My office is a hot mess. I know that there are other areas of the house that need attention, but tonight it was the “family tree” shelf which was piled with books, folders, printouts, notes (letters and notes that my mom took and saved 20 years ago, my notes and documents from my spurts of searching over the years) that caught my attention. I know that I organized it once upon a time, but over the last few years, I’ve pulled information that I failed to refile while at the same time printing new documents that needed to be filed appropriately.

I unloaded the shelf onto the floor of the living room and sat there on the floor with a glass of wine prepared to dig in and fix my mess. My computer and family tree information are on my computer…in the office! It didn’t take me long to realize that I needed to relocate and reassess my plan of attack. At the moment I am tempted to dump the whole pile back on the shelf and find another distraction…I know that I can find one easily.

In the meantime, I found a journal that my dad made during the last days of Granddaddy’s life. Granddaddy was relatively healthy until the end. He kept his mind, but the last few weeks were painful and slow. Grandmother had already lost her mind to Alzheimers. Granddaddy spent his last few weeks in a hospital bed placed in the living room of their home. She thought he was a newborn. Always needed to be touching, tucking or futzing with the “baby”. Granddaddy, when he had enough strength tells her to “sit down! I’m okay.” Dad took note of the general interactions with Granddaddy and he also chronicled a “conversation” with Grandmother…she was talking to herself, in another world. I hope it was a happy one. *sigh* Alzheimers sucks. As does cancer along with many, many other things…such as car accidents!

Granddaddy on his tractor, summer 1999, 91 years old. Off to help a fellow who was stuck in the pasture. I love that smile!

Grandmother, exact year unknown at the moment, with the Starr’s tree. Spring 1990 or 1991 as part of an Earth Day program the kids at Starr’s daycare received “trees”, we brought the sapling to the farm and planted it as a single twig and a few roots. To our surprise, it grew!!

The notebook was a sad read.

Granddaddy passed away August 2002, two days after my dad’s last journal entry. Grandmother passed less than a year later.

I miss them.

My Grandmother was born in 1918 and for my whole life she seemed to be the same age and for that I’m so very sorry because she was only 45 (my age in a couple weeks!) when I was born. I hope that I don’t seem always 70 to my future grandchildren!!

Grandmother standing next to the sapling that Starr brought home, tightly wrapped in a paper towel, from day care several years earlier. Starr was so proud of her “tree” we couldn’t let it die so we planted it in Grandmother and Granddaddy’s yard. I wonder if it still grows.

Resistant to change, uneducated, racist, set in her ways, ever loving, always welcoming, but often stubborn. I hear that she was a strict mom, but as a Grandmother she shined! I always took her with a grain of salt, I loved her to pieces, but didn’t agree with her ideas and generalizations.  She was educated through the eighth grade and married for convenience at 17 hoping to escape her home life only to be burdened by his. My Granddaddy was a wonderful loving grampa, but his mother, Bessie, who lived with them at the time, just wasn’t a nice person. Later his dad moved in as he was experiencing dementia and needed round-the-clock care. Grandmother, despite having been mistreated by this man earlier in her marriage took complete care of him.* My dad remembers his high school years being marked by Johnnie’s presence in their home, unable to have friends over, being embarrassed and frustrated by the situation. In the late 70′s, my dad was struck and moved by a book called Gramp which reminded him of his years with Johnnie.

Photo from the jacket of “Gramp” by Mark Jury and Dan Jury

Granddaddy’s parents (Bessie and Johnnie) and Granddaddy’s older  brother*.

Grandmother’s parents (Oscar and Ethel) and siblings.

Most of the stories I’ve heard over the years about Grandmother’s youth center around her dad, Oscar. Oscar a was a controlling, mean spirited, father of seven who left his wife at home to take care of the kids and their farm, located in rural Tennessee, while he traveled around selling his cure for cancer. It’s funny, because I look at this picture and see a nice red-headed man. I guess you can’t always tell by appearances.  I have heard in recent years that he had a second family, but I don’t have any proof. (I would kill–not really!–for proof!)

When he was home, he made life pretty darn miserable for those around him. A story that is often repeated is of one of my grandmother’s brother’s. He was a young teen when he was given a puppy by a friend. I don’t know the specifics, but he brought this puppy home and was thrilled to have it. When Oscar returned home from wherever he was, he went into a rage over this poor dog and grabbed the puppy by it’s hind leg and killed it by swinging it against the trunk of a tree in the yard.  Just the thought of it is numbing, I can’t imagine living with someone who would think that this is okay.

Bottom line is that three out of my four great grandparents, on my dad’s side,  were horrible people. My grandmother’s mom, Ethel, despite the frowny face above was a wonderful woman.

And…The reason I started this post was to post this picture, but I felt it needed some background. Scanned from a newspaper clipping, it shows my grandmother at 16 as a part of her school basketball team. She is the one standing far right. It is hard for me to imagine her playing basketball. Heck, it’s hard for me to imagine her riding the bus to school. She was always Grandmother…right?!

*Gramp was eventually moved to another son’s home in another state. He died soon after. My dad always wondered if he wasn’t helped along.

I have always regretted having a “normal” family. There were no quick connections to celebrities, politicians, doctors, authors, scientists. I do believe that there are some interesting stories there, but not many that have been passed on. One of my hobbies over the years has been genealogy, I am a casual researcher and have been off the trail of anything for about two years because I can’t afford the neat online research tools and I am too lazy to travel and flip through microfiche.

I was born in Tennessee, a state that I love, and my families have been in the area for quite a long time. Our family, on both my mother’s and my father’s sides arrived in the colonies in the mid 1700s. Long before Ellis Island. They have been here for a long time.

What I want to discuss today is some new information that came to light last weekend during a quick visit with my parents. My dad is headed to California for proton bombardment of his recently diagnosed prostate cancer. My parents stopped here for the night while on their way. Starr asked dad a question about his father (Granddaddy) which started a long conversation that I wish could have gone on for days instead of just hours. My dad enjoyed telling his stories and he loved the fact that Starr was so involved, attentive, asking questions, and laughing. There were several different family issues that were discussed and I want to talk about all of them…heck I want to delve back into my genealogy research right now!! I have missed it.

This isn’t even something that dad talked about, but it is something that I discussed with Starr on several occasions and when it was brought up, my mom had a story to tell that made all of us wonder if there was any truth to this story?

I will start with my story: Several years ago my brother, DJ, and I were visiting our grandparents old farm. We wanted to say our goodbyes to Granddaddy. He wasn’t expected to live much longer and we wanted to spend some time with him. He was bedridden and not always awake, he had all but stopped eating and hospice visited daily. When he was alert, he wasn’t able to talk much: he wanted ice cream, he was in pain, would love some apple pie if you have it, he needs to sleep. He was aware of his surroundings, and who we were. He said “I love you” several times (which I cherish), would hold our hands and kiss you if you leaned in. It was a heartbreaking trip, made substantially worse by Grandmother’s obvious and painful loss of reason and function to Alzheimers.

She was difficult, funny, sad and confused. She spent a great deal of time patting and stroking Granddaddy, much of the time thinking he was a baby in need of care. She accused family members of stealing her clothes, complained about the strange family living in the tree out front, and was always trying to cook. When she was allowed access to the kitchen she made inedible concoctions using ingredients such as tuna, sugar and potatoes. The gas to the stove had been turned off and the easiest thing to do was let her do her thing in the kitchen…no knives, no fire…with supervision. Cooking for company is what she always did—and she did it well for a very long time!—you never knew who might show up and often people just did! Fighting her over it wasn’t worth it.

One afternoon during our visit, she was angry over the “loss” of all of her clothing, raging and yelling at the cousins who were gathered in the kitchen when she looked at me. “Kelly, come with me. I need to tell you something.” She grabbed my arm and led me to the living room. Sitting me on the sofa and in urgent, paranoid whispers, she said many things. Much of which was so off the wall, so crazy, I couldn’t make sense of it or remember it. The one thing that stuck out was her anger and frustration (despair, guilt, helplessness) with someone for taking the baby to the woods, to the creek. “I should have stopped him.” “I knew it was the wrong thing.” “Keeping this secret for so long.” The woods, the creek, the baby. I was chilled. Was there a child who died? Was it disposed of? Was it ill? Was it a miscarriage? Was it hers? Or a family members? There wasn’t anyone around anymore to ask.

Starr mentioned this story the other night, and as I was retelling it my mom’s eyes got wide. It turns out that many years ago Grandmother had heart surgery and my mom was helping out in the hospital with her recovery. Grandmother reacted poorly to the anesthesia and was not herself for several days. She was just like she was later on in life suffering from advanced Alzheimers. She spoke to people who weren’t there, she complained of the old man who was staring at her from the corner, and much more. While in this altered state she told my mom about the baby in the creek and how upset she was about it.

There has to have been at least 5 years between these experiences.

Where is the truth in this story? Was it a dream? A memory?

The sad truth is that we will never know.

My dad’s parents, Grandmother and Granddaddy, lived on a dairy farm. Over the years, they also raised crops which included cotton. Both my parents picked cotton while growing up in rural Tennessee. They also had a huge vegetable garden. In addition to the okra, tomatoes, green beans, peas and greens, Granddaddy would also plant lots of sweet corn. He always said that he planted extra corn, just for me.

This post is not about cotton picking or sweet corn, but cows. Over the years, Grandmother’s kitchen collected many cow related items…calendars, refrigerator magnets, towels, pictures. One day while browsing some antique shops I found this:

Isn’t it sweet? A cow cookie jar, with a familiar straw sun hat, and overalls. I just had to buy it. I thought I would give it to Grandmother for Christmas. It sat on her kitchen counter for years, and there would almost always be goodies inside. That is until the Alzheimer’s started winning.

It was well into her Alzheimer’s battle when she looked around her kitchen and said “I don’t like cows. I don’t know why everyone insisted on buying me cows!”

After she passed, the cookie jar came back to me. I don’t keep goodies in it, but every time I see it I hear Grandmother’s voice “I don’t like cows…” and smile.