The following has been adapted from a soon-to-be published memoir by the same author.
From my earliest recollections, Granny was old. Before moving to a cottage on our property, she lived in an upstairs apartment closer to downtown Mobile, AL in an area called “The Loop” named that because in an earlier day, this was where the streetcar turned around and went back to town. When visiting her I played with her treadle sewing machine—she would disengage the belt that drove the mechanism of the machine and let me pump away—occasionally my toe would find its way between the iron pump-treadle and the floor and I would yell out in pain.
I would go through the box of buttons of all shapes and sizes that she had in one of the sewing machine drawers. There was a device that looked like a ball on a stick that was used to ‘darn’ socks in the old days. Each Friday, after picking up my brother and me from school, my mother picked up my Granny and took her to buy groceries at the A&P, an event Granny referred to as “Going to the Tea Store” — Atlantic and Pacific Tea Company.
I couldn’t imagine anything more exciting to me than Granny moving into a cottage in our yard. Now visits to Granny’s house and listening to her interesting stories would be much more frequent. She had never lived in a rural area and was unaccustomed to the very dark nights and the sounds that went along with living with woods all around. During those early months I often spent the night at her house to keep her company.
Spending the night with Granny allowed me to see and experience the life and habits of a person who had been born in a previous century. A tiny lady of not more than five feet tall, she was rugged, in her own way. When roaches appeared — a constant battle in Alabama — she squashed them with her thumb. She told of wringing the necks of chickens and straining milk from a family cow. Everything edible in Granny’s house was kept in the refrigerator to protect it from bugs. Cookies, bread, always cold. A piece of toast had four slabs of hard margarine on the surface. The bread would burn in the oven broiler before the butter would melt.
Granny’s toes were all bunched up and overlapped each other, something she said was due to wearing shoes that were too small for her as a child. She would laugh as she showed me her toenails, each looking like little hard anthills. One of eight children, her older brothers all succumbed to tuberculosis in middle age. She and two sisters lived into their 90s.
At night, before bed, Granny would take down the white bun atop her head and braid it into a long queue down her back. Her teeth, which she used only for weddings, funerals, or other auspicious occasions, were kept in a container in the bathroom. She had dropped them and broken them at some point, so when not being worn, they were held together with chewing gum. She would show them to me and we would laugh hysterically. Once her sister borrowed her teeth to wear to a wedding.
Granny extolled the virtue of believing in God, reading the bible, and attending church, though she only went on special occasions. The reason, she said, was that she was hard-of-hearing. If you took her to church, she would think she was whispering and say something like, “I believe that preacher is the ugliest man I’ve ever seen.”
A frequent occurrence was for me to bang on Granny’s front door as hard as I could so that she could hear me. I then looked in the window in the door and saw that she jumped and mumbled to herself as she got out of her rocker and made her way to the door.
She opened the door and began to look for the source of the knock. No one seemed to be there. When she stepped out onto the porch, I would jump up out of the bushes and startle her. She would jump at my sudden appearance and if I was lucky it would cause her to pass gas, audibly. Then, we both would break into laughter and she would begin to hold herself. “Oh, oh, I’m going to wet myself.”
One Christmas, my cousin Chris got a toy set that enabled you to make rubber bugs. Creepy Crawlers. We would cook up roach-looking rubber bugs and put them on the floor in Granny’s little house. “Look Granny, a roach.”
“Kill it,” she would say. “Step on it quick.” After we did so, she would go to get the broom to sweep it out the door. After a while she caught on, but we did it again and again.
She dealt with her hearing deficiency in an amusing manner. Rather than just saying that she didn’t understand something you said, she would instead repeat what it sounded liked to her.
“We are going to the store,” I might say. “You dropped it on the floor?” she would exclaim.
"He went to bed" -- “He dropped dead?” she replied.
“Aunt Cora is coming to stay for a while” Now things would really get interesting. Aunt (we pronounced it Ain’t) Cora was a few years older than Granny. They were both in their eighties by now. Neither had any teeth. Aunt Cora ate baby food, something about her esophagus.
It was hard to believe they grew up in the same home. Granny never used anything close to a bad word. Aunt Cora, on the other hand could use some rather saucy language. I found it to be quite educational. “Don’t say that in front of Brian, Cora” Granny would say. “He’ll tell his daddy.” Granny was always afraid of offending Daddy, fearing (without reason) he wouldn’t allow her to continue to live there. “I don’t give a snap,” was Aunt Cora’s response.
Aunt Cora was a bigger woman than Granny. Having had nine children, her once ample, ‘bra-less’ breasts now hung low. One day, trying to make me laugh, Aunt Cora grabbed two handfuls of her loose-fitting dress, handfuls which included her breasts and held them up, squeezing them as if milking a cow’s teats. “DON’T DO THAT CORA!” Granny erupted, trembling with anger.
I interacted with Granny almost daily between the ages of 8 and 14. When I returned from school, Granny would ask me to recount what I had learned. She was convinced I was brilliant. I played my trombone for her. "How do you swallow all of that tubing?" she would ask.
Home from college for Christmas break, I went to see Granny, now in a nursing home. I brought her home brought her to my parents’ house for a few hours on Christmas day. Now age 95, she could not walk. I carried her in my arms like a baby. She had always been a small woman and by now I suspected she weighed no more than 60 lbs. In the car during the ride home, I began singing hymns, Rock of Ages, The Old Rugged Cross - she joined in. She didn't say a great deal as she opened her presents, carefully folding the wrapping paper for future use.
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“Brian, Call your mother.” The note on my dormitory room door said. It had been only a few weeks since returning to college after the holidays. Each dorm floor had a couple of pay-phones which were in booths near the stairwell. If you happened to be walking by and heard one of them ringing it was considered a courtesy to answer the call and attempt to find the student the caller was seeking. I called home, collect.
“Granny is gone,” Mom said.
I could say that Granny’s passing left a huge hole in my life, but that wouldn’t be entirely true. Because, now forty-five years later I can still see her face in my mind’s eye as clearly as if it were a photograph. It probably sounds trite, but I really do feel her with me. "Oh, you’re such a good boy." I heard her say so many times.
Granny was born in 1880, when Rutherford B. Hayes was president of the United States. Her father fought in the Civil War. Through her stories, she connected me with a time long past, a time when automobiles had not yet been invented, when medical care was primitive, and many children (including her) were orphans because their parents died of diseases now rare or easily curable. She was extremely proud that she had finished the ninth grade. As arrogant as it may sound to say it, I knew that she adored me.
To have been loved in such a manner was an immeasurable gift.
