Grandma Smith

My cousin Pam, sent me her blog entry yesterday, about memories of our Grandma.  She told the story so well, and after reading it, my memories were so vivid, my nose was actually stinging with the smell of wintergreen.  That’s how I remember her, always smelling of wintergreen.  Yes, Grandma was a Kentucky woman, and this was another lifetime.

It was wonderful to bring those memories to the surface again.  Thanks Pam for a wonderful blog entry.  I’m reprinting it here, I don’t think she would mind, and I thought some of you might enjoy  a bit of nostalgia today. 

She captured the essence of Grandma so perfectly, I’ve relived every word in my mind…

Every little girl should be so lucky as I was, to have a kind and loving grandma who taught me to crochet and thread a needle, but more importantly showed me how to be a grandma. She's been gone now for thirty-eight years and my memories are fading but I savor those that linger and play them over in my mind. Southern Illinois summers, pallets on the living room floor, small fans stirring the hot air, flipping the pillows over and over trying to find a cool side, June bugs bouncing off the back porch light bulb, wild dew berries and blackberries, chigger bites that itched for days, June apples and salt shakers, the outhouse with its bag of lime and spiders, fresh lemonade and iced tea, cistern water and the aluminum dipper, cousins Johnnie, Lucy, Jitterbug, Janice, and Steve, and always new baby cousins to hold and play with. Summertime trips to Harco were eagerly anticipated and never disappointing. Soon after arriving we trouped out through the back yard barefoot to Lois Naugle's store where we renewed our acquaintance with her, reminded her of our names and who our parents were - Pam, Mike, Francie and Kathy, Joe and Mildred's kids. We bought a Dixie cup or Nehi orange pop. What freedom! We walked back toward Grandma and Grandpa's house, passed the plum thicket along the road paved with coal cinders, passed the mulberry tree with its messy web worms and purple fruit, into the yard with its smoke house, garden, and pile of scrap metal.

Grandma loved to have her hair brushed. She wore it long and pulled back in a bun but longed to have it shaken loose and brushed by her grandchildren. We always grew bored with the task long before she was ready for us to quit. And Grandma dipped snuff, one of those endearing habits she learned from her Kentucky family. She kept a ladies handkerchief in the pocket of her house dress to wipe the little stream of brown saliva that dribbled out the corner of her mouth. She sang old lullabies to her grandbabies and rocked them in her lap, a soft, ample lap that jiggled when she laughed, which was often. There is a song by Gail Davies called "Grandma's Song" which I dearly love for it reminds me of my Grandma - Verla Leona Doss Smith, known as Verlie, Miss Smith, and Grandma.