The Grapevine Art & Soul Salon

Manta Mae Adams Lester: September 12, 1917 - December 13, 2013

Manta Lester was my friend and my "second mother" as she put it when my first mother died back in 1995. Here is an excerpt from the eulogy I wrote for her memorial service:

About two weeks before she died, while I was sitting with her, aware of how much she was ailing and how hard it was for her to keep coming back from agitation that had finally turned into a peaceful sleep, she suddenly jerked awake, sat up a little bit, and burst out with, "I do believe God is going to force me to live forever!"

Concerning her intelligence, I have thought many times that if she had been born a little later when women were more often encouraged to pursue profesional education, she might have been a doctor, for she had an encyclopedic knowledge of medicines and treatments that she learned about from personal experience and from the books she kept within reach. Or she might have been an artist. Her interest in art was deep and long-lasting.

As it was, at college she majored in home economics, then went to work at the first job offered, which was selling draperies for a major Atlanta department store, and eventually moved over into real estate when the right opportunities came along.

She married a good man and had a good son, both of whom were intelligent and loving companions until each of them died, her husband ten years ago and her son nearly seven years ago. She dreamed a year or so ago that she was flying above a large house that might have been a mansion, and she flew down to where her husband and her son and her father were waiting for her, to take her in by the front door. She was a front-door kind of person, and I am glad that God finally let her have her way.

The photo on the left is one made by Nancie Sill of Manta in Paris when she was in her 80s.

During the months since her passing, I have collected the poems that I wrote about her and that she read, poems that show her wonderful sense of humor and her enjoyment of life, and have put them together with a few "found poems" in her own words. These will be published in a chapbook called MANTA Poems, due out in January 2015 from Finishing Line Press. What a joy to be able to honor her in this way.

_______Barbara Knott

Here is a composite photo designed by Bill Kennedy, from photos made by Nancy Law, for possible use on the cover of the book, showing Manta at Zoo Atlanta, being teased by a goat. Go to our Poetry Reading section for more information about the book.