Great Granny Rhoda
My great grandmama, my grandmothers mother, died when
I was kinda small maybe about five or six. But there
are so many things I can remember about her. I
remember she was great with flowers. All she had to do
was stick a sprig in the ground and put a jar over it
and it would grow. She always had so many beautiful
flowers in her yard. There was a hand operated water
pump out in her yard and it had a hewed out log under
it to catch the water. It was always full because she
watered her flowers from this log. I have never tasted
water any better than water from an iron pump and hers
was always the best.
I remember she always had a peppermint log she kept
wrapped up in the top of her shiferobe, a sort of
clothes cabinet with drawers on one side and a long
mirrow on a door for hanging clothes on the other
side. When my brother and I came over she would always
crack us off a piece of that peppermint. We always
looked forward to a visit. She didn't live far away
from us maybe only a mile or two so we visited often.
She never seemed to be out of peppermint.
I remember she would roast and grind her own coffee.
She had a coffee mill on the wall in her kitchen and
when she had her coffee roasted she would use this to
grind it up. The smell of freshly ground coffee would
be all over the house. She used a wood stove to cook
with and the heat had to be just right for roasting
coffee.
I remember sometimes she would sit out on her porch in
one of those highbacked homemade chairs and smoke a
little clay pipe. She seemed to enjoy it so much, she
would sit there with her leg over her other knee,
swinging it slightly and calmly smoking her little
pipe. I don't think she was a regular smoker I think
that was just her guiet time. She used george
washington tobacco, it came in an oblong tin can. I
still have one of those cans. It has other little
things from my past there too.
I remember the Sunday right before or right after her
birthday, the closest to June 6, she had a family
gathering. She and her two daughters that lived with
her and my grandmother would start cooking the week
before. And on Sunday morning the men would get the
tables ready. The tables were boards laid over other
boards nailed to two posts. Then clean white sheets
were placed on the tables in preparation for the food
to come. Sometimes there were about eight of those
tables or more, depending on how much food we had.
Then people started arriving bringing four or five of
their own special dishes of food and put them on the
tables. Sometimes there was as much as a hundred
people or more and way more food than we could all
eat. A prayer of thanks was always said before the
meal and everyone was made welcome. There were kids
everywhere and lots of room to play. Lots of the
people that came to her "gathering" weren't even
family members but they may as well have been because
everyone was welcome. No one was ever turned away. My
granny was very famous for her "gatherings". Sometimes
guitars or fiddles would appear and we had music.
Everyone had plenty to eat and people were always
going back to the table for an extra taste of their
favorite. The people from fartherest away would start
drifting off first. But no one left a mess, it was all
cleaned up and the sheets put away to be washed and
ready for the next "gathering". I think she always
kept those sheets seperate from her others. Sometimes
the people that lived closer wouldn't leave till the
late afternoon.
There are lots of things I remember about my granny
but those are the things that stand out in my memories
and the fact that I knew she loved my brother and me.
I also remember the night she died, she was 88 years
old. She raised three daughters alone after her
husband died and helped in the rearing of the children
of the two daughters that still lived with her. And
they have all been good people.
When she died the church was filled to overflowing and
the windows and doors were opened so those outside
could hear the services. She was a very well liked
lady and I am proud to be her great grandaughter!
Hugs
neon_sapphire
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