“Sometimes it’s better to sit back and listen and have that ear instead of giving your opinion,” advised Cristal Lewis. “Always put God first and then family. That’s what has always made us prosper. The family that prays together stays together.”
Cristal Lewis has always been selfless and only wants to do what she can to bless others. She maintains a strong faith and uses that to be able to bless those around her.
“I just volunteer in the community or where I’m needed. Sometimes people I know just need an ear and not necessarily for me to do anything but just be that ear to listen to them,” explained Cristal. “I have a neighbor that I’ll just go sit down and talk to, and it just brightens her day.”
Her joy of being around others started at a young age, and she continues the favorite family tradition she grew up with in her own family.
“Growing up as a child, my favorite memory was always on Sundays when we always got together at my grandmother’s. As long as she lived, that’s where we went, and we knew where we went. Everybody in the family came, and that became my favorite thing,” expressed Cristal. “It’s still my favorite thing. I have my children, little Curtis especially, and then I invite Berry and some friends to come for Sunday lunch. I love to cook for people.”
Her love of cooking and blessing others with food extends beyond just her family. She cooks for anyone she sees has a need, especially her Rolling Creek Baptist Church family that she loves so much.
“I do stuff mainly on the baking side. I love to bake; I love to cook in general,” declared Cristal. “Ms. June Goldman always picked on me and called me Meals on Wheels because before I’d go to church on Sundays, I’d always make sure she had a meal. I try to do the same thing for others in our community.”
One of the most popular things she bakes is actually a cake made from a secret recipe that was given to her years ago.
“The most popular thing that people look forward to is my Hershey bar cake,” informed Cristal. “I got that recipe from Dean Ivey. It was handed down, and she told me when she gave it to me that I couldn’t give that recipe to anyone else until I know my time baking is about to be over. Poor Jay Ivey wants that recipe so bad. I told him I’d love to give it to him, but I made a promise, and I’m not going to break that promise.”
While she loves cooking, she is able to care for and help others in other ways as well.
“I love to care for people. That’s always been my heart: to do for others instead of myself. I just have to have something or someone to look forward to helping, to take that meal to, or to just make sure that they’re okay and having a good day,” proclaimed Cristal. “I took care of my granddaddy for 15 years. Well, I really just saw after him because he lived on his own. I’d go every day to see about him. He wasn’t really a granddaddy to me; he was really my daddy.”
One of her main inspirations in her life has been her mom, and she taught Cristal how to work hard in life.
“I really look up to my mom because she really worked hard. She worked hard to see that we had what we needed. I guess that’s what made me decide to work so hard for my children,” expressed Cristal. “As a mother, you always want your children to have better than what you had. I didn’t have a bad life, but I just wanted better for them.”
She never forgot the example her mom gave her and has always been a hard worker over the years. She has also loved the jobs that she’s had.
“I worked for Troy at Long’s Fish Camp as a waitress for 10 years, and then I worked at the tax collector’s office for 10 years. I would like to thank Hope for giving me a job because I had never been on a computer, but she had faith in me that I could do it. I worked for Matthew Skidmore for a little while too,” explained Cristal. “Before then, I worked at Quitman Knitting Mill and at Berry’s. While working for the Berry’s, Becky taught me how to work and to love my job, and I have enjoyed every job that I have had. I’ve had a pretty good experience in life with jobs. It seems like jobs have come to me and not me going to them. Now, I work with my son at A&M. I really enjoy interacting with people.”
While she has devoted a great deal of her time working and doing what she could for her family, she was eventually able to achieve something that has been a dream of hers since she was a teenager. She was finally able to go back to school and attain her GED.
“I dropped out of school my eleventh grade year. I got married and had Tabitha when I was 17,” remembered Cristal. “It was always my dream that one day when I got my children grown that I would go back and get my GED, so 28 years later I went back and got my GED. That was a big accomplishment for me. Having a 28 year of schooling was a big difference. The way it was done when I was coming through school compared to the way it was done then was really different. I could get the answer the way I had already been taught, but they wanted it to be done a different way than I learned. I had my daughters that helped me get through it. They had to coach me through it and would tell me I could do it.”
She lives a relatively simple life, and most of it has revolved around her family.
“I’ve been married to Curtis for 41 years. We have three children and four grandchildren. That’s what my life revolves around: my husband and children,” stated Cristal. “The first 15 years we were married, we lived at Rolling Creek. The next 26 years, we lived in Taylortown. It was always Curtis’s dream to come back to Rolling Creek, so that’s where we reside now.”
Now that all of her kids are grown and gone, she loves to chase around her grandkids and spend time with them as much as she can. She has plans for her and her husband to do more of the travelling that they love and to spend as much time with her grandbabies that she can.
“Now that we’re getting older, it’s mine and Curtis’s time. We both work hard to do for our children and all. Now, it’s our time, and we’re fixing to start travelling. He’s going to retire pretty soon, and when he does, we’re going to go enjoy life,” declared Cristal. “We camp out of a camper. We’ve been to Tennessee and Gulf Shores. We’re a member at Sticks River Resort, and we go there a lot. We’ve also camped on the Mississippi. We take the camper down for a month in March. Sarah rides jumper horses, so we take it down so that they can stay in it, and we can stay in it too.”
No matter what life throws at her, Cristal will always continue to be there for others and make sure that she helps them in any way she can. She will continue to offer boundless love to those around her as she spreads joy through her graciousness.
If you would like to nominate someone for Person of the Week, contact Brittney Mangum at 601-776-3726
