Remembering

My mother returned to Tyler this weekend to help my grandmother pack up her home and move back to Pennsylvania (she's a snowbird from the north, spending the colder months in East Texas near where she grew up, and the warmer ones in Wellsboro, PA, the town to which she followed my grandfather). She's doing much better.

My mother came back with canned food from my grandmother's pantries, as well as photographs of my great grandmother's old house and a seventy-year-old watch that once belonged to her. 

We always drive by Grandma Chapman's house when we visit my grandmother or my great aunts and uncles in Tyler, but there are usually people milling about out on the porch, so we never get a good, long look.  It's usually the most exhilarating - and, ultimately, depressing - part of the trip.  Why?  The house is full of both dreams and problems....

My grandmother, Annie Jo Howey Thomas

The road leading up to Grandma Chapman's house

And the house, itself

The barn

It was difficult to look at the photos, I'll admit.  And holding my great grandmother's watch in my hands was... I don't know - surreal and sweet?  I'll search out a watch repair shop tomorrow to get it fixed and cleaned.  Then, as much as I'd like to wear it, I'll probably just keep it in its case....  I'm allergic to metal, so I'm not sure that there's any way I can wear it without breaking out in a rash.  Paint the entire back with clear nail polish?  Or is there some sort of sealant I can apply to it?  Hmm....

Comments

[Delores (Dee) Cook]

Hi Shana, I'm Dee your second cousin! Your Mother, Kay, is my favorite cousin!

The pictures of Grandma's house are great. Renters usually don't treat it so well. The last time I drove by the place, it looked awful with junk everywhere. The old barn was also the car shed. When I was a little girl about 5, Grandma had me go under that barn to see if a hen had been laying eggs there....and sure enough...there must have been about ten eggs or more or so it seemed to me at the time. I remember bringing them out wrapped up in the skirt of my dress and sliding out ever so gently from under the edge of the barn. To the right of the barn was where bushel baskets of pears picked from the orchard would be placed to be picked up by those who came to visit. I remember the smell, quite different than from the other side of the barn. Oh and there was another barn, this was the small one.

Grandma and Pa's place was my favorite place to go. I lived with several different times while growing up. The longest was when I was in the fourth grade. There seemed to be time there, not that time was still, but time to ponder things.

Grandma didn't have a hot water heater until after Big Daddy died, I think it was the early 70's. Prior to that the minerals from the well water would rust out the tank to soon. So she always boiled water from the cistern for a bath or to do the dishees. When doing the dishes in the evening, she would smoke one cigeratte while waiting for that water to boil. It was a much more patient world than the one we live in today.

I think you may have some of Grandma's story telling abilities. People loved to come to see her. She never drove, but folks always came by to see her, she made them feel really good.

Just thought you might enjoy some of my memories of the place.

I also have several versions of the picture of the road to Grandma's place. I'll see if I can find them for you.

Thanks for the memories,
Dee