I have always had an affinity for old things, old people and old ways. When I was a kid one of my favorite places on earth was my Great-grandma Armstrongs house. I was blessed to have known two of my great-grandmas, one of my great-grandpas, both of my grandmas and one of my grandpas. We always called Great-grandma Armstrong, Little Grandma. She stood about four feet, six inches high and might have weighed in at around ninety pounds. She was the mother of my Nan - Neva Starnes. Little Grandma wore her white hair in a bun pulled tight on the top of her head. She was a fine Christian woman with a non-spoken and non-judgmental Victorian modesty. I never saw the womans elbows. She always wore dresses and those dresses came down past her elbows and well below the knees of course. My Grandmas dad had died when Nan was fourteen so by the time I came along Little Grandma had been a widow for years. When her husband died she tried to hold on to the farm, but it was too much for her so she sold it to a relative and moved to town. Nan never talks about her childhood with anything except fond memories. Of course anyone that knows Nan knows that she is never given to complaining and finds the best in everyone and every situation. Until recently I didnt realize how poor her upbringing was. Nan was the youngest and the other siblings had grown up and moved on by the time her dad had died. She told stories of Little Grandma making home-made mustard and mixing it with egg whites and making a sandwich, convincing her that it was cheese when they couldnt afford real cheese. She related the stories of brushing her teeth with a twig and baking soda and said that when the county health lady brought a tiny tube of tooth paste and passed it out at school she consumed it before she got home because it was like candy. As Nan got older evidently the social status of being poor affected her some. She relates the story of riding to town in a wagon in the 1930s with her mom, cousins and uncle. Her uncle steadfastly refused to buy a truck and Nan said she and her cousins would crawl under a blanket in the bed of the wagon so their friends wouldnt see them as they rode into town. By the time I came along Little Grandma was, well in my eyes VERY old. She lived to be close to 100 years old. Her little house wasnt much, and although its long since been torn down, it remains one of my favorite places. A simple four room house with a living room (Little Grandma called it a parlor) two bedrooms and a kitchen. There was a bathroom added on as a lean-too that ran on the south side of the house. The lean-too was partitioned with part as a bathroom and part as the pantry which consisted of a few shelves, a counter and the kitchen sink. The kitchen sink never had dirty water go down the drain. Little Grandma always used a dish-pan and dumped the dish water outside on the huge snow-ball bush in her backyard next to the wood shed. In fact, you didnt even wash your hands in the kitchen sink. There was a enamel bowl on a stool next to the wood cook stove in the main part of the kitchen with a towel hanging over it where you washed your hands. While others were welcomed to use the indoor plumbing of the bathroom, I remember asking about the slop jar next to Little Grandmas bed and I really didnt get a straight answer. Little Grandmas blind cousin we called Aunt Rosy lived with her. Aunt Rosy was fun. Plain and simple, she loved to laugh and tell jokes. Of course we took full advantage of that and played Ring around the Rosy simply for the irony I suppose. I would come into Little Grandmas house with a toy truck or tractor and Aunt Rosy would say let me see that. Of course she couldnt see it, but she would feel it and tell me, Thats a fine truck. Little Grandmas house had a big hump in the parlor floor. The house was literally sinking to the ground at the edges, but it was great for rolling toy trucks and cars and tractors down. Aunt Rosy would get in the floor and play with me, even though she used a cane to walk. She even danced with us, telling us that our preacher grandpa didnt need to know and besides she wasnt Baptist so it was alright. Little Grandma never owned an electric or gas cook-stove. She cooked on the wood cook stove until she died. In the winter it felt good to crawl out of the big feather bed in the spare bedroom and stand next to that stove. In the summer she got up at 4 AM and cooked all the meals for the day before the sun came up. I woke up this morning thinking about Little Grandma and missing her and her house and her smile. Like Nan, her daughter, Little Grandma seemed to always be happy. I guess my paternal Holbrook pessimism got tempered enough by my maternal sides quiet happiness to help me realize that even though things get tough and lifes circumstances get me down, its so much better to live looking for something good instead of letting the bad things drag me down. Theres so much negative, and while it may be good to be aware of it, Id rather try to find something good to think about today. Something good, like Little Grandma.
Posted on: Thu, 16 Oct 2014 11:13:19 +0000
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