The fact that I describe a distance of 20 miles as so vast may evoke a chuckle, but in the late 50's in rural Arkansas, 40-mile round trips weren't daily - or even weekly - occurrences.
Even if Mother had been able to put all of her daily duties on hold, the trips and the visits would have been limited. Still, her everyday chores kept her pretty handcuffed... chores like regular housework, cooking three meals a day for Daddy, running errands for him and his farm work, and diaper laundry. This was long before the days of disposable diapers, and the diaper laundry must have been all-consuming. Mother's idea of diaper laundry included soaking the diapers, washing the diapers, drying the diapers on our clothesline, and then even ironing the diapers that I wore. The diaper-ironing fell by the wayside when my younger sister, Linda, came along 15 months later and there were two diaper-dirtying children in the house. Even if Mother hadn't been responsible for seeing to it that all of these necessities were addressed everyday, the visiting time with Grandmother and PaPaw would have been limited. Their lives were just as full of the day-to-day duties and the busy work schedules.
Mother's father, called PaPaw by all of us grandchildren, went to work well before sunrise every weekday at the Coca-Cola Bottling Company in Forrest City. Mother's mother, who we called Grandmother, also worked 9 months each year, teaching dancing to scores of area children. But when we did get to visit, they made us feel as if they had nothing else in the world to do except spend time with us. (To learn more about them and their families, follow the link at the bottom of this page to "The Moore's - My Maternal Grandparents.)
So what happens when the very first grandchild comes along? That grandchild, who just happened to be me, gets the undivided attention of every family member in the vicinity. Here PaPaw holds me as he sits on the bed in their front bedroom.
Grandmother turns the camera over to PaPaw long enough to pose for a picture with me. This picture is taken in the back bedroom of their home.
Aunt "M", PaPaw's younger sister, gets her turn at holding me. I was always one of her favorites. She had reared three boys, and I was the first little girl in her life. I had her wrapped around my little finger and we both knew it.
Even my uncle, Tommy Moore, Mother's younger brother, gets to hold me for a photo. He's seated in Grandmother and PaPaw's living room.
PaPaw takes me outside for a walk and brings along my favorite pink and white plastic rattler.
In the arms of Grandmother, and wearing one of many outfits that she made for me over the years. She made the little bonnet, too... mostly to hide the fact that I had almost no hair until I was about 18 months old. Grandmother was a very skilled seamstress and an expert at knitting and crocheting. She even made clothes for my Barbie Dolls in later years.
This was actually my very first Easter outfit. This photo was taken on Easter Sunday, 1959.
This is the perpetual expression of every grandchild during their stay with Grandmother and PaPaw. I'm not saying that they were pushovers, and gave us anything and everything we asked for. On the contrary, they were probably more strict, and definitely more structured than MaMaw Payne, my paternal grandmother. The Moore grandparents and the Payne grandmother were at opposite ends of the grandparent spectrum, and I loved every minute I spent on each end.The Moores were the "city" grandparents. Their interests included music, dance, art and some of the "finer things". Grandmother, however, had interests in other areas, too. For instance, she loved Westerns. If there was a Western on television, she would be watching it... all the while knitting a sweater for a family member or crocheting an afghan for a neighbor's new baby. We were always required to abide by bedtime rules any time we spent the night in Forrest City, and I remember falling asleep to the soft sound of horses hooves and muffled "pops" of gunshots coming from the Western Movie on the television in the living room.
Grandmother also loved NFL Football in general and the Miami Dolphins in particular. Every Thanksgiving, the family gathered at Grandmother and PaPaw's house for food, fellowship and football. After the meal, someone brought the little black-and-white portable television and placed it atop the new color console television in the living room. It wasn't picture-in-a-picture, but it was the best way available to keep up with a couple of games at a time. And we had to keep up with as many games as possible, because Grandmother had also started a betting pool of some sort. All I can remember about it is that it cost each person a quarter for each prediction they made on each of the games that were being played that day. I'm sure she was the one who determined the winner and divided the jackpots.
One of the best things about staying at Grandmother and PaPaw's house... the snacks. Grandmother had the world's sweetest sweet tooth. And the snacks were evenly spaced between the regularly scheduled meals. Breakfast was served around 7:30AM. Snack number one was served at 10:00AM. Lunch promptly at 12:00 Noon. Snack number two comes our way at 3:00PM. Dinner is always at 6:00PM. The final snack of the day is somewhere between 8:30 and 9:00PM. Some of the most memorable snacks included soft and warm molasses cookies or chocolate chip cookies, chocolate-covered-cherries, ice cream bonbons, chocolate-covered-peanuts, and PaPaw's favorite, chocolate-covered-raisins. Chocolate was always found in Grandmother's kitchen. And each snack was served with an ice cold Coca Cola in one of those little green bottles.
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| Me, sitting with Aunt "M" on Grandmother & PaPaw's front porch |
When ice cream cones or Popsicles were the snack time treats, the snacking was done outside. I guess Mother came by her "al fresco" serving of Popsicles honestly (read my post entitled "The Front Porch".) Aunt M supervises my Popsicle snacking on the front porch of Grandmother and PaPaw's house.
I have some vivid memories of those sling chairs pictured in the background. Always painted in a dark green glossy paint, and always with the crisp, dark green and white striped fabric sling seat. And always nearly impossible for a small child to climb into without having the entire structure fold in half and clamp down on me like some sort of wood-framed clam shell closing tightly shut on unsuspecting prey.
Grandmother was a wonderful cook. She prepared dishes that not many other people prepared in those days. Besides baking some very creative cakes for my birthdays (see my post entitled "The Back Yard"), she also cooked some things I dearly loved, like Chicken A La King, and Chicken Spaghetti. She must have used celery in a lot of her dishes, because I remember her kitchen smelling like fresh celery. Even now when I smell fresh celery, I am immediately transported back to her kitchen with the oscillating fan humming on the end of the counter top, the heavy swinging door that separated the kitchen from the dining room, and the small, decorative white metal birdcage that always sat in the center of the kitchen table.
Grandmother also made me aware of the difference in the flavor of margarine and real butter. I didn't know which was which. I didn't know that one was more expensive than the other. I just knew that the stick of butter that I called the "white butter" always tasted better than the stick of butter that I called the "yellow butter." She would always put both of them on the table, along with her light and fluffy pancakes at breakfast, and ask me which I preferred. Then she would let me top the pancakes with as much maple syrup as I wanted... never telling me that I was using too much. She would simply tell me that I liked my pancakes just like Tommy liked his, swimming in syrup.
Every meal was served at the table, as was the custom in most families in those days. We all sat together and we all ate together. And at Grandmother and PaPaw's house, we always ate our daily meals on her everyday dishes. Those dishes now grace my dining table at every meal.
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| Nasco's "Mountain Woodland" dinnerware - Grandmother's everyday dishes |
As a child I would gaze at the scene in the center of the dinner plate and wonder who lived in that cozy little cottage. I would imagine what it would have been like to live in such a quietly, secluded place, surrounded by a forest on a little lake.
I recall sitting next to PaPaw at that little, round kitchen table, as he prepared to eat one of his favorite meals that Grandmother would make for him. The manner in which he combined those purple hull peas, cornbread and bits of diced onion was nothing short of science. He would explain each step to me in detail as he created his masterpiece. First the cornbread had to be crumbled, but not too finely, in an even layer all across the bottom of the plate. When the cornbread was properly placed and smoothed, the purple hull peas were spread over the top. A certain amount of peas was called for. The proportion of cornbread always had to be slightly greater than the amount of peas, but not by too much. When the peas were properly placed, a ladle was used to obtain just the right amount of "pea juice" from the bowl in which the peas were served. The "pea juice" was full of flavor, since it contained the fat from the chunks of hamhock that Grandmother cooked with the peas. Ladling the "pea juice" was a delicate procedure, indeed. Too little juice and the cornbread was a little too dry for PaPaw's liking. Too much juice would make the cornbread far to mushy. And the layers were not to be disturbed while the juice was ladled over the top. When the cornbread, the peas, and the juice had been properly placed, the diced onions were lightly and gently sprinkled across the top. I watched in awe as this culinary creation came together. I studied PaPaw as he gave his dish a look of deep appreciation for a moment before he picked up his fork. Remembering that helps me understand what chefs mean when they say that we also "eat with our eyes."
PaPaw may have taught me how properly to combine cornbread, peas and onions, but Grandmother taught me how to make candy... Peanut Butter Fudge to be exact. She always made candy for the holidays, and my favorite confection that graced those holiday platters was her Peanut Butter Fudge. One particular August afternoon in 1967, she summoned me into her kitchen for a lesson in candy-making. It was there that she taught me how to measure ingredients, and how to test for "soft ball" stage by allowing a couple of drops of the cooked sugar mixture to drip into a clear glass filled with water and gauge how the drop formed a ball and gently flattened when it reached the bottom of the glass. She had a candy thermometer, but she wanted me to learn to do it the "old fashioned way" first.
After having successfully completed my first attempt at making Peanut Butter Fudge, she supervised my next attempt a few weeks later, allowing me to do everything without her intervention. When that batch of fudge was ready to unmold and cut, she told me that I was to be very careful and try to cut "neat" pieces. I needed at least six "neat" pieces of the same size. She didn't tell me why, but I never questioned Grandmother... I simply did as she told me. We chose the six "neatest" pieces that were of similar size and carefully placed them on a paper plate and wrapped them in clear plastic wrap. We tasted some of the fudge that remained to be sure that the flavor was just right. She then told me that she would take the fudge the next day and enter it for me in the Youth Division of the St. Francis County Fair. I had never entered anything in the fair before. I didn't even realize that there was a division specifically for children. This was all very exciting! I was going to be in a competition!
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| A picture of Mother in Grandmother's kitchen, where I learned to make Peanut Butter Fudge |
There wasn't much of anything that Grandmother couldn't cook, and there wasn't much of anything that PaPaw couldn't make. The memories of the earthy smells of PaPaw's workshop are just as vivid as my memories of the aromas of Grandmother's kitchen.I loved to visit that work area of his, and most of my visits were made when he was at work during the day. It was fascinating to wander around that empty workshop, watching the dusty particles floating through the air, back lit by the sun ray streaming through the one small window in the long, narrow, dark little workshop that was situated at the rear of the garage. This was the first workshop that I remember. Eventually the small backyard building that we called "The Summer House" was converted to become PaPaw's much more spacious workshop. No matter which workshop he used, each tool and every supply was meticulously positioned in its appointed place. Everything was cleaned and put away. A place for everything, and everything in its place... which was probably even labeled with PaPaw's incredibly neat and often fancy handwriting.
Looking back on my solo visits to PaPaw's workshops, I never recall being warned by either of my grandparents about not touching anything, or not turning on any of the power tools. I don't even remember being questioned about why I would want to venture into the workshop all alone, or told that it was off limits. I'm sure that Grandmother was well aware of where I was and what I was doing at every moment. The old saying "eyes in the back of my head" had to have been coined about Grandmother, who once was fully aware that I stuck my tongue out at her behind her back. I was as close to a state of shock as an 8-year-old possibly could be when she spun on her heel and turned to confront me about what I had just done. I remember how hurt I was that she had reprimanded me, which she rarely had to do. But I also remember being even more hurt by the fact that I had done something that might have hurt her feelings. (It was probably seven or eight years later that I realized she must have seen my reflection in the glass of the framed picture that hung on the wall in the dining room.)
I was rarely in his workshop when PaPaw was at work there, probably for a couple of reasons. First of all, he probably made it a point to be somewhere playing with me or visiting with me while I was visiting. Secondly, he was ever-vigilant about safety, and would have been very aware of all the ways a small child could be injured with saws zipping through lengths of pipe and lathes and routers spewing tiny chips of wood into the air. It wasn't watching him in action that drew me to that place, it was simply the smells of the wood and the oil and the dust... and the manner in which everything was so neatly organized. Everything orderly, everything in place, and all was right with the world.
Of course, I did have the benefit of enjoying some of the fruits of his works in that workshop. He made big things and little things... from a doll bed fashioned from an empty cigar box and four old wooden clothes pins, to a wooden kitchen hutch that he had made for my mother when she had been a small child.
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| Linda (right) and me with a wooden kitchen hutch that PaPaw built for Mother when she was a little girl. |
He made wind chimes from someone else's discarded lengths of metal pipe, plant stands from solid pieces of wood that formerly had been parts of packing crates from a local factory, and a wheeled cart that enabled Linda to scoot about on her stomach during the summer of 1968 when she spent several months in a body cast. Why, he even made a lawn edger from a small, spare motor and some wire clothes hangers... long before anyone at Poulan ever dreamed of making a Weed-Eater. Nothing went to waste.
Even after his death I continued to discover his various manners of frugality. I have a couple of free-standing wood cabinets that he had built many years ago. I decided to strip the paint from one of the cabinets and refinish it... which was quite a job in itself. Grandmother loved to change paint colors in every room in the house, and the cabinet was an easy target for a few coats of paint for a quick change. As I worked through at least seven layers of various shades of pinks, blues, mint greens and an occasional ivory, I noticed that the back of the cabinet was a different material than the sides, top, bottom and doors. As a matter of fact, it wasn't even wood at all. It was a heavy sheet of cardboard. As I carefully removed the cardboard, I noticed the printed words across the bottom. These pieces of cardboard had been part of heavy boxes in which something had been shipped.
In the 40's, those sleek, shiny, pre-fabricated metal cabinets were popping up in kitchens all across the country. They also showed up at 1001 Smith Street to replace the old, original wood cabinets that PaPaw had built for Grandmother's kitchen when he built the house for his family. (See the photo above with Mother in Grandmother's kitchen. The new white, metal cabinets can be seen in the background.) The original wood cabinets were removed and used as free-standing, floor cabinets in the bathroom, in the bedroom, wherever they were needed. However, having been wall-mounted cabinets, PaPaw had made them originally with no backs. Apparently, when he discovered the sturdiness of the cardboard boxes that the new metal cabinets had been shipped in, he must have realized that purchasing pieces of plywood for the backs of these cabinets wasn't going to be necessary. Waste not, want not. He was one of those people whose ingenuity and creativity didn't let the depression of the previous decade have such a devastating affect on his family.
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