In the Kitchen

On its surface, the kitchen seems to be a rather unremarkable, utilitarian kind of place where work is done. Nowadays, many kitchens have dishwashers, microwaves, and other extras. Nearly all modern kitchens have certain basic features; a refrigerator, an electric or gas stove, a sink, and usually a kitchen table with chairs. This hasn’t always been so.

I can imagine my great-grandparents, even my grandparents, working in a kitchen that had no sink, no refrigerator, no electricity or gas. The main features of one of their kitchens would have likely been a wood-burning cookstove and a table with chairs. The “sink” would have been a metal washbasin and the water in that “sink” would have been drawn from a well or collected from a spring and heated on the stove. Lighting would have been from daylight streaming through windows during the day and kerosene lamps at night. Refrigeration would have been provided by nature; the cooler temps of winter weather or the cold water of a springhouse.

Wood would have been placed in the stove and the cook would have let her experience aid her in regulating the cooking temperature by finessing the damper and the logs. There were no dials to turn to high/medium/low or the degrees for the oven. Tenderloin, gravy, apples, eggs, and potatoes were likely fried in heavy cast iron skillets as tender biscuits baked in the oven at the beginning of the day. This breakfast has been cooked by my family members for decades, even centuries. I call it an ancestor meal as back in the day, it was likely a regular meal. Nowadays it is likely a special and occasional treat.

 
In the kitchen, mothers prepared the meals that their families’ survival depended upon and children were educated in how to do the same. Recipes and traditions were passed down from generation to generation. Dried apple stack cakes, just like Grandma Nancy’s were baked and assembled. Children learned how to work the biscuit dough just enough and not too much so that the biscuits were light, fluffy, and delicious just as they had been from time immemorial.

                                        

 
In the kitchen sink, dishes have been washed, produce has been rinsed, turkeys have been thawed and babies have been bathed. Back in the day, even adults would bathe in Grandma’s kitchen after filling a large galvanized tub with warm water.

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On the kitchen stove, myriad meals have been prepared. Mason jars have been sterilized in readiness for preserving the bounty of the summer harvest. Baby bottles have been sterilized and warmed. Corn has been popped to make popcorn balls.

In the kitchen, learning to pitch in and teamwork have been taught. One person has stirred the gravy while another has mashed the potatoes, another has sliced the turkey, and yet another plates the ham. All have worked together to prepare a wonderful feast to be shared with all.

 

In the kitchen, many prayers of thanks have been given; thanks for meals as well as the hands that prepared them, thanks for the safe travels that had brought loved ones together, and requests for safe travels on their returns home.

In the kitchen, babes have sampled their first real food and learned how to use spoons, forks, and cups. In those same kitchens, meals have been prepared for ill loved ones; a dish that used to be a favorite prepared to tempt a dying loved one with no appetite.

 

In the kitchen, children have licked cake bowls and beaters, and uncles have scraped the peanut butter fudge pan clean.

 
At the kitchen table, homework has been done, projects have been worked on, Bibles have been read. Catching up with loved ones has occurred over hot cups of coffee or cold glasses of pop. The past has been revisited, and details of the present and dreams of the future have been shared.

 

 

In the kitchen, life has been celebrated. Candles have been blown out after wishes were made. Sweet icing has been licked from lips. The addition of new family members has been celebrated in the forms of baby showers, bridal showers, and wedding cakes. Years of loving togetherness have been recognized. The knowledge of being celebrated by family has warmed hearts.

 

And family members have gathered in the kitchen after the funerals for loved ones. Coffee has been forgotten, growing cold in the cup as family members numbed by grief have sat around a familiar table missing a familiar face.

In a kitchen, living, with all of its joys and sorrows, occurs. In the kitchen, the heart of the home beats. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life Adventures and Life Lessons

Back in the fall of 2014, my daughter Alexandria had an interview for Emory’s Physical Therapy program in Atlanta. Aunt Fanny had been visiting with us from Columbus, Georgia at the time. I rode with Alex to keep her company, we took Aunt Fanny with us, and the three of us left Nashville, Tennessee for Georgia.

On the way down, traffic came to a complete standstill before we even reached Chattanooga. We were not going anywhere, so Alex used GPS and it gave us an alternate route. Now we had been taking major interstates, but the detour took us on our merry way along a back road.

So here we were driving down this little two-lane highway when Aunt Fanny looked out the window up into the sky and asked, ‘”What are those things up there?” I looked and was just as puzzled as she was. We kept watching them until we finally figured out that they were hang-gliders.

We watched them for a few minutes and I mentioned that it looked fun. Aunt Fanny incredulously asked me if I really thought so and I answered yes. Alex asked me if I would hang-glide if I had the chance. I paused and then told her that if I ever did get the chance, I sure hope that I would do it because it looked like a beautiful thing to experience.

After a bit, we had bypassed the traffic jam, gotten back onto the interstate, and continued on to Atlanta. Uncle David met us to pick up Aunt Fanny in Atlanta and Alex had her interview at Emory the next day. Afterward, we returned home and the hang-gliders were forgotten.

My 55th birthday was a couple months later. For my birthday, Alex handed me a card and in that card was a little triangle of paper. She asked me if I knew what it was. Of course, I saw a triangle of paper but Alex told me that it was supposed to represent a hang-glider. You see, the hang-gliders had not been forgotten by Alex. Alex had talked to her sister Roxanna, and for my birthday, the two of them went in together to pay for the chance for me to hang-glide! My birthday is in February so we waited until summer to schedule our adventure.

At 3:30 in the morning of June 28, 2015, Alex and I got up and drove to Lookout Mountain for our adventure. Alex was going to hang-glide too.


                                           
                                                       Wondering what we are getting into!



We had "flight training" in AM. We were supposed to do four little solo practice runs on the "bunny slopes" in the AM. I despise running, and I had to run while carrying a 50# kite. The lady Alex talked to on the phone prior to scheduling our adventure said it wouldn't be very far, just like making it to first base from home plate. Well, that was much further than it appears on TV or the field! I hoped that I wouldn't have to reach much of a speed. Even when I was in shape and ran on a regular basis, I was never fast! The bunny slopes were both a blessing and a curse! After performing abysmally on the first run, one of the instructors approached me and told me that if I would agree to forego any more bunny runs, they would take my glider up to 3000 feet instead of the 1500 feet I was supposed to go up to. Well, I was on that deal like a duck on a June bug; I wouldn’t have to run anymore and I could soar even higher!!

The morning session ended and we had a three-hour break to recuperate and get lunch. After the break, I harnessed into a tandem hang-glider with my instructor, and an ultralight aircraft pulled the hang-glider up to 3000 feet before releasing the line that tethered our glider to the aircraft. Then we soared and it was such an incredibly beautiful experience!


                                            

                                           

                                           

                                           

                                            


Now, folks who know me, know that I love the mountains. The mountains are a welcoming haven for me, a haven where my soul is touched by a lovely peace, and also a feeling of closeness to God and thankfulness to God.

Until my hang-gliding adventure, I had only seen those mountains with my feet planted firmly on the ground. Granted, I may have been standing on top of a mountain, looking down into a valley, but you still cannot get that fluid stream of movement and wind like when you are gliding in the sky.

So anyway, gliding through the sky gives a person a different perspective than that person who is standing on firm ground. This got me thinking. If a person who only has a feet-on-the-ground perspective were to describe the mountains, it probably would be similar to but also different from the description of the eye-in-the-sky perspective. A person with the feet-on-the-ground perspective might even deem the description of the eye-in-the-sky perspective unbelievable when actually both perspectives are accurate. Like the blind men describing the elephant, each perspective is different but accurate in its own way.

This made me think of people in general. How many times have we heard another person say something that differed from what we ourselves have perceived as accurate? How many times have we dismissed this different perspective without even considering that it could also be accurate? How many times have we unreasonably closed our minds to a different but actual truth?

This experience also made me think about something else. Before I actually went hang-gliding, sometimes I would just stand with my arms extended and eyes closed and envision the exhilaration that an eagle or hawk must feel during flight. I know that that may be difficult to believe but I have actually done that, and will probably do it again in the future! Anyhow, I tried to imagine being a bird gliding along with the help of the thermals. I imagined how it felt, and it felt good! I thought that I had done a pretty good job of imagining how it would be because I think that I have a pretty good imagination. But, when I was actually up there gliding through the heavens, well, the actuality faaaaar surpassed the imagined!

This observation made me also think about folks in general. How many times have we imagined how another person feels? How many times have we imagined that we knew exactly how we would’ve handled a situation sooo much better than another person has? How many times has our imagination enabled us to think that another has failed miserably at handling a situation because we imagine that we could’ve handled it so much better?

This experience made me realize that I should not imagine that I would do things differently than another person. That person’s actuality might just be so much more than my imagination can ever begin to conjure up! It is good to try to put yourself in the shoes of another, just don’t arrogantly assume that you got it just right!

So life is full of adventures and lessons that we can learn from. From this one hang-gliding adventure I have learned several lessons. First, that blessings can come wrapped in very ugly paper. The ugly “paper” of a traffic jam “wrapped” the beautiful blessing of being able to hang-glide. We would have never seen those hang-gliders if it had not been for that traffic jam!

Another lesson that I learned from this adventure was that different perspectives can hold truth. Finally, our imaginings of what another person is going through may pale in comparison to their actuality.

I have not mastered any of these lessons but at least I recognize that they are lessons that I need to further study.

So, if you ever get the chance to go hang-gliding, please go hang-gliding! You can have an adventure and learn beautiful lessons at the same time!

My Greatest Achievements

I have three beautiful, empathetic and loving children. I suppose that I might claim that they are my greatest achievements but I don’t think that that claim is truly legitimate. I have made many mistakes in parenting. I have told my kids that they did not come with manuals and even if they had, that manual would have likely gone into a file with all of the other unread manuals. I know that I have not been a perfect mother and I have made mistakes but all of those mistakes were made with love. So, I feel that I cannot claim my children as my greatest achievements. They have grown into beautiful adults in spite of me!

I suppose that what I feel is my greatest achievement that I can claim has been starting The Family Quilt.


                                        


The Family Quilt has been around now since Jan 20, 2013. It began as an idea in the mind of a person who was totally unfamiliar with computers and quite content to stay that way. It began a few years prior to its actual debut as the result of the 2009 Good Friday tornado that ripped through my parents’ neighborhood in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. That tornado totally destroyed a detached garage and my parents’ vehicles. It wiped out nearly every tree in their yard, and their yard had many trees. The 2-3 trees that did survive were hickory trees. I imagine you have heard of the strength of hickory…..well, believe it.

A gaping wound was left on the house where the attached garage had been and a beam had been blown through their living room ceiling, but except for that damage, the house pretty much remained in good shape. Thanks God that my parents and my niece were unharmed!

How did this lead to the Family Quilt? Well, my parents moved out of their house into an apartment after the tornado hit. We packed their entire house up and moved it into a storage pod in their driveway. We did this so that their home could be fixed and my husband could oversee some renovations that they had been wanting to make.

So, as I said, we packed their entire house up, and while doing that packing, we came upon the myriad photos they had collected over the years. When we came upon those photos, the horror dawned upon me of how close we had come to losing them forever.

Of course, I couldn’t resist looking at some of those photos as we packed. Many of the folks I recognized, but a few I could not place. I asked Mom and Dad for their identities. Sometimes they could provide the answer and other times they were unsure. As we were packing those photos, I told Mom and Dad, that I knew that there was some way to scan those pics and store them on the computer. I did not own a computer, I did not own a scanner and I certainly did not know how to use them. I had to have one of my kids show me how to turn my laptop on when I first got it! That is how tech-challenged I was…..and I haven’t progressed a whole lot since then.

So I took Mom and Dad’s photos home with me. I eventually got a laptop and a scanner. I got folks, usually my brother-in-law, to show me how to use them enough to scan and store those pics. I began scanning them and editing those scans…..album after album, storage box after storage box. It was a rather long and arduous process, at least for someone who really didn’t know what she was doing. It wasn’t easy, but it was a labor of love, and that made it impossible for me to give up!

Of course, it was impossible for me to just scan these photos without looking at them. Of course, looking at these photos made me pretty maudlin. I would see a pic of Grandpa Smith with a twinkle in his eyes and a mischievous grin on his face and I would remember how he told me that he had a giant friend that lived in the hills. He told me that when I saw mist in the hills, his giant friend was smoking his pipe. I’d see a pic of Grandma Smith and remember her shuffling barefoot around the kitchen as she cooked up some simple yet delicious fare. I’d see a photo of my Grandma Rachel Nolen who died when my Mom was nine. I’d see that photo of the Grandma that I never met and I wondered about her. I longed to know her. I yearned to learn about the life of that tall slender lady in the photo. I’d see an unidentified photo and really feel a kind of sickness that this person, most likely kin to me, could no longer be identified by family.

Looking through these pics made me long to see more photos and to know more about the people in those photos. Seeing these photos made me wish that my own children could’ve known Grandma and Grandpa Smith. It made me wish that I could know about my Grandma Nolen who I never met, and to know more about Grandpa Nolen also. Seeing those pics just filled me with a yearning that I suppose was like an itch. I just had to scratch! But, just like you have that itch right in that place on your back that you just cannot reach, I needed help.

I thought about having some kind of reunion where everyone could bring their pics together. I figured that each family would probably have a few pics and if we could put all of those fews together, we could end up with a lot! I also figured that those unknown folks might be identified. One family member may not have been acquainted with the unidentified family member, but another may have gone to visit them all of the time! And while everyone was together, I could scan them all so they could be preserved somehow.

But who was I kidding! The logistics of all of us actually getting together was daunting, if even possible. So I kept thinking about what would be the best way to accomplish the same goal without having to get everybody physically together. This was an idea that was ever present, even if in the back of my mind. I came to the reluctant conclusion that the best way to do this was somehow using the internet. I say reluctant, because I am the person who had just recently learned to turn on my laptop! But I knew that folks could be “together” virtually when being together physically might prove impossible. So I began to explain my idea to computer-savvy family members and I asked what they thought would be the best means to accomplish this. I asked if there was some kind of program or any other way to accomplish this. I even had a name for my project, the Family Quilt. Several family members told me that they thought a Facebook group might be the best way to go.

Now, I had heard about Facebook. I did not have an account, because frankly, I had heard some very negative things about it, but I had heard about it. I was reluctant to go that route and I continued to ask folks how my goals might be accomplished. It had to be a way that a nearly computer illiterate person could handle.

So I kept trying to find the best way. I asked folks at the reunion about it. I continued to ask other folks who knew computers. I continued to search…..and in the meantime, I was losing family members. I was not only losing them, but I was losing their ability to participate and contribute their stories, straight from the horses’ mouths to our Family Quilt. I didn’t yet know how the Quilt would come to be, but I was determined that it would indeed be!

We lost Aunt Hortense Smith Allen only 10 days after that tornado. Dad was not even able to go to her funeral because he was busy trying to, not only handle the aftermath of the tornado, but also the realization that we are never completely in control of our lives. We lost Uncle Gayle Smith. We lost Aunt Davilee Smith Sutherland Clark. When we lost Uncle Johnnie Nolen, it was like a kick in the pants! I knew that something less than perfect was better than waiting for a possibly nonexistent perfect. I decided that I was going to get an account on Facebook and start a group called the Family Quilt.

So, I waited until my daughter Roxanna could help me. She sat up the account for me and she set up the group the Family Quilt for me. She helped me make the initial post explaining the purpose of the Quilt and we added a few people to it. I cannot remember how many folks we initially added, but it was probably about a handful. That was on Jan 20, 2013. On January 20, 2021, it will be eight years since the Family Quilt was formed. Now, we have 257 members and we are still growing. Some of these family members I have not had the pleasure to meet in person. I haven’t actually met them, but I am happy to get to know them a little through our Quilt.

So that is the story of how my greatest achievement came to be. Mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers… in my family have made beautiful quilts over the centuries. Those quilts were collections of bits of fabric which were beautiful on their own, but when stitched together were infinitely more beautiful and provided warmth and comfort.

Our Family Quilt is a patchwork quilt of family memories, memories which are beautiful on their own, but when "stitched" together become even more so, and provide warmth and comfort to all who share. The memory might be one of the past, or one made today. Perhaps it is a word or two, a paragraph, or a story that comes to mind when a particular person is thought of. I wanted everyone to just take a moment to share memories and photos. If all of my family members did this, then we would have a thing of beauty and warmth that will help to keep the ones we love in our memories. It will bring a sense of connection to family members who may not have the opportunity to really know each other. It will connect the past with the present, and as we continued to add new memories, the present to the future. I was hoping that we would have a "living" quilt of memories that we would continuously add to, a patch at a time. I hoped that every family member would contribute so that the Family Quilt becomes such a thing of beauty that it becomes a legacy that our descendants will one day treasure.

Over the years, participation has not been like I had hoped it would be but a few folks have added some memories and some have added photos. We have even been able to identify some of those “unknown” folks. Several family members have been able to see photos and faces that they had never seen before. I reckon that it has been somewhat of a success. I am still hoping that folks will begin to share their memories and stories more. Hmmmmm…I wonder if we can have a virtual quilting bee!

So starting the Family Quilt is one of my greatest achievements but recently I have been very happy to recognize another.

My three-year-old granddaughter Jooniebug loves to look at photos on our phones. I have quite a few old family photos on mine. She will crawl up into my lap and ask to look at pictures and we will go through the photos and I will tell her that one photo is of her great-great-great-aunt Alta. Another photo is of her great-great grandma Rachel and another is her great-great-great grandpa Joe. She has started crawling up into my lap and asking to look at her greats!

This morning, my daughter called me and asked me if we had a great-great… grandpa Joe. I told her that my great-grandpa was Joe. Then Roxanna told me that Jooniebug had drawn a picture and told her that one spot was great-great… grandpa Joe. Another was Rachel and another was a great-great… auntie Mary. I didn’t remember showing her a photo of Mary, but she does have a great-great-great aunt Mary. So I am so hoping that I have achieved instilling an interest in her family and her family history in Jooniebug. If that continues, that achievement may become my greatest!


                                            
Jooniebug's picture of some of her greats; All of the different colors tell me that at the tender age of three, she already knows that we all mutts!

Sweet Memories of My "Kennedy" Compound

 

I have trouble separating the memories of my first eight years of childhood. Nearly all memories from that time combine into an idyllic era filled with family, love, contentment, carefreeness, safety. I wish that I had the power to bestow upon every child the near-perfection of my first eight years. My later childhood was good, my life so far has been good, just not the idyllic perfection of my first eight years.

I was born in Dayton, Ohio to young, first-time parents. They had little in the way of financial security but they were rich in the amount of love they both received and gave. They were part of something special that was much bigger than themselves. Several family members of both of my parents lived in an area of Dayton within a ten-minute walk from each other.

My parents were part of an extended family in which members shared a mutualistic symbiotic relationship. The members supported each other and had each other’s backs. In later years after learning a bit about history, I would liken this to my family’s own “Kennedy” Compound, just without the fame or fortune.

When I was born, my parents lived in a little rented brown shingle-sided house at 336 Knox Avenue. Later, before my brother was born, my parents bought a little white-sided house just down the road at 320 Knox Avenue. That home at 320 was not much more than a shell of a home when they purchased it. Snow actually blew through cracks between the window and the sill into my brother’s crib the first winter we were there. Dad worked on it in his spare time until it was a beautiful and cozy little home.

                                                          Mom had just stepped on a bee.

                                                              Life at 336 Knox Avenue

If you stepped out of my family’s home at either 336 or 320  and walked in a right direction up the road, a few houses down on the right would be where Aunt Alta, Uncle Bug, their three children, my Uncle Johnnie and Granny lived.

                   A "recent" photo of Alta and Bug's Knox home.

Now Aunt Alta was really my great-aunt but she and Uncle Bug were more like grandparents to me. When Alta’s sister Rachel died, Aunt Alta and Uncle Bug had taken in my mother and her baby brother Johnnie to raise. Mom’s other five siblings ended up in children’s homes. Over the years, Aunt Alta lamented more than once that she wished that she could have taken in all seven of the siblings but she just couldn’t do it. Mom was ten and Johnnie was one or two when they moved in with Aunt Alta and Uncle Bug. Granny was Alta and Rachel’s mother so she was my great-grandmother. Everyone called her Granny, even the neighborhood kids.

                                                Granny and me.

Now, if you came out the door of our Knox home and went left down the road and then left around the corner, you could walk to the end of that road and then walk across a path worn into a grassy piece of land, and come to Maeder Avenue. The house nearly in front of you would be the home of Uncle John and Aunt Hortense’s family. John was Aunt Alta’s brother and my great-uncle by blood. He was married to Hortense who was my dad’s sister and my aunt by blood. Just to the left of Uncle John and Aunt Hortense’s home was the home of Davilee and Sherlock’s family. Davilee was Dad and Hortense’s sister so she was also my aunt. Later, Uncle Bug and Aunt Alta would move to a home on Calumet Lane and this is the home that I really associate with them.  You could stand in Uncle John’s backyard and look across a field to see the back of Aunt Alta and Uncle Bug’s home.

Uncle John and Aunt Hortense's home on Maeder Avenue.

      The home of Aunt Davilee and Uncle Sherlock on Maeder Avenue. 

So we had quite a bit of family localized in a small area. My family’s little corner of Dayton is what I would later call our “Kennedy” Compound.

While I have memories of my own home, I have just as many at the homes of my other family members. Mom tells me that before I was born, my cousin Linda, everyone called her Kookie, claimed me as her baby. She would often come to our Knox home, put me on her hip and pack me back to Aunt Alta and Uncle Bug’s house where I enjoyed the love of myriad family members. Sometimes she would take me to Uncle John and Aunt Hortense’s house where I would enjoy the company of even more family. I was like a little nomad constantly searching for another spot to land and wherever I landed, I was surrounded by loving faces.

                                             Kookie and me.

Just as I was constantly traveling between homes, others were visiting and staying with my family there on Knox Avenue. My maternal grandfather stayed with us for a short time. My aunt and her three children stayed with us briefly two or three times. Dad would drive down to Kentucky to pick up Mom’s siblings to visit us during breaks from their schools.

                                                 Granny with David, Lola's kids and me.

                                            Neighbor Kimmy, Aunt Lola's kids, David and I.

                                                                    Grandpa visiting.
 

                                Dad building a radio in Knox kitchen.

Me in front of Cedar chest made by Uncle Billy.

                                    Granny and David at 320 Knox

             Me in my bed that was in the corner of the living room.

Prince Albert cans filled with caterpillars would often be under that bed.

Birthday celebration on Knox.

                                       Uncle Ronnie visiting Knox.                        

                                    

On Thanksgiving and Christmas, my uncles, along with my male cousins would travel to one house and have a meal before continuing on to the home of another family member for another meal. They made rounds getting in as many delicious meals as possible before my uncles had to return to the children's home and school.

So I was either traveling around to see family or family was coming to Knox to see us. It was such a sweet time filled with so much family and love.

I especially recall visiting at Aunt Alta’s and Uncle Bug’s Calumet Lane home. I believe that I saw them on a nearly daily basis. I remember that Granny raised chickens and I can recall her getting a shipment of baby chicks. I can recall a cardboard box with holes dotting the top from whence a cacophony of peeps could be heard. I remember waiting in anticipation as Grandma opened that box and I recall peering down into the bottom of that box to see yellow fluff balls trying to climb over each other to get out. She would take the chicks to her chicken house and feed and water them with upside-down mason jars with special feeding and watering “lids”.

After those chicks grew up, they would lay eggs that Granny would fry for breakfast. A few unlucky ones would end up as fried chicken but at least, they didn’t end up as ordinary fried chicken; they ended up as Granny’s most delicious fried chicken!

I remember when Mary Poppins first came out, Kookie took me on an electric bus downtown to watch it at the theater. That was such an adventure! I got to ride on an electric bus. I had so often been awed when seeing those streetcars go about town tethered to the lines overhead. That was probably the first time that I had seen a movie in a theater. My family usually watched movies at the drive-in down Third Street. Those movies were special also because sometimes, there were fireworks after the show!

I recall after seeing Mary Poppins, someone had purchased me a vinyl “carpet”bag with an attached umbrella that I was convinced was just like Mary Poppins’ magical possessions. Our neighbors behind us would babysit my brother and I occasionally. They had a low overhang over their basement access. I remember plans to climb up onto that low roof to go flying off with my magical umbrella and carpetbag being thwarted by a much too observant babysitting neighbor!

I remember sitting on Aunt Alta and Uncle Bug’s front porch in the summers. Sometimes we would be waiting for Granny to use her huge butcher knife to slice open a big ripe watermelon bought from a local stand. The watermelon of my youth was the sweetest, juiciest, most delicious watermelon I have ever eaten. Maybe having fun spitting the seeds made it better…or maybe swallowing the seeds and anticipating growing your own watermelons is what made them so good!

We also sat out on the porch waiting for Dad, Uncle Bug or someone else to bring home a gallon jug of ice cold root beer from the stand up on Third Street. Everyone would hold a glass out so it could be filled with cold, delicious perfection, unmatched by any root beer to this day.

Often, Kookie and I would just sit out on the porch swing and swing. Sometimes we would just sit. Sometimes we would talk. I remember once that Kookie told me that Granny was more hers than she was mine. I asked her how that could be. She told me that Granny was her grandmother but she was my great-grandmother. Of course she was my GREAT-grandmother, Granny’s greatness was surely beyond  question! Besides, wouldn’t that mean that Kookie was just Granny’s granddaughter while I was her GREAT-granddaughter!

The porch swing in future years; Uncle Johnnie, Aunt Alta and Aunt Lola.

Aunt Alta; Granny's chickens and chicken house in background. Across the field is Uncle John and Aunt Hortenses's house.

Never too big for Granny's lap.

Calumet kitchen.

                         Uncle Bug and Granny in Calumet kitchen.             
                                 

 Uncle Olen on leave visiting Calumet.   

 Uncle Bug near Calumet garage. Home in background.

                                                  Holiday picnic.

Uncle Johnnie worked just up Calumet and across Third Street at Estridge’s Market. Kookie would often walk with me up to see Uncle Johnnie there. I was Uncle Johnnie’s tenth birthday present as we shared birthdays and we would often celebrate with cake together.

        Uncle Johnnie and I sharing our birthday with David and Granny

When we visited him at Estridge’s, he would buy me a pop, usually a Barq’s Red Crème Soda and candy. He would let me pick out a whole little paper bag full of penny candies. I guess that Kookie would hop me up on sugar and if I got too hyper she could take me home!

Uncle Johnnie also worked at a little donut shop on Third Street. I remember on the weekends, he would bring home a box full of donuts that he and his buddies had made at the shop. Those were the best donuts that I have ever eaten too! It seems that all of the flavors of my childhood make more recent flavors pale in comparison. Perhaps it is not that the watermelons, the root beer, the donuts of my youth tasted so much better but that the presence of long gone loved ones is what made them so very sweet.

So my first eight years were filled with boocoodles of family; great-grandmothers, great-aunt/grandmother, great-uncle/grandfather, great-uncle/uncle, great-aunt/aunt, uncles, aunts, cousins of every “denomination”. I was surrounded by family and seeing that family was not a rare occurrence. Many of them I was blessed to see on nearly a daily basis.

This idyllic childhood came to a rather abrupt end in the April of my eighth year. One day instead of going to visit with Aunt Alta, Uncle Bug, Granny, Cousins Kookie, Dale and Denny, and Uncle Johnnie, I was whisked over to the Cecils’ home who were Aunt Alta and Uncle Bug’s neighbors. Granny had been taken to the hospital. I did not know what was going on. I only knew that my Granny was in the hospital and I was not allowed to go see her.

I remember sitting quietly and still in a chair in the Cecils’ living room. I remember a vise clamping down on my heart and with each moment that passed, the harder became its grip on my heart. I remember the fear, the confusion… Where was my Granny? What were they doing to my Granny? Why were they keeping me away from my Granny, the angel that had been a sweet daily presence in my life?

I don’t know how long I sat there in the Cecils’ living room but eventually, someone came and took me home because Granny had died. I am not sure if I knew what dying meant. I am not sure if I cried or continued to sit quietly or maybe I went on about play? I just don’t remember that.

I do remember going to Granny’s funeral. I remember refusing to walk by her casket to see my beautiful Granny lying in a box! I wanted to be standing by my Granny as we looked down into a box of chaotic yellow fluff balls together not into a box at my still, sweet Granny!

I did not cry until they started singing “In the Sweet By-and-By’ and then my cries burst forth. Granny was so well-loved and I know that others shed quiet tears but the sounds of my eight-year-old heart breaking must have seemed like an erupting Krakatoa amongst that quiet grief. I probably added to my mother’s own grief but I could not help it. I recall saying over and over, “I want to go home! Take me home!”

For some reason, it seemed so very important that I go home. Perhaps my eight-year-old mind had thought that if I were at home, I wouldn’t have to wait until the “sweet by-and-by” to see my sweet Granny. Perhaps I imagined that Kookie would come by the house, take my hand, lead me outside, around the corner, across a path worn into a patch of grass, up by Uncle John and Aunt Hortense’s house, across a field and into the house on Calumet where I would go into the kitchen and hug my sweet angel Granny.

So April 22, 1968, was the date that my fondest memory of childhood, really a tightly woven strand of many memories, ended. Two or three months later, my family moved to a farm in the countryside a few miles outside the small town of Wartrace, Tennessee. There I had an aunt, an uncle and an older male cousin that lived a mile or two up the road.

The idyll ended in April and a few months later the “Kennedy” Compound ended…at least for me.

Time Traveling Tourist

 

If I could time travel, I would for certain carry a good supply of paper and pens with me, as well as a camera! I think that I might go back to 1545 to Belsay Castle in Northumberland England, close to the border with Scotland. There, I believe that I could meet my 13X great-grandparents Lancelot and Ann Fenwick Middleton, as well as my 12X great-grandpa George, a baby at that time.

The Belsay Castle had been built by Middletons and inhabited by them for some time. It would be nice to visit a real castle that was actually a historical family home and a castle seems so far removed from the simple abodes of other family members that I am familiar with. I could have visited other greats there, but I just could not resist visiting my family’s very own Lancelot!

So, I would visit my greats and I would surely pester them for stories concerning our family history. I would observe how they went about their lives living in a castle already a few centuries old. I would record everything on my paper and with my camera so that I could bring it all back with me to share with current family. And while they shared family history with me, I would share family future with them. I would tell them stories of their 10XG grandson  Calvin Middleton and his daughter Nancy Middleton Smith. I would tell them about some of the simple but so fine folks that resulted from their union.

Now, Belsay castle is just over 21 miles from Hadrian’s Wall which had been built by Roman Emperor Hadrian to defend Rome’s northernmost holds from invading Scots. If I could use my time travel skills to zoom on over to Hadrian’s Wall rather than depending upon the travel methods of the day, I would certainly visit that historic site before visiting Scotland.

My DNA indicates 40% Scottish ethnicity so I must have a few ancestors from there. I suspect that my McQueen and Davidson lines may have originated in Scotland. Even if I couldn’t visit specific places where they lived because I just don’t know where that is, it would be wonderful to visit their homeland and imagine that the sights I was seeing were once viewed through their eyes too.

I would also visit Ireland. I know that my Nolen and Flanary lines have ties to Ireland and others likely do, as well. I would visit County Carlow. My 13XG Gpa Donough Hugh Nowlin was born there in 1545 so I could meet his dad 14 XG gpa Awly Nuallain Nowlin and find out who 14XG gma was! Perhaps I could even rock my 13XG gpa to sleep while singing a lullaby! I would love to visit Dublin where my 9XG grandpa Pierce Nowland was born. He would in the future migrate to America and reside in Virginia.  

I imagine that the landscape of both Scotland and Ireland would make me feel right at home. I always feel like a prodigal daughter come home when I am in the Appalachians and those mountains were once connected to the mountains of Ireland and the Scottish Highlands. They were all part of the Central Pangean Mountains of the supercontinent Pangaea during the Triassic period. They would later drift apart but perhaps there is some metaphysical tie that is not as easily rent asunder as mere stone, trees, and earth. My ancestors who left Ireland and Scotland for America and traveled to eventually settle in Appalachia must have felt a familiarity and perhaps felt like they had come “home” also.

So, that is my where and when I would travel for my distant past time travel. I would love to do as I have written, but I have a greater desire to travel to a place and time less distant and more recent. For this trip, I would want to be accompanied by my children, my niece, and my granddaughter and we would go back to around 1967 to Anglin Branch in Owsley County, Kentucky. Who knows we might even run into me as a seven-year-old visiting Grandpa and Grandma David and Nancy Middleton Smith with my parents and my younger brother David. That would be kind of freaky seeing myself as a seven-year-old, But it would be neat for my kids, my niece, and my granddaughter to see me as a kid, their uncle and father as a kid, and their grandparents when they were quite young. Of course, they know that we once were young too, but they probably have a difficult time imagining that. Heck, sometimes I have a hard time imagining those wonderful and carefree days too!

Even as a child, visiting my grandparents there on Anglin was like a "traveling back in time" adventure.

My family lived in Dayton, Ohio. Our home was very modest, but we did have indoor facilities and we got our drinking water from the faucet in the kitchen. It had central heat from a furnace. We lived on quiet and paved Knox Avenue. We had a pretty nice little yard but it wasn’t huge. We could easily see the homes of neighbors living to the left and right of us and the fore and aft of us. There was a pretty nice field directly in front of our house that belonged to our trash man Bill Guthrie but houses lined much of the street. We had a telephone and television. Of course, our television was not anything like current TVs. They were big and boxy and only had a few channels and the black and white programming went off the air at midnight.

Now when we visited Grandpa and Grandma, we traveled into the hills of Eastern Kentucky. We traveled some curvy roads to get there and my brother David, who was prone to car-sickness, would often have to move up to the front seat. It seems that watching the landscape coming at you through the windshield is less stomach-curdling than seeing it fly by out the side window. So we traveled some “treacherous” roads to arrive at Anglin Branch Road. Now back then, Anglin Branch Road was just a dirt road and did not even have gravel. Anglin branch had its own little twists and turns and rises and falls. When that dirt got wet, and it seemed that our visits were often accompanied by rain, the dirt of Anglin Branch would turn into a mud slick. No one drives better than my dad, but when it rained, often even Dad could not coax the car to navigate that mud slick. He would often have to park the car and we would walk the rest of the way to Grandpa and Grandma’s house.

There were a few folks who lived along the way. I remember Oscar and Laura Edwards lived in a little white house tucked back into a holler on the right. Laura always had the most beautiful flowers around her house; sultanas, lantanas…I can’t remember what they all were but I know that they were all beautiful! Lishie and Sarah Green lived in a house on the left. I don’t remember much about them but Sarah was some kind of cousin.

There was a log type two-story home on the left just before reaching Grandpa and Grandma’s house. This is where Laura Edward’s father Henry “Hen” Sandlin had lived. In 1957, despondent over ill health, he went to his barn and hung himself. Grandpa was the one who had cut him down from the rope hanging from the rafters.

So after passing Hen’s old place, Grandpa and Grandma’s little piece of Heaven was there on the left. It was a little white-sided farmhouse. In the winter, smoke would be rising from the coal stove in the living room and the coal grate in the bedroom. That and layers of Grandma’s handmade quilts was what kept a body warm in winter. In summer, Grandma had flowers in the yard. She always had a couple of old tire planters filled with moss roses. I remember hollyhocks blooming profusely in the side yard. Dad tells me that Grandma had grown huge dahlias as big as dinner plates at some time, but I don’t remember them so maybe that was before my time.

Grandpa and Grandma had electricity and a faucet in the kitchen which they used for washing dishes and filling washbasins and tubs for sponge baths and tub baths. They didn’t have indoor facilities but they had a two-holer outhouse down a worn path alongside the waters of Anglin Branch. There Charmin was replaced with outdated Sears and Roebuck, Montgomery Ward, Alden, Spiegel and J C Penney catalogs. At night, we would slide a five-gallon lard stand converted into a chamber pot from under the bed to pee. I can almost hear the sound of pee hitting the side of that metal lard stand!

Grandma drew drinking water from a well just off of the back porch. She would drop a bucket down into the well and then pull up some of the coolest and sweetest water to cross any lips. She would pour the water from the well bucket into a metal bucket that would be kept on the enameled Hoosier cabinet in the kitchen. There was an aluminum dipper that rested in the bucket and everyone would dip out a drink of water and sip it down from the dipper before placing it back into the bucket for the next thirsty person. Thankfully, we didn’t have worries about Covid-19 back then!

Now, back in Dayton, some family members had enough land to raise gardens so we did have homegrown produce there but much of our food came from the local grocery. On Anglin, Grandma gathered eggs for breakfast from her laying hens. If a hen had quit laying or too many roosters tried to rule the roost, we might even have chicken and dumplings or some scrumptious fried chicken. Grandpa milked the cow for milk and Grandma would skim the cream off of the top and rock it in a gallon jug over her knee until she had some delicious butter. If visiting during the cool times, a hog might be slaughtered and we could have some fresh pork tenderloin to eat with Grandma’s homemade buttermilk biscuits, tenderloin gravy and fried apples. Sometimes Dad would pour a bit of Bob White syrup onto his plate and mix in some butter to eat with a biscuit.

Grandpa and Grandma didn’t have a salt shaker; they had a little bowl of salt that they kept on the table. If you needed salt, you would take a pinch and sprinkle it over your food. Grandpa had to use salt substitute because of heart trouble so he was stuck mundanely shaking from the little cardboard “bottle” of a substitute. He didn’t get to pinch like the rest of us.

Grandpa and Grandma raised a big garden and Grandma knew how to turn that produce into tasty meals. Fresh corn and green beans, new potatoes, juicy ripe tomatoes, sweet potatoes…  Grandma made them into meals fit for royalty or even some of her Middleton ancestors that called a castle home!

She also knew how to preserve that produce for later. Some like arsh potatoes, sweet potatoes, turnips, cabbages… could be stored for a time in a root cellar. She canned much of their garden harvest and she even canned sausage. She also dried apples, pumpkin rings and I can remember helping to make green bean necklaces to dry for shuck beans. She made lots of jellies, jams and butters from the fruits they grew.

Grandpa had an old mule and a horse named Silver. Grandpa grew tobacco to make a little money and he used the mule to plow the tobacco base and his garden spot. I have seen both him and Uncle Gayle walking behind the mule-pulled plow geeing and hawing to let the mule know where to go. In Dayton, my uncles used tractors to plow their fields but on Anglin, time marched at a slower pace and old ways still clung to life. Mule power still won out over horsepower.

Grandpa and Grandma did not have a television or telephone for many years. They would get them later, but I don’t really recall them having a TV. It sounds like it would be a boring place for kids but there was a creek behind their house. In that creek, there were minnows and crawdaddies that called to children like sirens. We would borrow one of Grandma’s mason jars or an empty coffee tin that hadn’t already been repurposed as a spittoon and we would wade in the creek, lifting rocks trying to make temporary hostages of the crawdaddies and minnows that would dart by. We would show our catches off and then slip them back into the creek so we could use our jar to catch fireflies. Sometimes we would spy a blue-tailed lizard and take chase. I don’t recall ever catching one and I honestly don’t know what I would have done if I had caught one; probably immediately drop it!

While revisiting my grandparents, I would ask them all of the questions that I never realized that I had while they lived. I would ask Grandpa about his family. I would get him to open his trunk and tell me who all of the folks in the photos were. I would ask him if the picture or two that we think are of his dad Billy really are Billy. I would ask him who Eula was. I would ask Grandma what her favorite color was, how she came to meet Grandpa, what her happiest moments were. Mostly, I would hug them and tell them how very much I love them.

I would sit on the front porch upon woven-bottomed, straight-back chairs with Grandma, Grandpa, my children, my granddaughter and my niece. Grandma would likely be rocking a jar filled with cream over her knee and Grandpa would likely be shaving curls of aromatic cedar from his whittling stick. We would listen to the music of a cooling rain on the tin of the porch roof and as the mist began to rise from the hillsides in front of us, my children, my granddaughter, and my niece could hear from my grandpa about how when the mists hang in the hills, his giant friend that lives there is smoking his pipe.

Perhaps, they would be terribly bored to go with me on my trip back to see Grandpa and Grandma, but I hope that for the short time of our visit, they could step away from the busyness and distractions of today, deeply breathe in fresh air full of the scent of rich earth and just enjoy the simple lives of simple, but oh such very special people that were their great and great-great grandparents. I hope that they could understand what truly strong and loving folks they come from! 

I would also hope that Grandpa and Grandma would meet their great-grandchildren and great-great-granddaughter  and could understand what truly strong, loving folks have resulted from their union! Our strong roots have resulted in some strong, beautiful, empathetic and loving branches!