Part One:

Play Me Some Mountain Music

I lost my last grandparent on Saturday, February 20.  “Grandma,” as we called her, was 101 years old.  She was one of the strongest women I’ve ever met…and I mean literally strong.  She lived a modest, simple life in the mountains of Appalachia.  She worked hard farming, canning, quilting, and cooking.  Think of how much of history she witnessed…101 years…the Roaring 20s’, the Great Depression, the dawn of television, the first man on the moon, the birth of the computer and internet, and even a global pandemic.  

After I got the news of her passing, I immediately went looking for photos.  I didn’t have many, but found a few good ones.  But, I realized that I also had some really great ones stored in my mind of the time we spent together.

I remember her hands.  They were worn from hard work, but I don’t remember her ever complaining about it.  I remember her warm smile and her laugh, and that she was always proud of me but never really understood my city life and city dreams.

I remember the food at her house.  Soup beans and cornbread were a staple…always the first meal upon our arrival after the long trek up into the mountains to get to the little farmhouse.  There were also chicken and dumplings, amazing pies, delicious jellies and jams and the most delectable cream candy you’ve ever put in your mouth.  I remember watching her pull the taffy while it was still scalding hot.  Her hands would get so red. She was working with a strength I know I could never muster to continue slapping and pulling the candy until it was just right to cool and be cut into long rows and wrapped in wax paper.  It was always my favorite Christmas present.

She was married to “Grandad” – another man of simple living.  He worked for the railroad company, and passed away when I was in middle school so my memories of him are a little more vague.  But, I remember his blue coveralls.  (That’s all I remember him wearing…every single time I saw him.)  I remember how he loved his cigars…not fancy ones, not by any means.  They were King Edward Imperials, in a little yellow box on a table in the kitchen.  We were told never to touch them. But I liked peeking in at the little cellophane wrapped “see-gars” as he called them.  His hands were knotted with arthritis and his skin was wrinkled and brown from so many years working outdoors in the sun.  His eyes were pensive and penetrating, with a bit of sadness in them.  I don’t know why…he never said too much around me.  But, I bet those eyes had seen a lot, whether or not he liked to talk about it.  

I remember the wallpaper in their kitchen – a rust colored collection of drawings, bridges and maps.  There were two paintings on the wall of the living room – one of Jesus and one a replica of the Mona Lisa.  On the end table was always a copy of the huge Sears and Roebuck catalogue.  I loved flipping through that while the adults sat around the table and talked over the blackest coffee I’ve ever seen.

The beds were all covered in quilts she had made and the back room had an out-of-tune piano that she would play from time to time.  There was always an open hymnal on the music stand, and jellybeans in glass jars on the dresser.  My brother and I would stuff ourselves with all but the licorice-flavored ones.  I had forgotten, until I was reminded at her memorial service, that she liked to paint.  The memories immediately came back of the works-in-progress in the back bedroom.  “She was an artist,” the pastor said during the service.  Yes, she truly was…in so many ways.

The trip to their house was a long one from the city where we lived.  Through the country, past the smokestacks of coal refineries, over wooden bridges you weren’t sure you would make it across, along curving roads going around and around up the mountains, past the big red barn with the word “Jamboree” painted on it.  Until we arrived at the little village that looked like a scene from “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (you know, the film about Loretta Lynn…well, she actually lived just a short ways from there.)  

Just down the gravel road from Grandma’s was the one-room church, along with a parsonage for the itinerant preachers.  Grandma was in charge of the church, as well as the General Store which was just a few yards from the house.  It reminded me of “Little House on the Prairie” with large wooden and glass cases filled with Hostess snacks, rows and rows of Wonderbread, and an old-time cash register. But, of course it was updated with refrigerators emblazoned with the Pepsi logo and a deep freeze with the best tasting popsicles and drumstick ice cream treats.

It was another world.  Visiting there always felt a little like time-travel.  Going back to simpler times.  Not much technology…in fact it was hard to even get good reception on the little tv in the family room.  I remember playing outside, making up stories and songs, and listening to the grown-ups discussing the latest news and bickering over politics at the kitchen table. It was so different than our lives now.  And I’m so glad I got to witness it.

I’m so glad to know that it’s a part of me, of who I am and how I am.  I like to think I got my work ethic from them.  Now, let’s be clear they are stronger than me.  My work is on a laptop, not in a garden or on the railroad.  But, I don’t shy away from it.  I love it…even thrive on it, sometimes to a fault.

And, especially as of late, I like to think that my love of simple things is from that part of my heritage.  A simple but delicious meal, long talks around the kitchen table, a walk in the country, snuggling under a quilt, a good story, country music…I love these things.    They are part of me.

Recently, we started making soup beans and cornbread.  To be honest, as a kid I was never a huge fan.  But, my mother-in-law shared a recipe (her family loved them too), and my husband has tweaked it and really made it his own.  It’s delicious and amazing and now one of my favorite meals.  In fact, I had a bowl on Saturday, February 20. It tasted like going to Grandma’s house.

Journey On.