2000-09-10 - 14:36 MDT

September 10, 2000

Story, with truth.

How little most of us know of the ancestors who are our grandparents. We loved them in great measure and respected them much although we looked with a critical eye on the mores they tried to teach us.

But just who the heck were they ?

I knew very little of my maternal Grandmothers history. Most of what I knew of her was of my observations as I grew and things dropped by Mother and her Mother.

My Mother was as old as the year, she died in 1940 at the age of 40. That would make Grandmother born about 1884 at 16 years old when she married. Back then they married young.

I am trying to visualize how thngs were. Grandmother's family were Scotch stock, residents of West Virginia, I assume they raised their daughter properly if how she turned out as a Grandmother is any indication.

Even if she was 18 years old an entrancing, handsome, flattering Irishman who claimed to be a political refugee from the Emerald Isle very probably won the heart of that young girl, from the state know for it's backcountry Hill Billies as easily as shootin' ducks in a rain barrel.

My Mother's birth town is a town near Clarksburg, West Virginia I can only guess that Grandmother's town of birth was a little further back in the hills. Grandmother's brother John was a school teacher and the photos of him have a hill background. Mother once told me that she had a female cousin who became a doctor. However there was no correspondance between them. In Gramdmother's line there is reputed to be a minister -- hearsay on my part too.

I was told in bits and pieces about her life and I have photographs of her at about the age she married.

Her marriage lasted until her second child -- a boy was born. I don't know where uncle was, maybe with a neighbor, but Grandmother took Mother in the baby carriage to the grocery store and left her outfront while she shopped. I am sure Mom was shaded and comfortable and in those small towns in those days it was not an uncommon thing to do. While she was in the grocery store Grandpa came by, took Mom out of the baby carriage, set her little butt down on the sidewalk, took the carriage sold it and then left town -- never to be heard of again.

Trying to fill in the cracks, I see a woman not yet 21 years old, with two children alone in an uptight, straight laced 1800's community. I can see why she left to find work elsewhere. She told me she worked a variety of jobs, mostly hotel work. She never told me why she had moved to Louisiana and later Texas -- But there is a husband in there somewhere or at least a man whose name I know but no more. Thinking on it I would guess that divorces were impossible to get back then and he was a live in companion who helped financially and helped with the kids. He died, place of rest unknown.

Here is this young woman, back in the early 1900's trying to support and raise two little children. She was a beauty who looked, as well as pretty, like one of the warrior women who could conquer nations.

She never talked much about that time other than say it was hard.

With a bit of her wages and maybe some of Mother's (Mom went to work at an early age) took the Lewis correspondance course on hotel work. She landed a job in a Denver hotel while she finished her course and then became the housekeeper there. she once told me that money was so short that she fed Mom and uncle ice cream and bananas because at the time that was the cheapest food she could buy.

I think that is about the time my memories became active. She lived across the alley from us for quite awhile and things were good. There was a strong bond of respect between my Dad and Grandmother which made her living near quite neat. While she lived there her Mother visited a while, a frail cane wielding woman, who smoked a corn cob pipe, dipped snuff and had little use for kids.

In a way I can see how it all fits together, uncle was old enough to work off and on, Mother was married and secure. When she was offered a housekeeper job in Albuquerque, New Mexico at a better wage she took the job and went South. I have one memory of visiting here there in that hotel for a few days, but for the life of me, I can't remember how we got there - I know it was before Dad bought his first car from Leeman Auto, 6th and Broadway -- their ads always said, "No payments while sick or disabled." So, somehow we must have ridden on the train. I do remember getting puppy dog sick which the grown folks attributed to alkalai water -- and it probably was in those days laced with it as the natives were pretty well used to it. So, then truth as I know it became concrete. But I still contemplate the hard row that "Granny" had to hoe. She was gruff and prickly but showed her love by her actions. When she died, in going through her possessions I found many letters from my Mom to her and a St. James Bible with the binding worn and the leaves thumbed over -- a well used tome. Note: from Mother's possessions I received the companion letters from Grandmother to Mom. Those two were very close even thought a state apart. Grandmother's letter's to my Mother were the only overt display of affection I ever saw. Maybe some time I will write further on Grandmother in the days I knew her. I told what I know, and this is the -- Story, with truth.

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