part ii of iv
Meet Granny
In a later post we will talk about ‘What’s in a name’ but for now whatever your image of a granny would be, mine would probably have filled that. But there the resemblance ends. There wasn’t a frail bone in her body nor demeanor. This is her story.
her beginning
This incredible lady was born in the early 1900’s. She lost her mother at age 13 and then raised her siblings, all 4 of them. They lived on an old farm in the south.
Once married she and pawpaw spent their “honeymoon” hopping freight trains from NC to Washington state picking apples, sleeping in barns and fields..just to survive.
My granny raised 2 sons and a daughter filling them with love, and giving what she had to give. Sometimes that was clothes made from feedsacks and a coat of many colors (yes that’s really true).
when her cup runneth over
She had so much love to give that while she raised her children she started taking in other children that the world threw away. She took in her last child when she was almost 70 years old. In a house that had no AC, and the only heat was from her heart, a kitchen stove and a buck stove in the den.
I think at last count and when she stopped she had taken in over 150 children. The doctors would call and “hand her” babies that they had lost hope for due to failure to thrive, yet this woman would bring them through. She gave some of these children the only love and comfort they had ever known.
Biscuits were baked 3 times a day, clothes washed on a washboard and used a wringer to ready them for the clotheslines. She would clean up one meal and start on the next. She saved green stamps to buy the day to day things needed and got her dishes, one piece at a time buying clothes detergent. (I still have those dishes).
They lived on a little scrub of land that gave nothing. The winters were cold and the summers almost unbearable. Yet granny had flowers that thrived with her special touch using tea leaves and coffee grounds for fertilizer. The one touch of beauty in that old place.
the road she traveled
Granny never learned to drive a car but she could handle a mule team and did. That was how she got back and forth to the store. Finally, at age 70 she was allowed to adopt the Down syndrome child that she had raised (the government had refused to let her because she was too old before). She packed him and her memories up and left that old house.
There was a section 8 rule that had housing for the elderly and for the first time in her life she lived in an apartment that had air conditioning and heat. She took public transportation most times to get to where she needed and sold Avon to pay her utilities and to buy her unfiltered Camel cigarettes, her only luxury.
a side story…
She loved that apartment although it wasn’t in the best part of town. One instance comes to mind. She had sliding glass doors that led out to the parking lot. She was sitting on the couch peeling and cutting up potatoes. There was a knock on the glass door. Looking up there was a guy in a “trench coat” naked as sin and doing you know what. Well Granny flew mad, jumped up and gave chase. All 250 lbs of her, swinging a knife and yelling, “come back here you S.O.B. and I’ll cut it off.
I guess he took her at her word. THAT little problem never showed up again.
She was full of sass, piss and vinegar and made her own way the best she could. She was honest in her dealings and her conversations. “What comes up, comes out”. She had no money but I think that she felt she was rich. She taught me a lot while she was here and after. I am proud to be her granddaughter and hope that the life that I lead will always hold a little of her. 
This is the story (some of it) of my granny. Her name was Pansy. https://sassaleeyours.com/memories-of-granny/
Leaving you now with some more of the story…tune in next Tuesday for “The moms”
Sassalee yours…