bone.  It made me laugh really hard.  My little girl Gracie immediately perked up and started happily laughing with me.  That's when I realized that just like my mother's happy spirit affected me, so did my spirit affect my little girl.  My mother was a joyful person.

Some of you may be familiar with the acrostic for JOY which serves as a recipe for adding joy to your life.

The J in JOY stands for Jesus First.

Mama was a wonderful example of putting Jesus First.  When we were children, she read Bible stories to us.  I was excited the other day when Tony and I were cleaning out Mama's shed in the backyard and I found a big, red book that has a sketch of Jesus on the cover.  It was the children's book of Bible stories that Mama used to read to me at bedtime.  I look forward to reading it to Gracie.

Mama also carried us to church.  She didn't just send us to church; she carried us to church.  That's Southern for "she brought us to church."

Before that, Mama was a church pianist.  She began playing the piano in church as the main pianist at the age of ten years of age!  She continued playing in church until the last six months of her life.

She also served as a church kindergarten teacher, Sunday School teacher, and helped with the Meal Ministry by fixing meals for the shut-ins of the community.  She truly was an example of someone who put Jesus first in her life.

The O in JOY stands for Others Second.

Mama was a caregiver for over 55 years.  When she was eleven years old, her baby brother Steve was born into the family.  Mama used to say that he was her baby, but I never understood that until a few months ago when I found out that when Uncle Steve was two or three months of age, Grandma gave him to Mama to take care of at night.

Later as a teenager, my grandparents worked and Mama had to take care of her brothers during the summer.  She cooked, cleaned, and did chores around the house, garden, and animals.  Whenever Uncle Ben and Uncle Steve didn't do what they were supposed to, she was the one who got in trouble.

Later she had the boys and me and took care of us.  We were always well taken care of with good food to eat and nice clothes to wear.  She also imparted unto a love for reading and learning and ensured that we received a good education.

After we were grown and had good jobs, she took care of Daddy when he had dementia. She also took care of a lady for several years and then she took care of Grandma until she died.  Finally, she took care of Grandpa.  She was an excellent caregiver for over 55 years.

The Y in JOY stands for Yourself Last.

Mama took care of others first and herself last.  She rarely asked for anything and it was hard to buy Christmas and birthday gifts for her.  However, she had no trouble standing up for her children.

Mama was a wonderful example for the verse "In honor, preferring one another."

When Mama first became sick, she didn't want to be a burden on us.  It took several talks to convince her to accept our help.  Little did any of us know that over the last five months she would have

• 7 trips to the Emergency Room
• a biopsy
• 31 radiation treatments
• 6 weeks of chemotherapy
• 6 hospital stays
• 3 ultrasounds
• 6 CT scans
• multiple chest xrays
• 3 PICC lines
• numerous breathing treatments, well over 1,000
• and many rounds of antibiotics

She lost 19 pounds in 9 days and became bedridden in about a week's time.  {This doesn't cover even half of what she went through.}

Very little of the whole experience could be called easy.  However, Mama never complained about her situation, but focused on the hope of getting better.  From her, I learned how to be strong and do the hard thing.  Standing up here and speaking is not my thing.  I can teach children, but standing up here like this is not easy for me.

Although it was hard seeing my mother go through what she did and taking care of her, it was not a burden, but it was a privilege.

One final thing that my mother taught me that has had a profound effect on my life is that she taught me about Heaven.  When I was six years old, we went to the family cemetery -- the same place where we will go after we leave the funeral home today -- so that my mother could clean some of the graves.  I remember running around, climbing on the perimeters of the graves and jumping off as six-year-olds will do and seeing all of the graves and asking, "Who's this?'  and "Who's that?"  When I pointed to a particular grave, I was surprised to learn that it was of my twin sister.  It was never kept from me that I had a twin sister, but that was the day I remember learning about her.  My mother then told me that my sister is in Heaven with Jesus and we will see her again someday.  We know that babies and small children go to Heaven because of what it says in the Bible.  King David lost a baby boy and he said (paraphrased), "He can't come back to me, but I shall go to him."  She gave me a very real, secure belief in that place called Heaven where those of us who are saved will go to spend eternity.

When Mama was in the ICU, Uncle Ben read Psalm 23 to her and she requested that he also read Psalm 100.  I learned that Psalm 100 is her favorite psalm.  My little girl memorized Psalm 100 as part of her Kindergarten Bible class.  I asked her if she would recite it here at the funeral and she said, "Mommy, you can say it all by yourself."  As I recite Psalm 100, keep in mind that if I sound like a Kindergarten teacher, it's because I am.  I teach my little girl who is in Kindergarten.  More importantly than that, listen to the words of Psalm 100 and see my mother's life.

Psalm 100
Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands.
Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing.
Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.
Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations.

My Grandma's Funeral Program

Please click on the images to view full size.

Left:  Gus and Wilna Bounds as newlyweds.  The Gus Bounds Family circa 1990's (Steve Bounds, Ben Bounds, Sylvia Bounds, Gus Bounds, Wilna Bounds).  Right:  Wilna Bounds at my wedding on December 1, 2007.

One error:  They were married on December 27, 1941, not 1942.  None of my proofreaders caught it, either, but I still feel bad about it.

My Grandma's Early Life as told by Sylvia Gunn

 My mother, Sylvia Jean Bounds Gunn, spoke at my Grandma's funeral.  Here is the text for the notes she used.

I'm standing up here to tell you about Mother's early life, her years in the Baptist orphanage until the time they met.  Daddy wants her family to know about those early years.

At the age of seven, Mother's daddy passed away.  Grandma was not capable of supporting all of those children.  Grandma had an older sister named Lillian.  Great Aunt Lillian and her husband had a drug store on the coast.  Great Aunt Lillian made arrangements for the four middle children to go to the Baptist orphanage in Jackson, Mississippi.  Uncle A.J. and my mother's sister, Aunt Lillian, were too old to go.  Aunt Ina Mae was a baby, and she didn't go.  Before Great Aunt Lillian died, Mother wrote her a letter and thanked her for loving them enough to see that they were well cared for.

And well cared for, they were!  If one needed to go to a doctor, they were taken to the doctor.  If one needed to go to the dentist, they were taken to the dentist.  They were taken to every event that came to Jackson -- the circus, etc.  They were given free tickets.

Every Friday night, they lined up and each child was checked for head lice.  Almost every time new children were brought to live, they came with head lice, and it would spread throughout the orphanage; therefore, the need for frequent head checks!

They were picked up and taken to church.  Mother loved going.  One Sunday, she was so excited when they arrived to get them that she went running out to meet them and slipped and knocked herself out on the walkway.  She spent the next couple of daays in the infirmary.  She said she did not like that because she was in there alone, except for the matron who stayed with her.

Each child had a job to do.  Mother's job was to help make 900 biscuits every morning!  Her job was to put them in the oven.

She said people from all over the state of Mississippi would send food by the boxcarload by train.  They had plenty of good food to eat.

Every Christmas each child would write down three things they wanted, and would receive one of the three things as a gift for Christmas.  Every year, Mother would write down "skates, skates, and skates!"  She said she would wear out a pair of skates every year!  Mother was skating champion, girls long jump champion, and wrestlling champion.

She would not let anyone run over her -- boy or girl -- no matter how much bigger they were than her.  No one could win a fight over her -- boy or girl!  Once she found out someone had mistreated Aunt Janice (another one of the children).  She went and found that person and walloped her a good one, and said, "Don't you ever mess with my sister again!"

The orphanage had a choir and the choir was called "The Songbirds."  They sang acapella.  Mother was a member of this choir singing alto.  They would go all over the state of Mississippi to the different churches and sing to raise money for the orphanage.  If it was a distance away, they would go and spend the night with different members of the church they were to sing at.

They would depend on different people to take them where they needed to go.

Do you remember Octagon soap?  Each bar of soap would have a coupon.  People from all over the state of Mississippi would save the Octagon soap coupons and send them to the orphanage.  They saved enough octogan soap coupons to get a bus.  That must have been a lot of coupons!  The children named the bus.  They named it "The coupon!"

When Mother was 16 years old, her brother, Uncle Bill Lee, and her sister Aunt Ava Reid came and got Mother and brought her back here.  She took turns living with the older half-brothers and sisters.

All of her adult life, she never thought of her nieces and nephews as nieces and nephews.  She thought of all of you as her brothers and sisters, and she loved you all dearly.

Daddy was the best of friends with Cooter and L.D. Archer, two  of Mother's nephews.  Mother was at aunt Silistine (Cooter and LD's mother) and Daddy rode his bicycle over to see Cooter and LD.

Cooter hopped on Daddy's bicycle, left, and was gone for hours, leaving him there with Mother.  Of course, Aunt Silistine and the little girls were there, too.

Daddy said he and Mother sat on the front steps getting acquainted.  Uncle Elbert had a patch of sugar cane.  Daddy went and cut a stalk, sat on the step with Mother, peeled the cane, cut Mother a chew, and cut him a chew.  They chewed that whole stalk, so he went and cut another stalk.  He said he didn't remember how many stalks they chewed, but they chewed cane until they got sweet on each other!  He told me this story about a year ago.  After telling it, he looked at Mother and said, "And we're still sweet on each other, aren't we, Wilna?"  Mother looked at him, and smiled and nodded her head.

And you all know the story of the rest of her life.

My Grandma's Obituary

A Tribute to Wilna Bounds

My Grandma Wilna Pauline Lee Bounds went to Heaven on Wednesday night. She was 90 years old and had been married for 70 years.
Words cannot fully express how wonderful she was to me. As the only granddaughter, I held a very special position in the family. My Grandma was a very important part of my life.
She taught me how to crochet at the age of 7. She taught me how to make Jacob's Ladder and a crow's foot with a piece of string. She made clothes for me and my Barbies. She took me to garage sales and bought me wonderful books. She took me swimming at the beach and made me wear my shoes so I wouldn't cut my feet on any glass. After my incessant begging, she climbed up in the attic to get the baby clothes she made by hand for my mother. She took the time to wash and iron all of them before letting me have them for my baby dolls. She prayed with me at night (we blessed everybody from Mama and Daddy to the horses and dogs, everybody we could think of). She let me play with her fabric scraps when she sewed. She kept toys at her house such as the Little People farm set (we had to put tissue in the crack of the horse's leg so it would stay put) and a pogo stick. As a teenager I would call and talk to her for hours even though she lived just right across the road. On several birthdays and Christmases she gave me roller skates -- all because that had been her favorite gift growing up in the orphanage. I still remember her alto voice singing in church.

Grandma suffered from Alzheimer's for several years. My mother was her primary caregiver devoting MUCH time, worry, and care. Before I was married, I hoped and prayed that she would live long enough to come to my wedding. When I became pregnant, I hoped and prayed she would live long enough to meet my baby. I knew that I would name my daughter after her. My daughter's name is Grace Elizabeth Lee Kinsey. The Lee is after her. My middle name is Pauline after my Grandma as well. When Gracie was one month old, we took her on her first road trip. We went for a weekend visit to South Mississippi. When we arrived, my Grandma was sitting on the couch at my mom's. I brought the baby over to her, and they both smiled at each other. You can see Grandma's beautiful, happy smile in the picture above. Gracie had smiled on occasion before, but that weekend she began smiling often. Such a wonderful memory!

I last saw my Grandma at Christmastime. Before we left, I went to say goodbye. At each previous goodbye, I wondered if that would be the last. This time she was asleep in her recliner. I woke her up. She looked up at me and gave me the same beautiful, happy smile as in the picture above. I could tell she was more lucid than she had been in months. She looked peaceful instead of nervous. I talked with her telling her we love her. I asked her if she knew who the baby was, and she said "Gracie." I reminded her of how we named Gracie after her because we love her. This time, I knew God was giving me the gift of a special time with her before she went to Heaven.

The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage. (Psalm 16:6)

Her children arise up, and call her blessed. A woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised. (Proverbs 31:28, 30)