Alice Marie Webb Choate was Mum to her grandchildren — Lee and Michael among them. To everyone else she was Mrs. Choate, Alice-Marie, or simply Ree. She was Donna Quessenberry’s mother and Jim’s mother-in-law, and one of the quiet forces behind the household that made the brand.
She hosted the Webb family reunions in Floyd, Arkansas that kept the extended family tethered across generations. Those reunions were the kind of all-day affairs the Delta produces: long tables, generations of cousins, food cooked from memory rather than recipe. Jim valued those gatherings the same way he valued all-night pit fires in Birdeye — food is how you hold people together.
She was also an unexpected TV critic. When reality-show editing on The All-Star BBQ Showdown made it look like Michael was drinking heavily during the competition, Mum’s stink-eye is one her grandson says he can still feel.
