My Granny (1902-1994)

by Junction-Guy 15 Replies latest jw friends

• 

  kitten whiskers

  I love hearing those stories. I am so glad you had a great granny. They really are the heart and soul of growing up if you get a good one! I would love to read more if you ever care to share any more stories. I remember some of these things myself with my grandma. Hugs to you, I know you miss her with all your heart. Your testimony to her life is better than any headstone could ever read. All we really want is to be remembered fondly by those we loved, and she accomplished that in a big way. Kitten Whiskers
• 

  Junction-Guy

  Thank you everyone for posting, and for those of you who have lost your grandma's, my condolences to you all.
  
  Kitten Whiskers, my grandma used to say something everytime we would leave to go back home to Ohio, and that is: "may the good Lord bless and keep you" I still remember those words to this very day.
• 

  Clam

  J.Guy -

  Great reading about your Granny. People from those times seemed so much more interesting than they do now. I often read newspaper obituaries and marvel at the kind of lives some people have had. We've got it so easy these days.

  I never really knew my grandparents as they all died either prior to my birth or when I was a little kid. My father's father sounded a real character, a coal miner who used to supplement his income with bare knuckle fighting. It would've been cool to know him. You're lucky to have the memory of your Granny, and you do her and yourself credit by remembering her so fondly.

  Clam
• 

  GetBusyLiving

  I miss my nan too.

  GBL
• 

  Mum

  My granny was a lot like yours, JG and jb. She only went as far as the fifth grade in school. When I was small, I lived with her and my "Papaw" on a 12-acre farm in rural Tennessee (East Tennessee, the beautiful mountains). She could build a fire, milk the cow, gather the eggs, cook breakfast, clean, hoe a couple of acres, make a kettle of soup and a kettle of soap before noon. She had incredible skill at everything that matters. My grandparents grew vegetables (and preserved them in jars in the cellar all winter), slaughtered hogs (and preserved meat in our smokehouse all winter), took care of animals, milked cows and churned fresh buttermilk and creamery butter, killed the occasional chicken, plucked and singed it and ate it for supper. Her patchwork quilts were not considered "art" but a way to make good use of what was on hand. We lived in a 3-room log cabin with no closets, just a front room (with a sofa and a double bed), a back room (with 2 double beds), a kitchen with a wood stove and a table with a bucket of water and a dipper for drinking and a basin for washing up; we had an electric refrigerator (yay!), a Kelvinator that I can see so clearly in my head. Our water came from a cistern and a pump outside. Our "bathroom" was an outhouse at the top of the hill.

  My grandpa plowed with a mule; we had two of them, Kate and Rhody. He had a drill, a plane, a saw, a couple of sawhorses and other tools I cannot name. If we needed anything, he took out his tools and made it, or repaired what we already owned. We would ride a mule-drawn wagon to the vegetable patches to haul the produce back to the cabin.

  We went to church almost every night in a green Hudson that was not always the most reliable transportation. Many are the times I remember my grandpa pulling over, opening the hood, and doing on-the-spot repairs to the engine, all the while saying, "We'll git there if it's the Good Lord's willin'." There was a lot of singing and shouting, loud praying and off-key, passionate singing at church (actually, it scared me and made me a sitting duck for the sterile, pseudo-academic JW meetings). We didn't go home until the Lord was ready. Church did not end at a certain time; rather, it "broke" after everyone was too tired to sing and shout, testify, and jump around anymore, which, apparently, meant the Lord was done for the evening.

  It pains me to say that I did not acquire half of the skills my grandparents had. I have skills relevant to the world I live in, but know that I have lost so much.

  Here's to wonderful grandparents and the time when we were rich and didn't know it,

  SandraC
• 

  Junction-Guy

  Thanks Mum for posting that, it reminded me that my granny also had a kelvinator refrigerator, with the clasp-shut door. She also made her own soap. She kept a can on top of the stove to save her grease in order to make soap.