# 10 - Attitudes of Gratitude - Granny

My Granny's home on 4th Street in Atlanta - what wonderful memories are attached to this home!! It's changed a LOT since my grandparents lived in it and the Flowering Quince bush is now gone. I can still remember the taste of the jelly she used to make out of those Quince!!!!

  On the left side of the porch as you face the house was a  WONDERFUL swing, and we spent many hours on that porch reading to each other!!  On the other side of the porch (the right side as you face the house) was a wonderful screened porch with a two-person hammock and chaise lounges and little tables . . . We spent many hours out THERE as well and sometimes my cousin, Sandra, and I would sleep in the hammock together when nights were very hot, as they often are.   The blocks of the walkway leading to the house, as well as in the sidewalk in front, were perfect for "hopscotch" and we wore out a MOUNTAIN of chalk drawing numbers to play!

 My Granny was born on November 10th, 1892 and died on April 26th, 1986.  Today she would have been 118 years old. While I know that isn't possible?  I would give anything to be planning Thanksgiving dinner around her big table in her house on 4th Street in Atlanta.  We had some more feasts "back in the day".  

I don't know WHERE she found those huge turkeys, but she did - - - turkeys with legs big enough to make a little girl sick for three days if she ate the whole thing.   We kids tried to be as good between Thanksgivings as we did between Christmases . . . why? because whomever was deemed "good enough" by my Granddaddy got to pull the "wishbone" with him.  None of us wanted to be left out of that!!! 

Granny was always "just" . . . what one of us got, all of us got - - - eventually.  I have to smile when I remember her rules, number one of which was "You don't move to the big table until you're 10 years old."  This was a non-negotiable.   Another one was, "When you turn six years old, and you can speak clearly and loud enough for Uncle Mid to hear you, you may stand in the chair beside Granddaddy and say the blessing before you go to the children's table."  (More about THAT one in a minute - - - I got scarred for life the year I did it.)  (3) The children who did NOT get to pull the wishbone were eligible to get a leg.  (4) "If you go around to the tables and eat all the pickles and olives and celery hearts BEFORE dinner,  you get no desert."    (Sandra and I missed more desert than we got in those years - - - we couldn't resist the olives - green and black - or the tiny little dill gherkins and SHE couldn't resist the bread-and-butter pickles.  I had even more trouble with the celery hearts.)    Fortunately for me, I didn't learn to love the pickled peaches until I was old enough to control myself with the relishes . . . oh, and the radish roses too! 

Granny always served dinner at noon.  If you were there, you ate. If you were late, you ate, but you ate what was left and usually "alone" at that big table.  Her main dining table sat 14 and there were only three grandchildren - - - my sister was in a high chair or a kid chair for lots of the time Sandra and I had to eat with her.  Sandra and I are 18 months apart. My sister and I are 8 1/2 years apart.  

The table groaned with food . . . that big old turkey at Granddaddy's end . . . which he always carved perfectly even while wearing a tie and a long-sleeved white dress shirt, freshly ironed and starched for the occasion - I'm not sure when Mary, Granny's cook and housekeeper, had time to do that, but she did . . . a beautiful baked ham at the other end . . . the kind you do yourself and pour Coca Cola over AFTER you put the cloves in and the pineapple rings touch just perfectly.   We had dressing - NEVER inside the turkey - two kinds of gravy - steamed rice - green beans from somebody's garden,   cauliflower in this special serving dish with LeSeur peas around the base - two kinds of Cranberry sauce - homemade biscuits the size of cat heads - sweet potato soufflé with little marshmallows on top - browned perfectly - and the pies - - - oh my goodness those pies!!!   Cakes - - - the grownups with their brandy after the meal . . . people sleeping all over the house from the tryptophans in the turkey . . . hot chocolate for the kids and before we went home, somebody read "The Night Before Christmas", mostly to remind us to be good because Santa was expected to visit and we wouldn't see each other between Thanksgiving and Christmas . . . when we'd do it all OVER again with a few menu variations and no fanfare about the blessing or the Wish Bone or the turkey legs.  

Granny knew how to do it right.  How I wanted to be like her and 

how often I'm not even in the ball park, much less a 

"heavy hitter" on the team.  

We had some wonderful feasts . . . the year I was five was our best year, I think, mostly because my own immediate family was intact and that was the last time that would be the case . . . Let's see - Mommy and Daddy and me (3),  Aunt Ethel and Uncle Baron (Kathy wasn't born yet so 2 of them),  Aunt Elizabeth and Uncle Carlton and Sandra (3),  Great Aunt Ethel and Great Uncle Jack (2), Granny and Granddaddy (2),  Great Step Aunt Ruby and Great Uncle Mid (2), and Great Aunt Lilla Mae (1).  That's 17 of us.  WOW!  things would change the next year. 

There's so much more . . . my love for my Granny was not a "holiday thing" only.  We spent a month at Daytona (Elinor Village) together every summer, often with Aunt Ethel and Uncle Jack and Sandra's family joining us . . . she LOVED Madame Alexander dolls and would take Sandra and me downtown to Rich's to ride the "Pink Pig" and see the toys several weeks before Christmas.  She never knew that Sandra and I knew all her hiding places for our dolls and we never failed to "act" excited on Christmas morning.  She would watch us watching the toys at Rich's and get whatever she thought we most admired when we weren't looking and then she would go home and sew BOXES full of clothes for them.  One year we got bride dolls with gorgeous gowns and veils and a trousseau to die for . . . another year, it was Harriet Hubbard Ayer dolls who had MAKEUP and she made gorgeous gold thread evening dresses for them.  By the time my sister came along, Barbie came with her and Sandra and I got one or two Barbie dolls before we declared ourselves "too old for this". 

Granny's Christmas trees were nothing short of "designer" 

and I would kill for some decent pictures of them to scan and keep!!  

All those old fashioned ornaments - - - birds and beautiful reflectors 

for the lights . . . glass beaded garlands . . . novelty lights

(like those bubble things) and tons of icicles!!!   

My Grandmother was a seamstress without peer.  She made everything Sandra and Kathy and I wore . . . beautiful little smocked dresses when we were babies . . .and even things for Dorothy in her later years, including  a  Christening gown of white eyelet.  One of the most memorable things she ever made me was my prom gown.  I had been downtown and seen a dress in Macy's window that I fell in love with - - - pink dotted swiss with tiny little spaghetti straps of satin - - - full skirted - the kind that demanded a hoop skirt and crinolines - a pink satin band between waist and bustline - and a beautiful "shirred" bosom . . . I wanted it - my mouth watered - I was invited to the Junior-Senior prom so I NEEDED it . . . price tag?  $450.00!!! (this was 1963 for heaven's sake). Mother laughed.  

Not one to give up without a fight (you may have noticed that), I walked to Granny's house after school the following Monday and  I talked Granny into getting on the $.10 shopper's special bus near her house  and going down to "look at it" with me.  She agreed with me that it was perfect for me and she agreed with mother that it was exorbitant and she didn't even scold me when I cried all the way back to her house on the bus.    Mother kept going with me various places to look for a "sensible" dress for the prom and I wouldn't make a decision.  I couldn't find pink or fluffy enough or princess-y enough to suit me.  Two weeks after the initial find, I was still crying myself to sleep over the dress. 

On a Sunday afternoon (two weeks and one day later) my Granny called and asked if I wanted to come to her house after school that Monday.  I always wanted to go to Granny's house. I didn't care if I WAS sixteen years old.  I was mad at Mother about the dress anyway and I thought going to Granny's might be fun. 

When I got there,  THE DRESS was hanging on a hanger in the door to what we called "the twin bed room" where Sandra and I always stayed when Sandra was in town.  No, it wasn't the $450 dress from Macy's.  My GRANNY had gone BACK downtown, studied the dress, figured out which of her patterns to use,  found material and COPIED the designer dress.  I cry thinking about the love that went into that dress.  It was perfect, too.  It fit the first time and all she had to do was stitch down the straps which she had basted until I tried it on and finish serging the hem.  Everybody in my class thought I had on the Macy's dress and I told them proudly that it was just a "copy" and that my Granny had made it.  I wore it both years - 1963 and 1964 - and I went with the same guy both years - - - my husband, Terry.  

The year Terry and I got married (1975) I went to work on the morning of November 10th with his Sears credit card proudly and safely tucked away in my purse.  Along with THAT, I had his "permission" to use it to get a birthday present for Granny's party that night.  As I started out to lunch,  it began to rain, and I heard a faint "mew" coming from under the back steps to my office.  There in a box with her brother was this beautiful very young, very tiny, black and white kitten who became my first cat, Charlotte.  A co-worker took the other one.  When I got home with the kitten, I went in to try to break the news to Terry that I had brought home a cat despite his earlier "no cats in a parsonage" decree.  I went in to where he was taking a nap and greeted him and said, "Guess what I got today?" and he had this 'new husband' fit - "What did you do to my credit card?" and I said "Nothing . . . it's a . . . " and before I could say "cat" there was this loud MEEEE_OWWWW from the living room.  He said, "That sounds like a cat and we don't have one."  I said, "I think there's a cat in a box in the living room.  Come see it."  He says, "You THINK there's a cat in there?"  and I said "yes".  I guess he was relieved I hadn't bought anything but a $10 sweater for Granny with the credit card, so he went to look, saying, "I'll look but I won't touch it."   Three minutes later, he's picking the kitten up and saying, "Oh, isn't it cute!!!"    A week later we decided to keep her.  She owned us for a month short of 19 years

and turned ME into a cat person!!

November 10th has lots of significance for me . . . 

mostly  I remember and am deeply grateful for Granny 

and all she meant in my life  -  in more ways than I can count.