Grandma's House

Grandma’s House
By Donald Jones

There was no smell like the smell of Grandma’s house in the summer or winter. Grandma’s house was always fun. My Dad’s mother seemed very old when I was a kid. She wore a very old fashioned bonnet, the kind that you see in the history books of the settlers and pioneers. Her skirt was all the way to the floor. She chewed snuff. She still used a kerosene oil lamp on the table where she would sit in the living room. When she cooked, she cooked on an old cast iron wood-burning cook stove. Her iron was one she set on the stove to keep hot. She made her own butter in a churn that sat in the corner of the kitchen.

Every Sunday when we would come to Grandma’s house, right after church, she would be in the kitchen making butter. She would sit in her rocking chair and pump the handle up and down. There was no butter like Grandma’s butter. When Grandma had everything ready, she would call us together in the kitchen. My great Uncle Joe would give the blessing. He had been a leader in the local church as far back as when my dad was a boy, maybe before that. His prayer was always long, but there was something about the tone of his voice that made me think he was expecting everyone to take him seriously. This no doubt kept my fellow cousins and myself from fidgeting or moving. After the prayer was given, all the men sat at one enormous table. It was much like a large picnic bench, only nicer. This was a home of long traditions. The women served the table and then ate when the men were through. This seemed to be the way that everyone accepted, and there was no thought of women being slighted or being thought of as less important. It was just family serving the family in an efficient manner. .

It was fascinating to watch Grandma and her daughter, Aunt Wyonah, wash clothes. They would build a fire under a great black kettle sitting in the back yard that they filled with buckets of water from the well. Then they would put the clothes in with soap and stir them with a stick. They took some of them out, put them in a large tub and scrubbed them on a scrub board. After this, they rinsed them in another tub of water. Everything ended up hanging on the clothesline to dry. Such was washday at Grandmas’ house.

When Christmas came, we looked forward to the coming of my Uncle Leeburn. He worked for a fireworks factory. My cousins, my brother and I longed to see Uncle Leeburn. When he showed up, he would have a trunk full of fireworks. There were Roman Candles, Cherry Bombs, FireCrackers, Bottle Rockets, and Sparklers; if it was made, he had it in his trunk. This happened every Christmas or 4th of July.

This place for me was the one place I always felt love. My Grandma and my Aunt and cousins accepted me as I was and were very aware of my physical condition brought about from Spina Bifiata. Brenda, my cousin, was like a big sister because she was about 4 or 5 years older then me. She always made me feel loved and accepted. Her sister Vada, was a friend and closer to my own age. We called her Cotton because she had snow-white hair. She had her own horse. I admired her for her ability to ride. She, my older brother and I often would play hide and seek, at the barn or around the front porch or cowboys and Indians. We would often play into the night until about 9 P.M. Then we would get our sleeping assignments. Often the farmhouse was filled on holidays. The men slept together, the women slept together, and the kids slept together. Dad and I slept together in the big living room.

There was a big bed by the window that we slept in. In the summer the doors were opened and the cicadas would, in courses with the tree frogs, serenade us to sleep, as the bullfrogs bellowed in the distance. In the winter, the room was often the coldest in the house because it had no stove. There was one heater that sat in the middle of the room away from the wall. It would glow red in the night, keeping the chill off the room till morning, when they would open the doors to Grandma’s room where the stove sat. Washing up in the summer was no problem. When it was summer, the back porch was where you washed your face and hands and the men shaved. It was the same in the winter, but it took less time cleaning up. If it was a bath you wanted, then the kitchen was where you took a bath in a tub with water taken from the well and heated on the old cast iron cook stove. Grandma's house was always a place where warm memories were made for me in childhood.

Story ID:	2249
Written by:	Donald L. Jones (bio, contact, other stories)
Story type:	Family Memories
Writers Conference:	$500 2007 Family Memories Writing Project
Location:	McMinnville Tennessee USA
Year:	1952
Person:	Family