By the time I was in third grade, daddy decided to retire from the Navy so we all packed up and moved to Bristol. They bought a new house in Lowery Hills that wasn’t quite finished. It must have been a lot of work because mama and daddy decided that my brother and I would live with Grandma Lessie and Grandpa Fred for a few weeks while they finished the house. By that time, my grandparents lived right next to the coal mine in Harmon where my grandpa worked. I remember coal trucks running up and down the roads all the time. This was before they made them cover the coal with screens for obvious environmental reasons. My poor grandma had to hose down the front porch every day just to get rid of all of the coal dust.
While living with my grandparents, my brother and I attended Harmon Elementary. We didn’t go there long enough to make too many friends but it definitely made an impression on me. I remember a smart aleck girl who was always called to read aloud. I guess the rest of us were too dumb. I also remember recess. Grandma would always give me a quarter to buy some potato chips. I use to wear these smock tops with pockets and I would pour my greasy chips in them (for some reason) while I ran around the playground. Maybe that’s why I didn’t have too many friends.
Grandma was tickled to death that we stayed with them as we had moved around so much before that. I loved to dust her furniture and spray Lysol all over, which was something my mama never let me do. She would also peel and slice apples for me to eat or give me a box of pecan sandies to eat in front of the television. We could drink Pepsi, which we called ‘pop’ and eat potato chips. She always worried about me because I was so little but I was bad to eat junk food and sweets and nothing else.
Grandma and Grandpa had a big claw footbathtub and I would fill it up with hot water until it was up past my neck. I would sneak and use Grandma’s razor to shave my arms because I had no idea you used it on your legs or armpits, not that I had any hair there. She said if I didn’t have time to take a bath, to wash up as far as possible and then down as far as possible, and then wash the possible. This still makes me laugh.
She had what I use to call a ‘folding bed’ in her bedroom. My brother and I would sleep in that or with Grandma. Grandpa often worked nights in the coal mine and grandma hated to sleep by herself. We would all pile up in the bed and nothing would make Grandma any happier than having a bunch of “bed fellers.”
We loved living with our grandparents because we got to see our cousins a lot more. With all those kids and grandkids, and us being hungry all the time, Grandma was always cooking. She was a great cook. One of the favorites with all the grandchildren was chocolate gravy (see recipe below). She made the best biscuits too, crispy on the outside and soft on the inside. Mama says you have to cook your biscuits on high heat (450 degrees) to get them that way and she makes good biscuits too. I asked mama once how to fix biscuits and she told me to use flour, shredded (partly frozen) butter, and buttermilk. She said when they have the consistency of your titty (there’s that word again) they were ready to form and put on the pan. And then I closed my eyes and shook my head.
Grandma always had a garden and canned everything. The table would be so full of food; she hardly left enough room for our plates. She always froze her corn from the garden and would heat it up in the microwave. Many times she would jump up right in the middle of a meal and exclaim, “I forgot the corn!”
When they lived in Harmon, she would take her milk cartons and fill them up with leftovers and dump them in the creek, that is if she didn’t have a pig to feed. She would also throw leftovers outside which wasn’t a big deal. I don’t remember them having much grass or yard and the mountain was right behind the house. It went straight up. Today, my mama lives in a big fancy house, in a fancy gated community and she’ll toss her bad, smelly onions off the deck (just like grandma). Her back deck is right next to a fancy golf course.
When grandma was cooking she was always in a hurry. Every time she cooked the kitchen looked like a tornado had blown through, leaving the cabinets open, all Helter Skelter; pots and pans piled up everywhere. It would take you a couple of hours just to clean it up as I figured out later as a teenager. My aunts would all pay me money to clean up while they sat around and gabbed. One time Grandma was in such a hurry, as she was grabbing something out of the fridge, she slammed it shut not knowing that the cat had stuck her nose in the door. Snapped its poor neck. She cried.
I miss Grandma’s cooking and didn’t appreciate it when I was younger as I did when I was older. One of my favorites was chicken and dumplings. The dumplings were always soft and fluffy. When she was cooking it on the stove and the chicken and broth was boiling, she would put the dumplings in one at a time. She would have me use a spoon to keep everything separated while she put another dumpling in. Another favorite of mine was her cole slaw. The cabbage head had to have a small stem; otherwise it would be too tough and chewy. She would often put the ingredients together ahead of time (shredded cabbage and carrots, mayonnaise and Sweet and Low) and let me mix it up.
My husband’s favorite was her canned sweet pickles (Virginia Chunk Pickles). I finally learned how to make them with the cucumbers we grew out of our own garden. I don’t like gardening like she did. I just hate the weeding, especially if it’s real hot outside. She loved it so much that she had a garden until she was in her 80’s and finally had to quit because she wasn’t able to work it anymore. She taught me how to string the half-runner green beans and then snap them, which I loved to do.
Grandma always had a cat or two but they never lived long because she always managed to kill them; accidentally of course. They had an old coal stove in a room off the kitchen where we all ate. Grandma would fire it up early every morning but she got a surprise one day. As soon as the fire went up the pipe she heard a cat squall. Oops! Daddy was in charge of opening up the pipe and getting the smoked cat out.
I got to watch one cat giving birth in a closet which was pretty amazing and gross all at the same time. The mucus and junk that the cat licked up was a bit too much for me. It was so exciting though because some of us (me and my other cousins) got to take a kitten home and we all named them tool names. There was Screwdriver, Nut, Nail and Hammer. Hammer was my cat. He disappeared one time and I found out later that mama asked Grandma and Grandpa to take him off one day. They dropped him off somewhere, but apparently not far enough, because he came back. He liked to sit on his back and lick his privates.
Grandma grieved for her cats, bless her heart. She had a cat named Conway Kitty, an orange tabby. He was named after her favorite country music singer. She’d get pretty excited when he sang, “Hello, darlin’.” She mostly called him ‘Con’ and he was the strangest cat ever. She used to bathe him every week and then he had skin issues from all that bathing. She would dab orange disinfectant all over those bad places causing him to look weird and mangy. My cousin Elaina cut off his whiskers once or maybe that was Tom Bick. Elaina has three orange tabbies’ today, named Cornbread Fred, Beans and Tater. I can still hear grandma calling Elaina’s name today. “Eeeeeelaiiiiiinaaaaa!”
Although grandpa worked hard in the mines, he didn’t do much else because grandma cooked, cleaned and always took care of the kids. He did like to whittle and even taught me how. I thought that was pretty cool because mama would have had a fit if she knew I was using a knife. Grandpa also liked to read and follow politics. He was a die-hard republican but I don’t think he ever actually voted. I doubt he was even registered to vote.
Grandpa didn’t have any teeth and he wouldn’t wear his false ones either which use to aggravate Grandma. He eventually ‘lost’ them so she would leave him alone. Grandpa liked to chew Beechnut tobacco and he would chew beechnut chewing gum all at the same time so it was all swirled together. Grandma hated it, especially because he was pretty messy with it. One time she had just washed their white Pontiac and Grandpa was spitting out the window. Whenever they got to where they were going, Grandma found brown spit all over the side of the car. She was mad.
Grandpa lost part of his thumb, probably in the mine, and used the nub to tickle me, squeezing my knee, until I was screaming for him to stop. Grandma would say, “Stop it Fred, you’re hurting her.” Grandma would hurt me too with ‘love licks.’ She would pat me so hard on the back that I would sometimes cry. Of course she would love and squeeze on me until it was all better.
By the time we lived with them they had an indoor toilet, but I remember when I was real little and we would visit them in Belcher’s Fork, they had an outhouse. I was scared of it so Grandma would hold me over the porch rail while I did my business. Brother and some of the boy cousins would have contests to see who could pee the farthest off of the porch. I think it’s because they were scared of the outhouse too. I have the faintest memories of daddy helping to install Grandma’s first indoor toilet.
Sometimes we would go to Tampa, Florida where daddy’s parents lived before they moved to Ocala. Lottie and Cecil were living their best life. Granny absolutely loved to fish and she would go every chance she got. They took me fishing one time and Granny fussed at me because all I did was throw the line in and reel it back. I didn’t leave it out long enough to catch a fish. I guess I made her nervous and disturbed all the other fish. Sometimes they would come to Bristol and that was usually the only time we went to church. We would go to the State Street Church of Christ or the East Bristol Church of Christ.
Before they moved to Florida they lived in a house in Lowery Hills. It’s still there and mama said it looks exactly the same. I think it’s the first house on the left as you come into the neighborhood and it has a carport on each side of the house. It was in that house that I first met my daddy when I was just a few weeks old. Mama, my brother and I were staying with Granny and Granddaddy when daddy came home on leave from the Navy.
CHOCOLATE GRAVY RECIPE (Thank you Aunt Sandy!)
Ingredients: 2 TBSP Cocoa (more if you like it), 3/4 cup sugar, 3 TBSP flour, 2 cups of milk (or 1 cup evaporated milk & 1 cup of water), 1/2 tsp vanilla extract.
Directions: Mix cocoa, flour and sugar in heavy sauce pan until smooth. Add milk and whisk over medium heat constantly until thickened. (It may take longer than you think but don’t stop whisking because it may burn!) When it thickens, add vanilla flavoring. Serve over homemade biscuits and gobs of butter.
Karen G. Bruce 