Family History - Pt 2

Letter to my children and grandchildren.....To understand my own life, and yours, you have to start with my parents and their parents......continued

I do know from the stories that Grammy told me that her childhood was sheltered and financially comfortable. She had toys, clothes, a stay-at-home mom, and her dad was financially well-off - Grammy Martha got anything she ever wanted. She often shared anecdotes about a personal family dress-maker and various other "help" (euphemism for Af-Am workers) cooks, maids, yard-workers, etc. Grammy's childhood home was a spacious, Southern style expanded wood bungalow, set up on high brick pillars off the ground and lined with deep porches, on a multi acre lot full of large oak trees. A former stable, converted into a garage, housed a maroon automobile. Behind the yard with its oak trees and well, was an orchard of pecan trees and vegetable garden, and behind that, was a pasture for cows and horses - in the middle of town. Inside, the house had high ceilings, punkas in every room, wood floors, and beautiful wallpaper and furniture made by Grandpa L.L. in his factory. Exotic objects d'art filled the house, as Ruby's brother was in the merchant marines, sailed all over the world, and brought her back little gifts - a porcelain censor from China, a moroccan lamp, a Navajo Bracelet, a French vase, fabric, and cosmetic box, a Japanese statue of a goose. The main bathroom had turquoise colored tile, toilet, tub, and sink, and 12 ft ceilings. I used to lie in that tub as a child and feel like a princess. Grammy's house was the first in SS to have a second bathroom, which was very bare-bones and oddly situated in a closeted porch area - it wasn't until I saw the movie "The Help" that I figured this out, bc no one ever talked about it. (Segregated bathroom for "the help." Suggests racism, yes, but you also have to look at it through the lens of the era. Ironically, by the time I came along, in the 1960's, everyone used this bathroom all the time bc it was off the kitchen and more convenient.)

Grammy told me stories of wanting (and getting) extravagant things (for that time and place ) and of her parents having to go to Dallas or other nearby towns to get them : a piano, orthodontia, prom dresses, fancy portraits, vacations to Mexico and France, expensive gold and gemstone jewelry; as well as stories of her house being the ones all the popular little girls in SS went to, to play with her, bc her mother Ruby would let them take off their Shirley Temple ensembles (starchy frilly dresses, patent leather shoes) , put on overalls and play in the dirt. I always wondered about these stories, bc I knew Grammy to be so introverted and shy, and to never socialize much as an adult except w immediate family, and wondered if Ruby invited these kids over so Martha would have someone to play with ? The picture this all suggests to me was of a spoiled young girl , an only child, who got everything she ever wanted. I know her father was generous with gifts to her and her friends, and until she died Martha would talk sadly how her father gave all her friends silver tea sets for wedding presents, but he died before she got married, and she never go to have one.

Martha went off to college at Baylor - an expensive private school. I think she majored in English. The norm in the 50's was for women to marry young - hence the story of all Grammys friends getting married before she did and getting the tea set gifts - and all I know is Grammy never ever in her life talked about boyfriends, dating anyone, anyone who she ever loved or who broke her heart, or men at all. I asked her specifically about her high school years - what was her life like, what were her activities, concerns, fears, likes, friends, hobbies, etc. The only stories she ever shared involved the rationing of food, sugar, gasoline and chocolate during WWII - all the kids in SS who went to some orthodontist in the next town had to carpool, so they got their appointments on the same day, combined ration tickets for gas in order to drive there - used Martha's parents' car. I think the rationing of foods in those years affected those kids deeply - Grammy and RF, if you notice, ate/eat sweets candy ice cream and baked goods constantly. It's like they can never get enough. When I asked Martha about what she and her friends did all the time, she told me a vague story about all her girlfriends in choir hanging out at some nearby creek, swimming and singing. That's it - that's all I ever got about her youth.

After Baylor, Grammy didn't get married , unlike all her friends, so she went to UT Austin to get a M.Ed and planned to be a teacher. I think she was worried about being "an old maid", how she was going to support herself if she never found a husband. While there, she met Papaw  "through some friends " and eventually they got married. No silver tea set - her father died around this time - maybe right before she and my dad got involved.