|
Granny and Her Girls
My Granny, Ida Augusta Hawkins Coney, was a small woman with many talents and an unusual amount of energy. Looking back on
the many things I had seen her do, I asked Mary Lou Coney Love, her youngest daughter, just how Granny managed everything.
I thought the girls helped her with her chores and the cooking, but Mary Lou said that was not true. While Ola and Ruth, the
two older girls, did occasionally help with the cooking, and B. I. and Mary did a little housework, they were usually kept
busy in the fields with the boys. Grandpa believed children needed to be kept working to keep them out of mischief. They were
at work early every day, and stayed late. There was no time to visit or talk to the neighbors.
Granny milked their two cows twice daily. None of the children ever did the milking until Buster, the youngest, was given
that chore in his late teens. One afternoon he didn't want to do the milking because he didn't want to be late for a date.
Mary said, "Teach me how, and I'll do it for you". The cat was walking around, meowing, and Buster squirted some milk into
its mouth. Mary laughed, so Buster squirted her with some milk. Since that made her mad, she told him, "Now, I'm not going
to do it. You'll just have to be late getting to your date."
Granny planted the garden, gathered the produce, and cooked and canned it, as she did with the fruit from the peach, plum,
pear, and pomegranate trees. Grapevines, fig bushes, and wild blackberry vines were under her supervision. She fed, watered,
and raised the chickens and gathered their eggs. When she wanted chicken for a meal, Granny wrung their necks and butchered
and cooked them.
I never saw her use a measuring cup for anything she cooked. She measured ingredients by handfuls, and I don't remember anything--biscuits,
pies, cookies, or cakes--that didn't taste wonderful. All of the cooking and canning was done on a wood stove. Even angel
food cakes baked there were perfect. Her expertise in keeping the temperature just right was phenomenal. A water reservoir
in the stove kept hot water for Granny's use in preparing meals and washing dishes, as well as for bathing purposes. Granny
drew the water from the well for all of this, too.
The kitchen was long and narrow. Since the only window was on the west side, it was very hot in the afternoon. On canning
days, Granny was in there from early morning till late afternoon. Of course, she prepared and served meals while the canning
was in progress. A metal-topped cabinet held their dishes. Granny warned the girls that no cooking utensil should be place
on it, because the metal might poison them. Later a sink was added to the counter. A five-gallon can placed under the drain
caught the water. This was fed to the chickens or pigs, since it contained some food scraps.
Although the kitchen was usually hot, the dining and living rooms were always cool because the windows and the screened-in
porch on the east side of the house allowed breezes to blow through.
The north wall of the kitchen had a door to the boys' room. After some of the boys married and left home, the door was removed
and the boys' room was torn down, making the kitchen a little larger.
The metal doors in the top part of the dining room pie cupboard were pierced with holes in a flower pattern. This allowed
for air to circulate among the desserts, and kept flies out.
Hogs were slaughtered each fall when a "cold spell" came. A fire was built under Grandpa's large metal vat where water was
heated to scald the hogs and facilitate hair removal. Several neighbors then used the vat. The Middlebrooks boys loved fried
pork liver but said their wives didn't know how to cook it properly, so Granny always cooked it for them. Mary, hating to
smell it cooking, complained. Granny said, "Now, Mary, be quiet." Grinding the sausage by hand, stuffing it into cloth casings
she had made, and processing parts that had to be used while fresh kept Granny busy late into the day.
Being first to rise each morning, she made a fire in the living room fireplace in cold weather, then proceeded to the kitchen
to start a fire in the cook stove and cook breakfast.
Granny's Singer treadle sewing machine was kept busy as she made the girls' clothes. Mary remembered bloomers Granny made
from ugly colors--no white ones. They had elastic below the knee and the green and purple materials stunk.
Giving the girls a code to live by, Granny led by example. Mary said she never heard Granny say one bad word about her in-laws,
nor anything for which she had to apologize. If she didn't approve of something they did, she told them, "Pretty is as pretty
does," "Beauty is only skin deep," or maybe "Act like a lady." Mary remembered telling Granny that she and Turner were having
problems and she wanted to ask Granny's advice. Granny told her, "All right, I'll listen to your side, but just remember I'll
have to listen to his side, too." So Mary just dropped it, and she and Turner worked it out by themselves. If Granny talked
to the other girls like that, Mary didn't know about it. Granny was very close-mouthed. Her conversations and advice to her
daughters were kept confidential.
When Granny was peeved, she never said a word, just stuck her nose up in the air. The madder she was, the higher that nose
went. We commented that if Granny were caught in a rainstorm when mad, she would probably drown. Some woman, my Granny.
Lowell McCormack
Gainesville, Texas
Published:
August 04,
2006
Categories
Related Handbook of Texas Online articles
Other My Texas stories by this author
|
