I don’t know much about the relationship between Hubert and Maud. It is said that Hubert had a temper and took it out on his children at times, but I haven’t heard stories of his taking it out on her. However, she probably was afraid of his anger and maybe used "wiles" sometimes to get what she wanted. In a conversation with me and other women, probably my aunts, she said that if she couldn’t get what she wanted from him she would sometimes cry – lie across the bed with her face down and cry. It worked! The way she told the story it was humorous and showed a side of her that I had not known about before. She was great telling a funny story!
Lorene says she remembers her mother telling the children that she could tell when Hubert was mad by the way he walked and would imitate that walk. This, of course, was done out of his sight and was apparently meant to help them know when to be quiet and stay out of his way.
Maud did not take public roles. While Hubert liked to take leadership roles and lead singing, for instance, Maud did not. She did not pray in public or "testify" in church. I heard her once tell about the time when she was so ill, that she prayed and promised that if she lived she would see that her children were Christian and I have no doubt that she herself was devoutly Christian. Clyde says he remembers when he and the other children were still small, that she would sometimes call them in during the afternoon and kneel down with them and pray for them. He never forgot it.
Many times there would not be a functioning church in the Banner community, but they sometimes went to Uncle Leonard Cranford’s at Wolf Bayou and attended the Oak Grove Methodist Church. Some of the children were baptized there. Later she was inclined to prefer non-denominational churches. She became disenchanted with the way the local churches were operated with a great deal of arguing and controversy between them. This probably made her susceptible to the Jehovah’s Witness representatives in her later years. She listened to them, took them seriously and agreed with them in many things. She would get their literature from the Rudolphs but didn’t let Hubert see the literature. Hubert didn’t like or agree with the Jehovah’s Witness people and made them leave when he saw them there.