My granny, Rebecca Diamond, was a woman born years before her time. She was a mixture of pioneer woman and refined lady. She would deliver the mail on horseback over the hills of Kentucky during the week and on Sunday, put on her white gloves, black patten-leather shoes and matching purse and go to church. Becky, as most people called my granny was born in 1896. She married my grandfather, Oscar in 1912, at the ripe old age of 16.
I don’t remember much about my grandfather because when I was only 4 years old Granny divorced him, never to speak to him again. In 1953, a woman filing for divorce in the hills of Kentucky was an unheard of happening. Being a divorced female in those days carried the stigma of being a ‘loose woman’. Granny evidently made the decision that getting rid of the womanizer she had married was worth a small black mark to her reputation.
The one and only memory that I have of my grandfather was going with my mother to take him a birthday gift when I was around 8 years old. I had been staying with Granny for a week during summer vacation from school. My mother was there to pick me up that Sunday morning and after church we went to Grandfather’s house with his gift.
I remember thinking he was very old as he sat there on his front porch in his rocking chair chewing tobacco. He seemed quite cranky as my mother handed him his gift telling him that my little sister shared his birthday of July 9. Unimpressed with this information he looked at me as I stood shyly at the bottom of the three steps leading up to the porch.
Without speaking he spat tobacco at my feet clad in new Sunday shoes making me jump. He thought this was quite funny, giving a loud belly laugh, but my mother didn’t see the humor as she took my hand, hitched my baby sister a little higher on her hip and quickly said good-bye to her dad. I don’t remember ever visiting him again. He seemed quite the opposite of my lovely granny and as a youngster I remember being glad that he didn’t live in Granny’s pretty little white house with his nasty tobacco and loud laugh.
Even though Granny seemed quite ‘refined’ to me when we would talk quietly and share a cup of tea, she was still ‘country’ through and through. I can see her now in my mind’s eye as she ‘saucered’ her tea if it was too hot to drink. I would try to do the same thing but always seems to spill and make a mess. Pouring just a little bit of tea into the saucer and drinking from that while still holding your teacup takes some practice. I stayed with her a week each summer. There was no running water and I thought it was great fun to get cold water from the well. I didn’t even mind the trips to the outhouse when bathroom trips were necessary. Granny had plenty of bags on lime in the toilet which took care of any unpleasant orders. If nature’s call occurred in the middle of the night, there was a chamber pot under the bed that was pulled out and used, then emptied the next morning once the sun was up. I wasn’t real enthused about making use of it, just as I was not very appreciative of the warm cow’s milk that my uncle would bring in quart mason jars after the cows were milked each morning.
As an adult, when I look back on those days, things must have been terribly difficult for Granny, as a woman alone, but I never remember hearing a complaint or a bad word come from her lips. She always had a smile and a good word for those around her. Her sons kept her coal house full so she would have coal for her cook-stove and for her fireplace in the winter. I think she was quite happy in her world. At least I hope that she was.
I recall my younger sister telling me of a shopping trip with our mother and Granny. The outing was particularly to have Granny properly fitted for a bra – or brassier as they were called at that time. The trip ‘to town’ was a special occasion for the three females and included lunch at a small diner on the edge of town. My mother and sister both ordered hamburgers and French fries. Granny told the waitress that she would have the same except she didn’t want the fries. As a matter of fact, she didn’t want the hamburger either – just a bun would do her just fine.
As a 14 year-old trying to act grown-up and sophisticated, this was extremely embarrassing for my sister. Little did she know that this was only a small sampling of what was yet to come during her excursion with the adults. My mother had chosen an upscale store that she had heard would measure and fit each woman into the correct size and style of underwear for them. The helpful sales clerk attempted to take Granny into a dressing room to begin the measurement process but Granny was absolutely, positively not going to remove her clothing in front of a stranger. She announced loudly that, if she must measure her breasts, she could do so over clothing and not naked behind a closed door where who knows what could happen.
My mother tried to reassure Granny that this is the way things were done in the modern world but Granny became more and more distressed, stubborn, and loud. Just before she announced that she would NOT wear a brassier next to her skin anyway. She would wear it over her slip, my sister had flown from the store, run to the car, and literally hid in the floor of the backseat. A bra was finally purchased without the earth falling off its axis and no blood was flowing when the women made their way back to their homes.
Another outing jumps into my memory as told to me by a cousin. She and her husband wanted to treat Granny to lunch at the local restaurant. They waited patiently as Granny put on her Sunday-Go-To-Meeting cloths. The meal and the conversation went well and all three enjoyed talking over a final cup of coffee before heading back home. As they stood to leave, Granny picked up the cream pitcher that was on the table for their coffee, tipped her head back and downed it in one gulp. When the younger couple looked at her with astonishment on their faces, Granny just smiled and announced, “Well, you children paid for the cream with the coffee. No sense letting it go to waste.”
I’m sure an entire book could be written about Granny and her amazing life as a woman on her own after surviving the Great Depression. I know for sure that when she passed away in 1981 at the age of 85, she had seen much, influenced countless lives and is still missed by many friends and family who loved her.
