A Time For Heart To Care

as i've been doing for the past few weeks, i continue to write about those who've gone before me, to honor my ancestors and learn from them.  this week i write about my father's mother, known to her grandchildren as "mama w."  mama w was my grandfather's second wife, the first having died at a young age.  she raised his son, her stepson, along with my dad and his older brother and sister.  

mama w was a woman of many talents.  she loved photography and took photos of her family and friends throughout her life.  in the days when only black and white photos were possible, she learned to colorize her photos beautifully.  these hand-tinted photos were real works of art in her hands.  she also was adept at needlework, creating beautiful pieces of knitted and crocheted yarn.  i still have the pillow and blanket she made for me in my school colors when i graduated from high school.

she was fortunate that my grandfather was well off, so that she could pursue her hobbies without worrying about their cost.  the downside of that good fortune was that she had to raise her stepson and their own three children with little help from him, because his work kept him away from home six days a week.  she was alone with the children except for a few hours on the weekends.  because of his absence, she developed into a very independent, self-confident woman who managed her household and finances quite well.  

she loved her extended family deeply.  her four sisters and their families lived nearby in the same county where they were all born, and she visited or was visited by them frequently.  her three brothers didn't live close enough to visit often, but they all got together at least a couple of times a year and kept in touch frequently.  when she and my grandfather built a new brick home not far from their first home, two of her sisters moved into their older wood-frame home.  another sister lived in a small house behind the old home.  later in life, after all the children were grown and married with families of their own, the fourth sister and her husband moved their home from out in the country onto a lot mama w owned right behind her own yard, so all four lived only a few steps from one another.

mama w was fascinated by genealogy, having researched her family history back to the time of the american revolution.  she was in possession of the family bible that had been brought by her grandfather and his family when they moved to arkansas before it became a state.  like her, i was interested in family history, which endeared me to her.  when she died, she left a note in the bible that said, "i want j to have this bible."  it still sits on a bookshelf in our study.  one bit of family lore she told me was about my great-great-uncle jim, her mother's brother.  uncle jim had died long before i was born, so what little i know of him comes from mama w.  it seems that uncle jim went to st. louis as young man to study medicine and became a doctor.  he returned home to practice, but early in his career one of his patients died.  he was so distraught about his inability to save this patient that he abandoned his dream of being a doctor in rural arkansas and was a farmer the remainder of his life.

i always spent a week or two in the summer with my paternal grandparents, and mama w and i became great friends.  she took me everywhere she went when i came to visit.  we did the grocery shopping together, visited her firends and family, and attended church services.  she even would take me with her to doctor appointments if they fell during the time i was visiting her.  she talked in a calm, quiet voice, and her calm manner was a great influence on me.  her home was always quiet and peaceful, even when it was many family members were there, a marked contrast to my maternal grandparents' home which was always filled with boisterous conversation and laughter.  i loved both atmospheres, and they combined to make me who i am.

when i was to enter my second year of college, i planned to live with my grandmother and commute the ten miles or so to the next town where my school was located.  in august of that summer, just before my college was to begin the fall semester, mama w suffered a massive stroke.  i remember driving over to visit her in the hospital.  she lay in her hospital bed, unable to speak.  i could tell from her eyes and the expression on her face that she recognized me and was happy to see me.  a few days later, she died.  her children and their spouses were gathered around her bed, but we grandchildren weren't allowed in the room.  i was so sad that i hadn't been able to be with my dear mama w during those last moments of her life and that i was unable to spend that year living in her home and enjoying her company.

may we learn that the differences between those we love don't make one person better than another.  may we accept others as they are and love them for being who they are.  may we honor those who've gone before, remembering what they contributed to making us who we are.  shalom.

Still In Heart and Conscience Free

my papaw, my mother's father, was a giant of a man, or at least he seemed so to me.  he was well over six feet tall with a large, powerful frame.  he had a shock of white hair on his head and a rugged, wrinkled face, full of character.  he dwarfed most other people.  when he spoke, his voice had a tenderness that belied his appearance, though he was a man of few words.

he was a skilled butcher.  when i was a small child, he and my mamaw had a large meat locker in their store, in which huge quarters of beef and pork hung from hooks in its ceiling.  the locker was made of beautiful oak wood.  on its front were small doors with glass in their center where smaller items like dairy products and eggs were kept.  the main door to the locker was heavy with a locking mechanism to keep the cold in.  i was terrified to go into the locker, fearing that i might be trapped in it if the door closed behind me, despite there being a big button with a spring behind it that would open the door from the inside.  as he got older, he reduced the amount of meat that was stored in the locker, and by the time he died from heart failure, he and my mamaw had decided to do away with the locker and end the butcher part of their business.

i remember being in the store one day when a man from out in the country came in and asked papaw if he would be interested in buying some racoons the man had killed to sell in his store.  i was shocked when papaw took him up on the offer.  i couldn't stay around when the beautiful animals were brought in.  papaw prepared the carcasses for sale, skinning them and and carving them up for cooking.  they sold quickly, because several of his customers thought "coon meat" was a delicious delicacy.  i'm sure that it was a violation of the food laws for such wild meat to be sold in this way, but no one was going to report it, so delighted were the people who bought the meat to be able to enjoy this wild game.

papaw was a "new deal" democrat.  he believed that franklin roosevelt was one of the greatest men who had ever lived, second only to jesus.  for as long as i can remember, a framed portrait of fdr hung on my grandparents' living room wall.  for both my grandparents voting a straight democratic party ticket was a religious exercise.  papaw wouldn't brook anyone speaking ill of a democrat officeholder and particularly saying anything bad about president roosevelt or any of his policies.  he also revered eleanor roosevelt, who was the ideal first lady, in his opinion.

neither of my grandparents went to church.  papaw had been raised a methodist, though his ancestors in north carolina were presbyterians.  when his grandfather came with his family to settle in arkansas, there was no presbyterian church in the county where they lived, so the next best thing for them was the methodist church.  succeeding generations of arkansas members of the family remained methodists.  my grandmother's baptist church practiced "closed communion," which meant that anyone who wasn't a baptist was excluded from communion, and my papaw refused to attend a church where he and other members of his family couldn't take communion.  likewise, my mamaw insisted that the only valid baptism was by immersion, and most methodists were baptized as children by "sprinkling."  for that reason, she wouldn't join the methodist church, so after they married, they both stopped attending church.  once that decision was made early in their marriage, religion was not discussed between them, though either was happy to debate on the subject with anyone else.

all through his married life, papaw owned several acres of land somewhere out in the countryside where he would raise cattle.  he always called this little ranch "his farm."  one or two days a week he would leave town and drive out to "the farm" to check on the land and cattle.  i never knew of him killing any of the cattle he raised or butchering one to sell in his store.  instead, he would sell his cattle at auction so someone else would have the job of killing them.  he always bought beef that had already been prepared for butchering from a meat wholesaler.  when i visited, i would sometimes go with him to his farm.  we would spend all day walking the land, ensuring the barn and other structures were in good repair, the fence was intact, and the cattle were alright.  papaw took great delight in these exercises, but i was bored with it all and ready to leave after an hour or so.

papaw was not as important a figure in my young life as mamaw, though i loved him deeply and enjoyed his company.  he was a private man, not given to idle talk.  when a subject interested him, though, he could talk at length with anyone who wanted to engage in conversation about that topic.  he loved mathematics.  his idea of a relaxing evening was to sit alone in his bedroom and study a math textbook, while mamaw and i watched television.  he was determined that his oldest two sons would have the opportunity to study geometry, trigonometry, and calculus and that they would attend the university of arkansas to become engineers after high school.  when the high school in magnolia refused to offer those subjects, he sold his store in magnolia and moved the family to texarkana, where the high school did offer advanced math classes.

like mamaw, he didn't continue his formal education beyond the eighth grade, but he was a brilliant man who could hold his own in debate with anyone.  i admire his determination to see that his children received the best education he and mamaw were able to provide for them and to instill in them a life-long love of learning and the belief that their own children should be well educated.

may we learn from the example of people like my papaw.  may we value learning and realize that not all education comes from books.  may we pass a legacy of respect for knowledge to our children.  may we use whatever skills we have in the service of others.  may we remember that true religion consists of caring for one another.  shalom. 

Missing Your Smile and Your Song

my mother's mother, known by her grandchildren as "mamaw," was a big influence in my life.  she grew up in rural southwest arkansas.  early in her life, her family discovered that she could play the piano by ear, and she became the pianist for the small baptist church that was the center of social life in their community.  her grandfather, the scoundrel her grandmother had left to return home from pine bluff where mamaw's mother was born, is said to have played the violin.  perhaps she inherited her musical ability from him.  

mamaw and my grandfather met when she was teaching school in a little village near where my grandfather worked as a surveyor for a lumber company.  in those days, schools in rural arkansas only went through the eighth grade.  in order to continue education beyond that point, it was necessary to move to a larger town where there was a high school or go a college that supported a high school on its campus.  mamaw's family didn't have the resources for her to do either, and completion of the eighth grade qualified a person to become a teacher, as mamaw did.  teachers were expected to be single women, so when my grandparents married, mamaw had to give up her teaching career.

my grandparents lived in a logging camp deep in the woodlands of southwest arkansas that could only be reached by train.  the lumber company laid tracks, and a train carried in laborers and supplies and carried out the logs that had been harvested.  there is a story that my great-grandmother, grandma kate, made the journey to the railhead to catch the train to visit my mamaw after my mother's oldest brother, my uncle winton, was born in the logging camp.  she was told that there was not room for her on the train because it was so full of supplies.  she was so insistent that she was going to ride the train into the logging camp that the engineer told her that the only way for her to ride was to sit on the cattle catcher in the front of the engine.  she did that and arrived at the camp covered in soot from the steam engine's chimney with her little parasol blown wrong side out after she tried to use it to keep the smoke out of her face.

some time after winton's birth, my grandparents moved their young family to magnolia, arkansas, where they opened a small grocery and cafe near the town square.  mamaw's delicious cooking and my grandfather's skill as a butcher, a trade he had learned growing up on the family farm, caused their business to prosper, and they were able to buy a home and welcome mamaw's sister, my great-aunt bess, into their home while she attended the local college with its affiliated high school.  it was in magnolia that my mother and another son, my uncle bob, were born.  

when my mother was in the fifth grade, my grandparents moved to texarkana, arkansas, which was a much larger town than magnolia.  their grocery/cafe flourished, and they were able to move from the house they were renting into a new brick home.  shortly after the move into the new home, the stock market crashed.  the bank called in their loan, and they lost their home.  they were able to hold onto the business and move it to a storefront attached to a home.  they did away with the cafe part of the business, since few people could afford to eat out, but continued to sell groceries.  there they stayed until both my grandparents had passed away.

i loved the store.  every summer i would spend two weeks with my grandparents and help out in the store.  i went swimming with one of my cousins, my uncle winton's daughter, and played with another cousin, richard, the son of my mother's first cousin.  when i got older, richard and i would walk to the busy downtown area.  sometimes we would go to a movie matinee and get a soda at either kress or newberry, the five-and-dimes downtown.  we'd take the bus back within a couple of blocks of my grandparents' store and walk back from there.  the public library was about ten blocks from the store, and i loved to go there and read or look at their books on stamp collecting, a favorite hobby of mine.  those times in the summer with my grandparents were great experiences for me.  

in my teenage years, i would spend most of the summer there, and after my grandfather and great-grandmother passed away, mamaw was especially thrilled to have my company.  by that time, i could be a real help in the store and could run it by myself, except for waiting on customers in the meat department.  after my grandfather's death, mamaw relied on a local butcher shop where her brother, my great-uncle arch, worked.  he had learned his trade from my grandfather and always made sure mamaw had the most choice meat to sell in her store.  mamaw prepared my favorite lunch, a breaded veal cutlet and french fries with a glass of iced tea with lemon, almost every day.  i can still taste those cutlets, on which a pat of butter would be melted while it was still hot.  i don't believe i've ever eaten any meat as delicious since then.

like her mother, mamaw was a lover of coffee.  there was always hot coffee in the kitchen, and i never saw her without a coffee cup in her hand or nearby.   she doted on all her grandchildren, but i was a special favorite because of the time i spent with her every summer and because i loved the store as much as she did.  i remember one summer she took me with her to see my uncle bob and his family who lived near kansas city.  mamaw didn't drive, so we took the bus from texarkana to fayetteville, arkansas, where her youngest son, my uncle maurice, was a student at the university.  he picked us up at the bus station, and the three of us rode in his car to uncle bob's house, where i played with my three first cousins for several days.  mamaw had brought a box of millionaires, the delicious chocolate candy with caramel and pecans, on the bus trip, and we ate them all the way to fayetteville.  that trip is one of the most memorable events of my childhood.  mamaw would sometimes go with me to the movies in texarkana.  she would call a cab, and off we'd go.  one of the ones i remember most fondly was "the horse soldiers" starring john wayne.  

one of the things mamaw taught me was to be myself.  she never insisted that i think a certain way or behave in a way that conformed to any preconceived notion of what was appropriate for a boy my age, no matter what age i was.  when i was with her, i felt free in a way i never felt anywhere else.  in her company, i felt like i was with a dear friend, a companion who was interested in what i had to say and in what i loved doing.  i'm sure she had her faults, but in my eyes she will always be the perfect grandmother and friend.  i'll always miss her physical presence in my life, but she occupies a special place in my heart and will be with me forever.

may we all be that "special" person to another.  may we seek to see through their eyes and walk in their shoes.  may we give love without condition.  may we remember that we influence others in ways that we will never know.  shalom.

 

There's A Better Day A-comin'

my great-grandmother, my maternal grandmother's mother, was born during the civil war.  no one is sure of the exact year of her birth, but she could recount events from that war that occurred in her childhood.  it seems that her mother, my great-great-grandmother married a man who came through their little  community in southwest arkansas.  he was from pine bluff, arkansas, and after their marriage, he and his bride moved back there.  he was known by the title of "doctor," but we're not sure if he was a medical doctor or had given himself that appellation.  he seems to have been something of a scoundrel, and after several years of marriage and several children, including my great-grandmother, my great-great-grandmother left him in the middle of the night while he was out carousing.  she loaded the children and all the belongings that she could on a wagon, hitched up the horses, and returned to her family's home in southwest arkansas.  such a journey took great courage.  the distance was over 200 miles over primitive roads in the aftermath of the civil war.  

this is where my "grandma kate," as we all called her, grew up, and married a man from her community, my great-grandfather orren.  they had seven children who lived to adulthood, three sons and four daughters, of which my grandmother was the oldest.  after the birth of the youngest child, orren passed away, leaving grandma kate to raise these children on their small farm.  my grandma kate could recall the difficulties this presented in the midst of recovery from the war.  she told of her contempt for the ku klux klan that terrorized people in her area, both black and white, and the struggle to hold onto her land in an era when taxes were difficult to pay from the meager proceeds she and the children could earn from their crops.

after her children reached an age where they could live independently, grandma kate sold her farm and went to live with her daughter, bess, in magnolia, arkansas.  she lived with bess for several years, until she married a man from indiana after her first husband had died.  grandma kate believed that her struggles raising her family on their farm was caused by the northerners who had come into the south after the civil war and told bess that she couldn't live with "that yankee" in her home.  she moved to live with my grandmother and helped raise my grandparents' four children.

grandma kate was a lively woman.  she was a staunch baptist and believed that games that involved cards or dice were the work of the devil, so any time she discovered her grandchildren playing any such game it was burned.  she was a talented seamstress and did lovely embroidery work.  some of it is still in my possession.  despite her strict baptist convictions, she was a loving person.  she and my grandfather had lively discussions about religion and politics, and, though they agreed on many things, when they disagreed, sparks flew.  

one of the things she passed on to her descendants is a love for coffee.  i remember her taking her small great-grandchildren who could barely drink from a cup into her lap, where she would spoon some coffee with cream and sugar into her saucer.  taking a spoon, she would cool the coffee by blowing on it and let the child sip it from her spoon, as she declared that she once had to do without coffee when it was scarce after the war and no one in her family would ever have to do without coffee again.  under her influence, we all became avid coffee drinkers.

when television became commonplace, my grandparents bought a small set for their living room.  grandma kate was scandalized by the costumes women on tv shows wore.  "they might as well be naked," she would say, but she watched them nonetheless.  one of her granddaughters smoked cigarettes, and grandma kate would admonish her for her "unladylike" habit.  she said that while dipping snuff or smoking a dainty pipe was acceptable for a woman, cigarettes should only be smoked by men.  for many years, grandma kate dipped snuff, and i remember her coming home from church one sunday in a huff.  the preacher had exhorted the congregation to abandon the evils of tobacco, mentioning not only cigarettes and cigars but also snuff and pipe tobacco.  grandma kate said he had stopped preaching and started meddling.

one of the many things i learned from grandma kate is that women are the equals of men.  while she adhered to strict gender roles, she was adamant that a woman could do anything as well as a man when the situation called for it.  she never backed down from her position when someone disagreed with her, and she insisted that a woman ought to be able to take care of herself without help from a man.  she also taught all us of the importance of family.  no matter how much someone disagreed with a member of the family, family was still family and should always be there when one needs it.  she said that if we can't or won't take care of our own, how can we be trusted to take care of those outside the family.

may i remember the lessons i learned from grandma kate.  may we all value our families, even when we dislike or disagree with some members of them.  may we learn to help one another and remember that there is really no such thing as "self-reliance."  may we pass on the values of those who've gone before to those who follow after us.  shalom.