Granny Knew
I have little that belonged to my mother’s mother. When I am in an antique store and find a little dish like one that she had, I sometimes buy it and bring it home.
That is why I brought this plate home . . .
. . . and this little bowl.
These metal lawn chairs remind me of Granny, too.
Similar ones sat under a shade tree in the front yard of Granny and Granddaddy’s tiny four-rooms-and-a bath home in Springfield, Tennessee. For some reasons when I looked at this photo the other day, I thought of watermelon. A dirt chicken yard and a big garden were in Granny’s backyard and a milk cow stayed in the barn across the street. Maybe we sat in those chairs and ate watermelon under the shade tree on some hot summer day. I don’t remember that specifically, but it fits with the kinds of visits we had there every Sunday afternoon.
Fruits and vegetables were abundant at Granny’s house in summer. In winter, jars of canned ones stood on the shelves in the cellar beneath the kitchen. If Granny were still here, she could write a wonderful blog for young mothers today, all about doing things the natural way and “squeezing blood out of a turnip,” too. I know people say you can’t do that, but I think Granny might have been able to do just that.
Granny’s mother was a midwife; she delivered my mother. I’ve heard tell of Granny herself wearing a poultice around her neck when she was sick. I never knew Granny’s mother, but I certainly am sorry I didn’t learn more about her natural ways and Granny’s, too. Now I have to learn it from books and online. Granny would have been better. As the neighbor told George Bailey, as he and Mary were walking home from graduation night in It’s a Wonderful Life, “Oh, youth is wasted on the wrong people!”
Not really, of course. God knows exactly when we should be young and when we should be old. However, the world would be a better place if youth would pay attention and learn from the old. Keep training your children to do just that.
The people served the Lord all the days of Joshua,
and all the days of the elders who survived Joshua,
who had seen all the great work of the Lord
which He had done for Israel . . . .
All that generation also were gathered to their fathers;
and there arose another generation after them
who did not know the Lord,
nor yet the work which He had done for Israel.
Then the sons of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord . . .
Judges 2:7, 10, 11
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I love this post. Thank you! I wish I knew more about my Papa who passed away when I was 5. All my other Grandparents are still living, so this reminds me to learn from them before it’s too late. Keep the encouragement coming. Your posts are a blessing! Meghan Hodges
Thank you, Meghan. Yes, I hope you will keep learning from them and give your children opportunities to do that, too. Your words are an encouragement to me.
Reading your post brought to mind the all too short story my mother tells of her grandfather or maybe it was his brother. He grew sorhgam and boiled it down in his shed to make the best sorhgam syrup in Tennessee. Or at least that’s how the family tells the story. The information on how to make it the “best” is quite possibly lost, I don’t believe anyone living from her family is still making the syrup, much less growing sorhgam.
I am so sorry if the information is lost. We’ll just have to listen to the generation before and tell the generation next in line, won’t we?
I have the same exact little white bowl that was my Granny’s. We always called it “the oatmeal bowl”. For a short time, I lived within walking distance to Granny’s house and every morning I would walk up the hill, “blonde pigtails swinging” as Granny would say, and she would make me oatmeal (REAL oatmeal that has to cook for more than a minute) with plenty of REAL butter and sugar. I would eat it out of that bowl (she had a couple bowls just like this one so I would eat out of any of these white bowls). Later after we moved, I would still come as often as I was allowed to spend the night on Friday night and eat oatmeal on Saturday mornings. I tried to stay as often and as much as possible. She died about 14 years ago. I’m not sure what happened to all the bowls but I ended up with one of them! I eat out of it every chance I get. The funny thing is, my children, 2 of whom never even met Granny, LOVE that bowl. They want to eat out of it all the time and have been known to fight over it. Of course, if I want to eat out of it, I trump them and I get it….it is, after all, my Granny’s and my oatmeal bowl. 🙂
What a sweet story, Rebecca. I’m so glad you got to have one of the bowls. Believe it or not, another mother wrote to me about inheriting one of those bowls, too! I’m so glad you got to spend so much time with your Granny — what a priceless gift.