Dear Aunt Myrtle,

This will be the most rambling piece of writing you will receive. Even as I read your letter things were popping into my head. Plus, I am trying to learn to use the computer and I am computer brain dead. But, here goes.

First Granddaddy----I cannot remember a lot about him. He died when I was ten or twelve years old and for a long time before that he was bedridden.

I remember Granddaddy as tall, straight, and gentle. I especially remember one day when he and the uncles came in from working in the field. They ate dinner and before they went back to work they went for a rest on the front porch. Granddaddy pushed a straight chair over and lay against its back. He asked me to come over and pull our his gray hairs. I wasn’t very old and I remember feeling very honored that he asked me to do that! He didn’t have very many gray hairs.

Granddaddy would hitch the horses/mules to the wagon and we kids would pile into the wagon. He would take us to a big cut-over field where we would hop out, run along side the wagon and toss in pine knots and fire wood for the three fireplaces. When the wagon was full we would hop back in and head home.

After he was older and not well and strong, he came to visit us in Ruston. Each day he would take a walk to the little store that was close to our house. He had a walking cane and he always wore a hat. He walked slowly but straight and tall. I know this because I would watch him from my upstairs bedroom window.

I remember when he was very sick and confined to his bed. We kids had to be very quiet when we came to visit ....- NO RUNNING IN THE HALL!

We were all gathered around his bed the night he died. It was a very sad time for all of us.

Now, Grandmother! I remember so very many things about her! !

She always stood behind Granddaddy during meals waiting on the table and seeing that everyone (OF the MEN, WHO ATE FIRST!!) got what they wanted. That was the way it was done at Grandmothers. I do not know when that changed. However, it did, eventually , but Grandmother never sat at first table. She would always wait on everyone.

One summer while I was in Beaumont visiting Cala, Mother and Daddy let me buy a Chihuahua puppy that weighed only twelve ounces. Its bed was a shoe box. On the way home we stopped by Grandmother’s for the night. She did not allow dogs in the house. But, that night she slept with Pedro! She was so afraid something would happen to him. Pedro was named after Grandmother’s dog.

Grandmother would cook, cook, cook getting ready for Christmas. Cakes and pies would fill the safe on the screened in back porch. She would always have a four or five layer coconut cake ready for my birthday, which we celebrated there.

One year I went to the Old Place early to help her get ready for Christmas. We cleaned house, got in fire wood, cooked, went out and cut a cedar tree growing down the lane, pulled it in and decorated it. For the first few days we were the only ones there and that was different! I do not think I had ever been there without a house full of people. It was very quiet. Then the families started coming in and that old house came alive fast!

Grandmother and all her daughters (which always included my Mother) would have to put their heads together to get a place for everyone to sleep. Grandmother would always have a couple of kids sleeping with her and maybe a third at the foot of the bed. In the winter it was a feather bed. So soft and warm.

When Christmas came everyone had presents under the tree and that was fun. But the real fun-thing was watching Grandmother open all her presents! And, she always had a present for everyone. I still have a plate she gave to Joe and me.

One summer when we were there, Grandmother and Uncle Elbert robbed a bee hive they had found in the woods. They dressed in long sleeve shirts, hats with nets, gloves and I am not sure what else, but they returned home with a dishpan full of honey and honey comb. We kids liked to chew the honey comb. That night for supper we had hot biscuits, butter, home cured bacon, sour cream, and fresh honey. SO GOOD!

And the peanut brittle and popcorn balls! That was a fun thing, too. Grandmother would sit us on benches by the kitchen fireplace, and we would shell peanuts and sweep the shells into the fire. Then Grandmother, and her daughters and daughters-in-law, would make peanut brittle and popcorn balls. I remember one night we tried taffy, however, it didn’t work the weather was not right.

Always, working along with Grandmother were her daughters and her daughters-in-law. Everyone, men and women, were always busy helping to keep things moving along.

Grandmother would usually have a large pan of tea cakes sitting on top of the kitchen safe. We were not allowed to climb up and get cookies. Grandmother or another adult would get the cookies for us.

Ever so often Grandmother would fix us kids a picnic lunch. We would take it to the end of the lane where we had cleared a place under the trees for a playhouse. This particular lunch I remember was made up of quarts of peas, turnip greens, green beans, and Kool-Aid. We also had sweet potatoes, corn bread and a whole bunch of spoons. We all dug in and it was the best. Everything was the best at Grandmother’s.

Breakfasts were really big affairs. Grandmother would be up vert early each morning. She would have the big wood burning cook stove fired up and ready for the biscuits she would whip up in the large wooden mixing bowl. They were really big biscuits and they were baked in really big pans. To go along with the biscuits would be brown “possum gravy", eggs, home cured bacon, ham and sausage from the smoke house-- which she personally attended. -----and in season there would be fried quails , doves, rabbits---- whatever the hunters brought in--- plus plenty of milk and hot coffee, homemade butter and homemade cane syrup. Whatever was left over went into the shelves over the cook stove -- to be eaten later when hunger struck.

There was a large Chinquapin bush/tree at the end of the lane. Each fall James and I would receive a package in the mail from Grandmother ------two large match boxes full of Chinquapins that she had picked for us. And those little things were hard to pick! But she took the time to do that.

Monday was wash day--as the song goes-. We kids would help draw water from the well to fill the wash tubs. Grandmother would fire up the old iron wash pot and pile in the dirty work clothes. With an old broom handle she would stir and poke the clothes, then lift them out and carry them to the scrub tub. There she would use a scrub board to finish getting the clothes clean. She would wring them and toss them in the rinse water .We would rinse and wring to see who could get the most water out.

Tuesday was ironing day. Grandmother would heat her irons in the fireplace coals or on the cook stove. Then, before ironing she would run the iron over a branch of cedar. This would clean the iron and make it slick.. I loved the aroma of cedar and starch as it floated through the house. I wish I could smell that again. Once I asked Grandmother to give me something old that was hers. She dug around in her pantry and found one of her old irons. It is in our bedroom as a door stop---A CHERISHED GIFT.

Hog killing was a really big under taking. I remember Grandmother cleaning "special" parts for sausage.---..NOT A PLEASANT JOB. From killing to curing the hog Grandmother did her share.

Grandmother had a large kitchen garden surrounded by a tall picket fence. I remember as a small child tagging along behind her “helping” her gather the vegetables for the day.

When the field peas were ready to be canned we were always there. The kids helped shell peas and would end up sitting in a sea of pea shells. In the meantime Grandmother and her work crew would be getting everything ready for the canning of peas. Grandmother always had a pantry full of canned meats, vegetables, fruits, jellies, jams and the best blackberry juice.

A very funny thing--after it happened --and a scary thing to many people while it was happening, was the joke Uncle Delbert, with the help of Grandmother, played on some of the members of the neighborhood. I would like to say at this point that Grandmother Houston was full of fun and mischief, as was her son Delbert! So, with Grandmother’s help Uncle Delbert disguised himself and went around the neighborhood late at night trying to buy horses and I am not sure what else. He had some people so frightened they slept with shotguns next to their beds. No one knew who he was or where he had come from until, one night, when everyone was at Grandmother’s. Grandmother secretly helped him get dressed, as she had done each night he went visiting. He then slipped around to the front of the house and pounded on the door. He wanted my Daddy to marry him and his girl friend who he said was out in the car. Daddy, nervously, got out his little "marrying book" and got ready to perform the ceremony. We kids were sitting in front of the fireplace--SCARED! As he turned to leave the living room to 'fetch' his girl friend, he removed his hat and a horrible pair of false teeth he had made. He then turned back around and we all saw Uncle Delbert standing there. What a joke he and Grandmother had pulled off. What a feeling of relief went around the neighborhood -and in that living room.

Grandmother---she was a real pistol! She was always busy, running the show, directing traffic and getting the job done. I wish I could have been a peanut in her pocket as she raised her family. As I was growing up, I never remember her getting too upset with all the things we kids would do, or acting tired, or being sick, or going to the doctor. In fact, she was the one the neighbors called on to come when someone did get sick. I always wanted to be as healthy, tough and strong as she was. What a role model she was for all of us. How blessed we were to have had such loving and giving grandparents.

Aunt Myrtle, I hope this will be okay. I could go on and on. However, I guess I had better leave room for the others.

Love to all

Virginia Rose