about my grandmother

i have written about my Grandmother before. Next month will be 2 years since she died. i think of her just about every day. and while i miss her terribly, i am, at the same time, profoundly grateful to have had her in my life.

WOW! what an amazing woman she was. She and my Granddad lived on a farm in rural - and I do mean RURAL South Mississippi. not far from Wiggins, Miss. in a little community appropriately named Smith Town. She traveled this country. She traveled Europe. She ran a country store, raised two boys and untold nieces and nephews, maintained a household and a fully operational farm. She did the majority of this on her own as my grandfather had a job with the state dept of agriculture - and when he wasn't doing that, he was farming his own land.

She kept every single card, letter, photo and postcard ANYONE ever sent her.
She canned enough corn, peas and tomatoes in her lifetime to feed a small third world country for a week.
She made a fruitcake at Christmas that was actually good.
She is buried less than five miles from where she was born.

She wasn't one of those dainty southern belles you picture when you think of women from the Deep South. hers was a life of hard work, church and above all, family.

She was an amazing Grandmother. there was no treat more exciting or desired than to go spend the night with her. to help her feed the chickens and pick up the eggs. i loved to lay in bed, listen to her fall asleep at night - sharing the same pillow - as she told me stories about when she was a little girl. I think the last time I shared a bed with her was less than 10 years ago - after I got married. she didn't talk much then - we just laid there and held hands until we fell asleep.

She made the absolute VERY best home-made macaroni and cheese - ANY time I asked her too. She kept my secrets. She sheltered me from the world while at the same time taking me to the library and the book mobile and introducing me to books and stories - words and vocabularies - that would take me anywhere my imagination could conjure.

i was in Washington DC at the National Archives in my early 20's. Looked up the census from 1910 (I think). It was - of course - all hand written. and she was a young girl - listed with her parents and siblings. and on the next physical page of the census, my grandfather, also a young boy, listed with his parents and siblings. isn't that something - as children - they were physically that close to the person they would spend the rest of their lives with.

and in all the living she did and all the wisdom she possessed, there was a fabulous vulnerability about her.
I remember once, i phoned home when I was living in Vail, CO. She was telling me how cold it was there. I was telling her how cold it was in Vail. She rattled off some number as the current temperature - it was obscenely low for South Mississippi. I remember asking her, "Grandmother, is that in Celsius?" and she replied, "No Dear, that's in Wiggins."

genealogy was her passion/obsession. Why do you think I was at the National Archives in my early twenties? Hello! SHE sent me there to do her leg work.

and she had this knack (read: annoying habit) of meeting anyone and in the span of five minutes or less, figuring out how she/we were related to them. "Where is your family from? What did you say your last name was? Who's your Daddy? And what was your Momma Maiden name? Oh yes, that's so and so's girl. Her Daddy and My Daddy were third cousins five times removed." I KID YOU NOT!

I was telling Big Pissy, in her blog entry about rednecks, that I finally got to the point of instructing my friends and boyfriends - the ones I would take out to meet her - to tell her they were from Wyoming when she asked. We aren't related to anyone in Wyoming. It was no fun for her - but kept me from being related to several folks I did not want to have a blood relation with...

thanks for letting me share her with you. i am certain you would have loved her...

and don't forget - if anyone asks - the answer is always WYOMING!