Granny Grace

Today, Mommy hung pictures in the long hallway at our new place. I’m fascinated by old pictures and the past, in general. Anything that happened before I was born interests me.

The one picture that I’m fixated on is probably from the 1960’s. It is a colored picture and I can’t put it into words, but there was something different about color back then.

Anyhow, the photo is of a woman standing in front of a field of tobacco. She’s tall and lean. She’s wearing a flower print dress and a pair of brown loafers. One thing that stands out to me is that she has the largest hands and feet that I have ever seen on a woman. Her grey hair is fixed in and updo and she isn’t smiling. She’s staring emotionlessly at the camera. I have noticed that several of the adults in our family photos have the same expression when they pose.

I hear footsteps behind me and smell cigarette smoke. Daddy is home from work. I look over my shoulder and there he stands, navy blue work uniform, work boots, a hand rolled cigarette between his lips. He takes a draw on the cigarette and pulls it out of his mouth and exhales.

“Hi, Daddy,” I greet him.

He nods and gives me a weary smile. He looks at the picture and his face lights up.

“You never got to meet Granny Grace, did you, son?”

“No, sir, she died two years before I was born.”

He nods, “Not long after they took that picture of her.”

He takes one last drag off the cigarette.

“Come on in here to the living room and I’ll tell you about my grandma and your great grandma. She was quite a lady.”

I follow him into the living room. He sits on the couch heavily and puts his spent cigarette into an ashtray. I sit across from him on the love seat. He unlaces his work boots and kicks them off. He sighs and speaks…

“Usually, when I get home, all I want to do is turn on the TV and watch The Rifleman and the 6 o’clock news, but you caught me in a talkative mood. I hope your old enough to understand this story that I’m fixin’ to tell you.”

I’m ten years old and my parents, especially Mommy, seem to think that I need to be protected. I guess that’s a good thing. Tommy Spillman, one of my buddies from school, tells me how lucky I am to have parents that “give a crap”. Tommy says “crap” a lot. Mommy says I’m not allowed to say that word.

Daddy leans back.

“Here’s how my daddy, your grandpa, told it to me. I think that I was about your age when he told me. One day when he was 9 or 10, him and he younger sisters, Lulu and Martha Kay was outside playin’ in the yard. Granny Grace came out of the house and she shut the door behind her. She told Daddy to keep his eye on the gals because she was takin’ a walk. The sisters started to ask if they could go, too, but he shushed’em.”

He could tell when his mother was serious. She had the look about her like she didn’t want no company.

Now, the rest of this story, ol’ Daddy didn’t hear until alter on, after he was a grown man. I reckon Granny Grace told him all about it when she thought he was old enough.

So, Granny walked about a mile down the road. She stopped at this old tarpaper shack. We used to call them ‘shotgun shacks’. You could open the front door and the back door and shoot a shotgun shell right through with no problem. Little old place.

Anyhow, she walked in. Didn’t even knock on the front door, just opened it and walked on in. I reckon it was the dirtiest place you could imagine son. Flies buzzin’ everywhere and smelled like somebody had dumped an outhouse into a pigpen. There'd been a dog or some other animal in there and it had done it’s business all over the floor. Floor hadn’t been swept or mopped forever. There were three little kids walkin’ around and they was naked and dirty. There was another young’un, a baby boy, in a high chair and he was tied in there with a rope. On the tray, where they put food, there was a handful of raw green beans, just picked out of a garden. Can you imagine a little baby tryin’ to eat that? It would choke him half to death! Well, the baby was cryin’ his eyes out and Granny could tell that he hadn’t had a bath in God only knows how long and his diaper was dirty. It was a sad sight, son!

Granny Grace walked over to a bedroom that was just as dirty as the front room and found a woman layin’ there in the bed. The woman was just as filthy as the kids. She was pale and she was skin and bones with sores all over her body. I heard a Baptist preacher named RG Lee say that the devil pays in counterfeit money. He had been payin’ that gal double time and a half!

Granny Grace looked at the woman and said, ‘Tell me somethin’ and tell me the truth: Is it true what I been hearin’? Does that baby boy belong to my old man?’ Son, your great grandpa was a hard worker and provide for his wife and kids, but he had his weaknesses.

The woman on the bed was too weak to do anything but nod her head.

Your great grandmother walked right back to where that baby was tied into that high chair. She untied the rope. Then..”

Daddy’s voice sounded choked. He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and coughed into it, folded it and dabbed at the corners of his eyes. He took a deep breath and continued.

“Grace reached down and picked him up. She carried that baby back home, cleaned him up, and from that day on, she raised him with the rest of her young’uns. And God help anybody who said that wasn’t her son! That boy grew up to be your great uncle, Donald.

Daddy always said that his parents loved them all equally, but none of the kids loved their mommy as much as Donald did!”

Yes, sir, Granny Grace was quite a lady!