Page 54 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2021- Online Magazine
P. 54
Exceptional
Pat Ham SENIORS
Loving Lubbock
and Giving Back
as told to Sharmai Ham
oving Lubbock comes so My family eventually
naturally, having lived here sold that farm and
Lall my life – by choice, I might opened a restaurant,
add! I was born a farm girl, in the Pansy’s Café, named
truest sense of the word, and spent after my mother.
my childhood running through the Mom taught us to find
cotton fields and sand, dust blowing something we loved,
in my face and mud between my and “if you work
toes after wading through the playa hard at it, you will
lake next to our farm. That playa be a success!” That
lake happens to be Maxie Park was not an easy thing
today, and I loved every moment! for a woman to do in
When I was 13 years old, I was those days. But Mom
allowed to get a hardship driver’s was an impressive
license, and I even had my own car! role model because
I thought Lubbock was the coolest Pansy’s Café was just
place in the world for allowing me that – a notable success! In fact, them before the press got there.
this privilege, even if there were Pansy’s Café was doing so well They did not want him to hear it on
some restrictions! When I drive that, by the third year, she had to the news the way Buddy’s poor wife
through our wonderful Medical rebuild the café over three times the and mother had. It was a sad day for
District, Maxey Park to 19th Street original size to accommodate her all of us.
and Nashville to Quaker Ave., I many loyal patrons! People would That café holds so many of my
remember that this was where I line up outside Mom’s restaurant, favorite memories growing up; I
called home and made so many surrounding the building, even in wish it were still there on 19th Street
wonderful memories. our West Texas sandstorms, just today.
for the taste of Mom's chicken fried
steak. Pansy’s Café, much like Lubbock had allowed my mother
Lubbock itself, grew rapidly! to become a success, and I was
determined to do the same! I took
If buildings could talk, that café my mother’s wisdom to heart. Right
would have some wild stories to tell! after high school, I got married
One sad story always comes to mind and had two beautiful daughters,
though: Feb. 3, 1959, “the day the Michaela and Sharmai. My husband,
music died”. Buddy Holly's father Mickey, began a chain of food stores
and brother had breakfast at Pansy’s – 14 to be exact – called Ham’s Food
Café most mornings, but on that Marts, and the girls grew up helping
morning, my daddy got a phone stock the shelves and whatever else
call. It was the authorities asking needed to be done. I wanted my
him to tell Mr. Holley the news that girls to learn the value of working
his son, Buddy, had died in a plane hard. Even if they spent their pay
crash. They wanted Daddy to tell
54 Lubbock Senior Link
