My early years were spent not only with my parents and 6 brothers and sisters, but, with my Grandma Price.
The early 1940's was a time of challenge and change in the lives of many Americans, many were still affected by years of depression and now our country was about to become involved in another world war.
Our family was no different.
Mom and Dad married in the spring of 1938 and already had two little ones by July of 1940. My sister Betty and brother Richard.
Jobs were difficult to find and the family moved numerous times in those early years seeking a better life. In July of 1942 they went to Colorado where Dad'a sister was living.
In October of the same year Dad joined the Army. He thought he would be leaving immediately, but, as it turned out he wasn't called to active duty until several months later.
Meanwhile, Mom was pregnant for the forth time (she had lost a set of twins while my oldest brother was still a baby) It was getting close to time for their third baby to be born, so even though Dad could not leave Colorado, she packed what little they had and traveled, by train, with the children, back home to our Dads family. It was a long and exhausting trip to the small Southwest Missouri community where my Grandparents lived.
Mom told me once, just a couple of years before she died, what a difficult trip it had been and that she had been very upset with Dad, at that time, feeling his priorities were mixed up. She felt he should have stayed with them.
They went to stay with Dads father and step-mother and the baby was born only a few short days after their train trip. Mothers poor health kept them there until the new baby, (my second sister, Jeanie) was about 6 weeks old.
Moms parents, Grandma and Grandpa Price lived in Arkansas. Sadly, Moms father died shortly after she and the children came back from out west.
Those were all events, as with each decision made in our lives, that would ultimately affect our entire family.
When Mom was able, she moved with the three children and lived with my Grandma on the farm in Arkansas. They stayed there for the next several years.
In 1945 the war was finally about to end and Dad was expected to be returning home from his tour of duty overseas. My oldest sister needed to start school that fall, so Mom moved, again, with the children back to Missouri to wait for his homecoming.
In 1946 she had her forth child, another baby boy, (Jim) and later when my twin brother (Keith) and I (Karen) were born Grandma Price moved to Missouri and into our home, where she became a permanent member of our household.
Lord knows, I'm sure she was a welcome addition under the circumstances. Not only were there 6 children now to care for, but, 3 of us were babies and two years later another brother (Bob) was added. Making 4 boy's and 3 girls, for a grand total of 7 children!
My twin brother and I have a brother only 11 months older and to top that off, our oldest brother had severe heart problems and had to be in and out of Mercy Children's Hospital in Kansas City, which was several hours away from where we lived.
So, as you can see, at the time it having Grandma with us helped solve multiple problems. It gave her a home. (Now, I'm not sure if my own daughter had 7 children and ask me to live with her, that I wouldn't choose the old folks home!!) Also it gave our parents peace of mind. Knowing that when they were unable to be with us our Grandma would be.
Grandma was a special,wonderful lady. Always kind and loving. She was an attractive though quite stocky with white hair (she said it was yellow!) that she always braided and then wound into a bun on the back of her head with little bobbie pins. I don't ever remember seeing her wear pants of any kind. She wore colorful house dresses and usually an apron. She also wore long, tan cotton stockings and dark, serviceable shoes. At night she slept in long flannel nightgowns.
Once, when I was 6 and in the first grade, she made herself a new nightgown. It was long and made of soft yellow flannel. I was going to stay all night with a little friend (it was my first overnight visit) and Grandma made me a nightgown, just like hers! I was very excited about staying all night with my little friend and now I had a pretty new nightgown to wear! Grandma's are pretty important people!
When Grandma hung out the laundry she always wore a large prairie style bonnet to keep the sun out of her face. Sometimes I would help her and hand her clothespins. I can almost smell the fresh scent of clean clothing and sunshine as I think of her shaking out shirts and sheets and hooking them onto the line to let the wind whip them dry. (Actually, I can also remember running to try and retrieve almost dry clothing off the line when a spring rain would suddenly arrive and also, stiff frozen clothing brought inside in mid-winter to be hung up or laid out to thaw and finish drying!)
In our family there has always been some competition over who was most loved by our Grandma. My older sister, (baby number 3) Jeanie, claims she was the most special, because, when she was a baby and after Grandpa Price died, Grandma spent a lots of time caring for her, that, in turn, made her very special, because it helped Grandma as she was grieving. I am sure that is certainly true. Also she was the baby of the family for the next several yeas! It was probably quite a shock to that little girl suddenly having not one, but several little siblings to deal with!
Trouble comes when (jealous me), thinks she would like to have exclusive rights to Grandmas special memory.
Well, I am here to say that Grandma was with all of us younger children also, from the very time we were born, and though she was no longer grieving and we would not have gotten her to ourselves (by that time there were just too many of us, I know for a fact she loved everyone of us very much! Differently, I'm sure, but, just as much. I am not sure that I have any special proof of that, and it really doesn't need to be proven. Most everyone, I suppose, wants to be extra special to someone. Our memories are our own, each memory different for each person, each one exclusive to a person and their own relationships.
I have many special feelings and memories of my times with her.
I can't remember anything about my infancy, but, around the time I turned two we moved into a little sandstone slab house several miles out of town. While we lived there, I shared one side of the attic bedroom with my Grandma. I can remember her rocking me at bedtime and singing to me before I went to sleep. I had a little rubber doll, (a Betsy Wetsy) that I would take to bed with me, Grandma would always take it out when she came to bed, in the morning when I woke up I would find it on the rocker. She told me that it was too hard to sleep with and it would wake her up in the night if it was in our bed. But, it was always waiting for me when I woke up in the morning.
That little doll later became another issue between my sister and I. (Oh, we always had our issues!) I felt that baby doll was mine and only mine, but, originally Grandma had gotten the doll for Jeanie. Jeanie then gave it to me for Christmas when I was either 3 or 4. She was almost 5 years older and must have thought she was too big for it. I returned the doll when she had her first baby girl (as a gift for the baby). I was 10 years old at the time and must have thought I was too big for dolls! Well, at some point, she packed the little Betsy Wetsy doll up and put her away. As far as I know it hasn't been seen since. I ask her one time if she would get it out so I could see it and she told me it was too fragile to take out of it wrapping.
Isn't it strange that after all these years she still holds on to a little baby doll and I still miss it? All because we connect it to our own lost childhood and to the love of our very special Grandma!
Grandma loved the outdoors. She enjoyed working in the garden. After Grandpa passed away, she supported herself for awhile raising chickens but she became ill and her Doctor told her she would have to give them up because they were making her sick.
I remember Daddy making a swing for us and Grandma came out and sat on it then she stood in it, just (she told us) to make sure it was strong enough to hold us little kids without breaking.
I don't think she did a lot of the cooking, at least I can't remember if she did. Most of the time, I think, Mom took care of that job (Momma was a wonderful cook).
Sometimes, though she would make us something special. She made fried mush that we would eat for breakfast with sugar or syrup on it and she made us gum by melting paraffin wax and putting sugar in it. She told us carrots would make our eyes shine and when she made vegetable soup she always told us it was "B-Bob soup because of the little pasta letters in it.
She didn't like to waste anything and would drink the juice from the pickle jar or the liquid left from the vegetables, or sometimes the last bite off our plate.
Daddy would tease her because she would put saccarin in her coffee and lots of sugar in her oatmeal. I still have the old, creamy white, coffe cup she always used to eat her breakfast.
She taught us how to do dishes, (I still remember her telling us to wash the glasses first, then the silverware the the plates and then the pots and pans. This was a job she did regularly until the day before she died in her 94th year.
In her later years she continued to get the small town newspaper from Pea Ridge Arkansas where she had lived for many years and the first thing she would look at was the obituaries. She said she was checking to see who she knew that had died that week.
She always kept birthday and Christmas cards in a shoe box and would let me look at them one by one as she told me stories about the person that sent them to her.
When she was older she would have me braid her hair and put it up in the little bun she always wore.
She liked to read and she wrote many letters to her old friends and family members in Arkansas.
One of the things she enjoyed doing most was making patchwork quilts. She made quilts many times through the years. Many of them were pieced from our old shirts, dresses, or pants. Also she would sometimes order material scraps from the Sears Roebuck catalog. It was fun to see what would come in the bundles of material they sent. Many colors and designs, sometimes there was silk or lace pieces and if she could not use them she would let me play with them.
When she had several patchwork squares made she would sometimes let me lay them out in different arrangements to see what I thought would make the prettiest designs. As her seeing failed I would thread her needle for her. I became increasingly difficult to do her handwork because of her failing sight and the arthritis in her hands but she continued to make quilts pretty much until the end of her life.
When our first child was a baby she came and stayed with us for several days. I have a picture of her with the baby in his stroller and another of him sitting in the yard of our tiny little house on the quilt she made me when I was a little girl.
Several years after she passed away, Mom opened a box of hers and it contained seven completed quilt tops. One for each of her seven grandchildren. For Christmas that year we received a quilt with a poem Mom wrote telling about the quilt being from both, Grandma and Mom. Mother had put linings and backing on them all and had carefully done buttonhole stitching around each of the many small pieces of material. This repaired the places where our Grandmother's failing eyesight and un-cooperative hands had missed. It was a lovely and sentimental gift.
Our little girl was born just before Christmas 1970. Grandma said she was special because she was her 13th great-grandchild and we named her April. Grandma's birthday was April 13Th.
I think Grandma was pretty satified with her latter life but, she did, always, have one big fear. She was afraid there might come a time when she would be unable to care for herself (as we grow older, it is a dread I am sure many of us share) and she feared she would have to be put into an "Old Folks Home."
Thankfully that never happened to her for she lived with our parents and remained generally healthy, both physically and "Thank God" mentally until very shortly before she passed away in January of 1973.
We had just been to Missouri for the Christmas holidays and got to spend time with her that I hold very close to my heart.
I'm sure that everyone considers their Grandma to be the very best. I am happy if that is true for you.
It certainly is true for our family. I am so glad God blessed me (and my brothers and sisters) with our one VERY SPECIAL GRANDMA!
