Fay Risner

The Cavorter Fay Risner

"Life ain't fair. You have to be stronger than it is to take what you can get." That was just one of the life lessons Lizzy Cobb was fond of repeating to her ten children when life wasn't going to suit her. She had many more sayings, but to her children, when they became adults, their mother's remembered sayings sounded more like Lizzy's excuses to do whatever she wanted. The family made a sudden move to Iowa to keep Lizzy Cobb's husband, Logan, from being arrested by the law in Virginia. A few years later, the family moved again to hide in the Missouri Ozarks. This time it was to protect Lizzy from the law in Iowa. After Lizzy's husband, Logan became terminally ill, she said, "The Lord taketh and so will I." When Lizzy needed money to take care of her family, the children soon found out what she meant. Each time Logan or Lizzy was in trouble with the law, Lizzy made her children promise to keep their mouths shut forever. It was only after her death that the tales slipped out from Lizzy's children to her grandchildren. Lizzy's children preferred to call their mother colorful for her way of living life as she pleased which spanned just before the Civil War when she was born until she died during World War Two. The daughters that lived near Lizzy were mortified when they heard the talk behind her back by the town gossips. In their dirt digger zeal, they discussed with enthusiasm Lizzy's marriages each time she acquired a new husband through a lovelorn column. The town gossips called Lizzy Cobb, Westerman, Gordon, Simmers The Cavorter.