As I promised I would I am going to introduce you to my Great
Grandmothers.
They were all born around 1880 give or take a few years.
Dad's side of the family:
1. Grannie Laurie Rose Johnson - mother of my
Grandpa William Johnson
Grannie Laurie Rose Johnson on the right
with her sisters in the early 1900’s
2. Grandmother Margaret Murphy Pearson (Irish Much?!) - mother of
my Grannie Katie Pearson Johnson Keen
Great Grandmother Margaret Murphy Pearson and Great Grandfather
Green Pearson
Grannie Katie Pearson Johnson Keen on the
left, with her sisters Ree and Winn possibly early 1930’s
Mom's side of the family:
1.Nannie Covington Parker (We called her Nannie and when
I was young I just thought it was a form of Grandmother - but that was actually
her name!)- mother to my Grandpa Almer James (A.J.) Parker{I also knew and
loved my step-grand mother Grandma Norma Parker who I learned many things
from.}
2.
Grandma
Jessie Hinds White - mother of my Grandma Mary White Parker Landers
Grandma Mary White Parker Landers in the
1930’s or 1940’s
The only one of these Great Grandmas I got to meet was Nannie. She
died when I was around 4 or 5 years old. But I remember her. I was a bit scared
and in awe of this very tiny and very old lady that was bedridden and we would
go visit often. I remember her as being powdery and always smelling nice and
flowery too. I loved how she would hold me in a gentle hug or just touch my
hand. It is a nice memory to have. My mother says that Nannie wanted to be the
Grandmother that always had candy for the children. She used to bring a sack full
every so often when my family lived just down the street from her before I was
born.
This tells me some very subtle things about Nannie.
At least at the end of her life she valued her family.
She also placed a value of sharing candy with the children. Could
this be because she did not have much when she was young, or that she enjoyed
it so much as a child that she wanted to bring that joy to her grandchildren
and great grandchildren? I do not know.
Even in her advanced age she seemed to have an air of refined
grace - like the proverbial southern belle. Was she? I have no idea.
She left me with kind sweet memories that I will cherish. That was
her intent I believe.
Now that I have shared my memories, let me share some facts.
The first three Great Grandmas on the list were all from Kentucky.
Only Nannie migrated to Indiana.
Grannie Laurie and Grandmother Pearson lived in Jackson County
Kentucky. It was known to have hard times and be a bit rougher then. Nannie was
from Scott County Kentucky and their lives were easier, but still.....
Grandma White was born in Shelby County Indiana to a somewhat
affluent founding Shelby County farming family. The Bassett/Hinds.
http://www.bassettbranches.org/tng/getperson.php?personID=I05533&tree=1A
All of these women raised families roughly around the turn of the
last century.
They were born into what I like to view as the other side of the
veil of Modern Times.
Their families all were first farmers, and then other
things.
Their parents knew what it was like to live before the Industrial
Revolution and undoubtedly carried many habits, traditions, and beliefs from that
time.
My Great Grandmothers would have been taught by their mothers how
to raise a family and conduct life in their sphere.
Technology was not so advanced, nor was it so fast and far
reaching as it is today.
Our communications technology has made every minute a news
smashing experience!
In great grandma's day news traveled in months, not seconds.
"Going viral" meant a deadly influenza or scarlet fever
outbreak, not a cutesy video everyone LIKED on social media.
Speaking of influenza....
We still have that now, but we have Tylenol and electrolyte
solutions and more sanitary living conditions provided by the modern bathroom
to make this mostly just a major inconvenience/illness, not the almost always
deadly disease that Great Grandma feared.
How did we get these things?
Technology and science!
They are great things.
WHEN they improve our lives.....
In just the few ways mentioned above technology and science have
GREATLY improved our lives!
But what has NOT improved?
What has been made WORSE?
Well, for one thing ACCESS to healthy food.
Great Grandma grew all her own veggies. Most of the time the meat
provided by the livestock on the farm or by hunting/trapping/fishing on the
farm was all the family needed. Maybe, they purchased a holiday goose or turkey
from a neighbor down the road that raised them on THEIR farm. All very close
and very simple. She KNEW where everything came from. She most likely saw those
food items living and growing surrounding her cabin/farmhouse. Because of the location
my Great Grandmothers could not grow citrus fruits, bananas, or sultanas
(grapes dried into - raisins). But there was a wealth of berries, bush fruits,
tree fruits, nut trees, and the foraging was plentiful. (My Grannie Katie was
known for her chicory coffee recipe.) So often the more tropical fruits were
just being introduced to the more northern American climates what with the
advances in ice packed shipments and ongoing strides toward
refrigeration.
Great grandma did not worry about whether there would be
pesticides she needed to wash off, she did not need to worry if the chicken she
was butchering on the scrub top wooden kitchen table was going to contaminate
the rest of the house and family.
The chicken was raised like all chickens were - roaming around
getting into everything it could in the farm yard or chicken run. It was not
packed so tightly together with other chickens that had laid in filth and had
to be pumped full of chemicals and drugs to survive growing at an abnormally
fast rate that its legs would not hold its own weight. It was a natural, clean
chicken.
Drain the blood, rinse it off, cut it up and throw it into the pot
to stew, roast, or fry, and then eat. It did not travel great distances (unless
it was wrapped up in a dinner pail for a train trip or wagon ride across the
country after being fried up.) to get to the family to eat. It did not pass
through hundreds of hands and machines in processing, and truck after truck to
get to the farm.
Great Grandma just walked out the door, picked up the chicken,
rung its neck after snugging it up close like a hug (and probably said
"It's alright ole girl you have served your purpose, thank you.") and
then gutted it, drained it, and scalded it and plucked it before taking it even
into the house. Those were the things you did outside, not in the house.
Great Grandma did not have to worry that some strange germ, or
bacteria was in her food that her family was not already immune to naturally by
living in the same location of the food that was consumed.
Oh, there were food poisoning cases of course!
There always have been and there always will be.
BUT, those old cases were much smaller and much more
isolated.
NOW, you can be thousands of miles apart from another person that
ALSO gets infected with e-coli from spinach that you bought at that
national chain super-duper market.
NOW, you can be in a different country form the original outbreak
of salmonella in melons and share in the brotherhood of pain and suffering
globally.
Don't get me wrong, this is NOT a trip down the "Back in the Good
ole Days" routine.
This is me just pointing out the good and bad in a few important
ways, to me, that make Great Grandma's time and our time different.
As I go through these reflections I wonder what they would think
of our times.
What would they have thought of me?!
Would they admire what I am doing, or would they scoff at all the
things I just do not know how to do – due to our labor saving and progressive
technologies; and due in part to my own ignorance of my laziness?
What did Great Grandma just take as a matter of a fact of life
that now we scoff at as just too much work to be worth the effort?
What are things and actions and principals WORTH today?
What were they worth in Great Grandma’s time?
How have we changed?
Has it all been good?
Has it all been bad?
Has it been a big mixed complicated bag of both?
As I have said, think on these things as it applies to you and
YOUR Great Grandmas.
For now, I must go stir up some trouble in the home nest.
Stay Squirrely till the next post in Part III.
-Suzanna
