Sunday dinner tradition is back

Posted by on Friday, May 27, 2011 in June 2011.

Barbara Carr couldn’t wait to get back to hosting Sunday dinners. It had been a tradition in her family for as long as she could remember.

All of that changed when the May floods took over her home, leaving her with only the clothes on her back.

“It was a task,” said an exasperated Carr, a supervisor in housekeeping and building services at Vanderbilt. “Actually it was nerve-racking because of all the decisions I had to make, oftentimes at the last minute. I was back at work and had to ask off a couple of hours some days just to go tend to the house.

“It only took a few minutes and everything was wiped out,” she said. “But it takes a lot longer to rebuild.”

Carr is counting her blessings today. She and her 87-year-old mother are safely back at home. And Sunday dinners are in full swing.

“We moved back home on a Saturday in September and [the next day] we were back into our Sunday routine with dinner after church.

“I just count my blessings because we came out of all of this safe,” she said. “We lost so much in the flood, but I am smiling now because I had insurance to rebuild and now we can just move forward.”

—Jessica Pasley