100 Years Ago Today

On July 29, 1907 my Granny was born.

My mother worked when I was a young girl and Granny took care of me. She also took care of my sister and brother. We were all very close to her. I guess in keeping with tradition, I have been blessed with having my mother take care of my children, and I in turn hope to be able to repay both of them by caring for my grandchildren one day.

Granny was a great influence in our lives. Her house was a haven for me. Daddy was drinking bad after my sister and brother were on their own. I am nine years younger than brother and thirteen years younger than sister. I went to Granny and Popaw's house every day when Mama worked. I told Granny everything and I have let my children know that it is okay to tell their Granny anything that is on their mind. Because, a Granny is a great person to have.

She knew everything about what was going on in my life. She taught me to stand on my own two feet. She taught me to trust in God to get me through it. She taught me to pray and to sing praises to God. She taught me that church was important. She taught me my first hymn, "Wonderful Words of Life." She loved to hear me sing. She would get out the song book, open the windows and say sing to me. I would sing hymns to her and she would sit and listen.

She liked it that I am tall. She would measure me every month or so and would say you are 5'6" and 3/4". Don't forget that 3/4".

I confided everything in Granny -- about boys, about school, about friends, about my brother and sister, and my cousin. EVERYTHING. She would cook and I would sit beside the refrigerator on a stool and talk. Mostly she would just listen, but every now and then she would offer advice. I remember talking about boys when I was a teenager and she told me -- "Honey, don't get too worried about one boy, because you haven't even met the ONE yet."

Popaw told me she was beautiful. He first saw her when she was twelve years old, walking a rail fence. She had long black pigtails, and coal black eyes. He said he looked at the feller with him and said, "That's the gal I'm gonna marry one day." They married in 1924 and were married until she passed on June 8, 1989. They had four children of whom Granny could tell you the day, date, hour, minute of their birth BUT she would fuss that she didn't get to name any of her children, Popaw named them all.

This picture was taken when their oldest was away in WWII. Their younger son was in the service and went over seas too. Their daughters (Mama is the younger one here) married and all in all they had 11 grandchildren. Two by marriage, but they loved them as much as those born by blood.

Popaw said he got drunk once and Granny told him, you ever do this again and Me and the kids will be gone. He never drank again. He never understood the hold that the alcohol had over my father, but he loved my Daddy. Granny said, I pray for B** he's had a hard life. Never once did my Granny say a harsh word about my Daddy, and she wouldn't let me disrespect him either.

Granny called us every day. If they went to the store, she'd call and tell us where they were going. She was at church every time the door was open, but I laugh because on Wednesday nights she'd always fuss (she liked to fuss a little) that it just came too fast after Sunday. She kept these little notes beside the back door and whenever they left, she'd slip them into the screen and they would say "Gone to the store, be right back." "Gone to town." "Gone to church." She reused them. They were usually written on the back of an old envelope. My sister still has one of them.

Granny grew up in the depression. When she died we cleaned out the kitchen cabinets and found a drawer full of bread bags, bread ties, reused aluminum foil, etc. She was conservative. She used everything.

Popaw said to me one day when we visited her grave site that they NEVER had a fight. They NEVER went to bed angry at each other. I betcha Granny would disagree. She'd get so aggravated at him. She worried about what people would think -- he'd whistle through the grocery store and she'd say, "listen to him, people are gonna think he's crazy." When he quit farming he'd sit on a tobacco sack and pull weeds from his lawn, "look at him, the neighbors are gonna think he's crazy."

He chewed tobacco, but not in the house, and not around Granny. He'd take me on walks to town so he could chew his tobacco. One day we came home from a walk and had been having a big time. The stove sat in the middle of the floor, so you could walk around it. We both grabbed a pan and a spoon and began marching around the stove chanting..."Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit, the more you eat the more you poot, the more you poot the better you feel, Beans, Beans, at every meal." Granny came stomping out of the bedroom with the phone receiver in her hand, the mouthpiece covered. You two be quiet, I'm on the phone with someone from church, Sister so and so is going to think ya'll are awful. Popaw and I spent the rest of the day on the back porch.

Granny taught me to embroider, crochet, quilt, make rugs, sew, cook, sign language, write, and read. Granny and I walked to town (about 1 1/2 miles) carrying a shoebox full of change and opened my first bank account with $66.00. Granny would get out the family Bible and show me the history, and we would go through old pictures over and over and she'd tell me about everyone of them. Granny had a sixth grade education.

Granny and Popaw moved to town when I was six or seven but I remember living on the farm. I remember walking through the fields to the neighbors house and seeing a snake, Granny said leave it alone, be still, it is one of God's creatures, let it be. I remember killing chickens, I remember, the garden, I remember the sweat peas growing up the side of the porch. I remember the cellar with all of the canned goods. I don't remember her story of saving my life when she was canning but she said I was a little over two and she thought, I'd better take her in the other room, that pressure cooker has been acting up. She took me out of the room and went back to canning, the pressure cooker exploded. I remember the back porch and her telling me about keeping my brother from being bored by giving him a fly swatter and telling him she'd give him a penny for every fly he killed. I remember oat meal cream pies, orange sherbert, I remember the layout of the old house.

I remember her teaching me to write on the walls of the stripping room (tobacco). I remember her teaching me to strip tobacco and letting me tie the tobacco up. I remember gathering turnips in the fall. It is amazing what all I remember from those young days.

I hate to say it so bluntly, but Granny raised me. Mama was busy dealing with other things. I was a child of the 60's and 70's raised by a woman of the twenties. I wouldn't have my life any other way.

I could go on for pages and pages about my Granny. But I will sum up that she was dearly loved by us all. When she was in the hospital these roses were in bloom in her back yard. Popaw would pick them every day and take them to her.

At her funeral people came from miles around to see this quiet unassuming woman. I heard the funeral director say that her funeral processional was one of the longest he had seen in our home town.

She was a good woman, she was strong, she was MY Granny. I miss her. I think she would be proud of me today. I know she would be proud of my babies. I try to remember the things that she taught me. Especially to pray and to always sing.

My brother and I both named our first daughter after Granny.