The Women of Duck Commander Read Free Page B

become duck call royalty!
    Korie and Willie married while they were in college and they laugh now about having to go to a friend’s house to do their laundry. They were on such a tight budget that their favorite mealtime splurge was chicken strips and macaroni and cheese out of a box. Willie has always been an industrious person and a hard worker. All of his life, he has been happy to pick up odd jobs for extra money, but in the early years of his and Korie’s marriage, they were both in college and money was tight. When their children were young, Korie worked in a paid position as children’s minister at our church. She also used her skills as a fine artist to paint detailed pictures on duck calls and sold them at hunting shows.
    When I married Jep and for several years afterward, I had numerous jobs, including making hand-sewn heirloom dresses and smocked children’s clothes to sell to boutiques, working as a Realtor, and being a sales representative for a clothing company. Though Jep has always been the head of our home and the leader of our family, I have always tried to contribute financially as best I could. When we first got married, several years before Duck Dynasty started, we lived in a little trailer and could barely make ends meet. We just wanted to be able to pay our bills, buy groceries, and put gas in our cars.
    I can say with complete confidence that each one of us wives married her husband because she loved and respected him; we knewthey were men we could honor and trust. All of us value and appreciate these men because of who they are on the inside, not because they are now TV stars. We all married them when they had very little, and we were happy. We struggled financially, just as many other couples do—and we were happy. Now God has blessed us with more resources than we have ever had, and we’re still happy. But I can assure you that all of us would rather have strong, solid marriages with godly men than have all the riches this world could offer. And you can take that to the bank!

2
    THE CHEERLEADER AND THE QUARTERBACK
    Miss Kay
    I cannot remember a time in my life when I did not want to grow up, get married, and raise a family. I can remember a couple of times when I wanted to be an airline stewardess or a teacher, but those did not last very long. Being a wife and mother was always my dream, and it was never far from my mind. As I mentioned earlier, I not only wanted to be a wife and mother, I wanted to be the best wife and mother on earth. I believed that if I could do that, I would have a happy family and a great life.
    As a child, the best role models I had were my grandparents. I loved my mom and dad, too, but my mother did some strange things I later found out were due to alcohol use, and my father, whom I adored, died when I was only fourteen years old. Before he passed away, my parents ran the local store in our community, abusiness that was in our family for seventy-five years. Taking care of the store took most of their time, so I spent a lot of time either at the store visiting with customers or with my grandparents.
    A P OWERFUL I NFLUENCE
    My grandmother, whom I called Nannie, loved to tell me stories from the old days and had a powerful influence on me. She married at the age of fifteen. She went to school for a short time before she had to quit but learned a lot about life because she survived some very hard times. She was also a woman of wisdom, because she was a woman of great faith, and faith and wisdom usually go together. She was a great cook and spent a lot of time working in the kitchen, like many women of her generation—before microwaves and the other gadgets that make cooking easy these days. She had a big, full garden and taught me all about gardening. At her house I had the best time picking vegetables, shelling peas, and shucking corn with her in preparation for a meal. She seemed to be cooking all the time and taught me to cook at a young age. One of my very favorite