My Grandma the conservative. A story.

[Rhettley]

The talk lately and the "how conservative thread are you" actually got me thinking back about my grandmother. She was an independent woman who was "green" and "conservative" before it was cool. She did it out of necessity. She lived out in the country by herself in Baker County. She had lost two husbands to deaths already but she just kept on going and lived 2 miles from a paved road right by herself. When I was very young my great grandfather Ellis Quaterman Durham lived across the patch from her on in an old wood slat house with a tin roof, a breezeway down the middle, and a covered porch around half the house. There was an old water bucket with a dipper hanging on the back porch for drinking. The house was covered by a huge magnolia and a cedar tree like I've never seen before. When he got too old to live by himself he moved in with her for a couple of years until for his safety he finally went to the city (Pelham) and lived in the nursing home for about 10 years. Lord that man was mad when they put him there but it took him about a week to settle in, find where the young nurses station was, and make friends. He was very content and I usually found him at the front door greeting people, at the nurses station flirting, or leading the aerobics class. When he was out in the country I was only a few years old but he'd take me on walks in the woods or around the pond. In the afternoons when I was there he'd paddled the old boat around the pond and he and I would fill the livewell with little bass and bream caught using cane poles he'd cut. After Papoo went to the nursing home Mama Louis was out there by herself but she didn't mind. The tiny church was just down the road where she played the piano and sang every Sunday, her brother lived down the same road on his farm, and the farmer at the end of the road was a life long friend.
I spent about every other weekend there growing up. I spent my time riding my motorcycle, hunting with a 22 or 20 gauge for dove, quail, rabbits and squirrels or fishing the pond for bass and bream, which she'd fry up for us. She always reminded me there would probably be a moccasin under the boat when I pushed it into the pond and to not mess with the gators. I own that property now (6th generation). It was great growing up and being given free roam of the countryside.
She was a real conservative out of shear need. She was a secretary for the peanut allotment agent in town on the bank of the Flint River so she didn't make much money but she made sure she put about $1000 in a bank account every year to pay for my college. We put it into CD's a couple of years and along with my part time job waiting tables, it paid my tuition, books, rent, and other expenses for 4 years. To save that money she conserved on things. She was always impeccably dressed but 9 out of 10 outfits she wore she made from a pattern and cut and sewed all her clothes, jackets, curtains, etc. Clothes shopping to her was to look through the JC Penny catalog and find an outfit she liked, then go to the store and buy the pattern and material. Women would always ask her where she bought her outfits and couldn't believe she made them.
She loved to bake a chicken in the oven and have a couple of vegetables and peas with it. After we ate most of the chicken she picked the rest for future meals leaving a bare skeleton that she fed to her bulldogs that she always had to keep her company and guard the house. Chicken bones are not good for dogs but you couldn't convince her of that so we stopped trying. She'd make soup, dumplings, or chicken salad with the pickings. She kept leftovers from meals covered in tinfoil. Ziplocks weren't around yet and cling wrap was just out but she didn't use it. She used tinfoil and when she washed her dishes she also washed the used sheets of tinfoil and put them in the strainer to dry and then folded them and put them in a drawer for reuse. A roll of tinfoil would last her a really long time. When ziplocks came out she used them occasionally, always washing them and drying them. Same thing for Cool Whip containers. Her freezer was full of vegetables and stuff put up in these containers with masking tape put on it with the contents written on the tape. She traded cakes for vegetables from farmer friends or bought them from the farmer's market and put them up herself. Man that woman had some of the best field peas I've ever eaten.
She didn't have her trash hauled to the dump. She had a friend with a tractor dig her a pit in the edge of the woods and she would haul all her trash out there. About once a month when it was dry she would burn the trash in the pit. When it got about half full the neighbor farmer would cover it up and dig a new hole. He usually got a baked chicken dinner and a big red velvet cake to take home as payment. Today I know the area where these pits were but I can not find one. Nature returned it back to dirt.
She had an honor mailbox for pay fishing access to the pond to make a little extra money and enjoyed the folks that dropped by to fish. A couple of times she had problems with people going down to the pond at night and shooting guns, breaking beer bottles, etc. When it got to be a problem she would go get her board that had long thick nails already nailed through the board. She'd drag the board down to her road going into the pond and lay it down nails facing up and scatter some sand and oak leaves over it. She'd sit that night with the curtains open while she watched tv and as soon as she saw the lights going into the pond area she'd call the sheriff, who she made a point to always be friends with, and tell him to come get them and bring a tow truck when he came. Word got around really quickly and nobody messed with her. Of course she always had her pocket book and her pocket book always had a snub nosed 38 in it. She knew how to shoot it too. I saw her shoot a big a big gator right in the nose one day. It had come up in the yard trying to get her dogs. One big ol brinelled bull dog she had would actually jump on gators and wrestle them and run them off but this one wasn't leaving until she shot it in the nose.
She went to heaven in 1992 and is buried out behind her little church. She was an original conservative because she didn't want to waste things. Her lifestyle led to a fairly natural "green" living. I'm not sure if she was ahead of her time or a remnant from times past. I do know we could all learn a lesson from her.

[Daybreak]

Thanks for the story. We can all learn from many of our senior citizens who learned the hard way how to make it.
These kind of folks are a vanishing breed. Not many left around to tell us how it was done. I pray that some of our younger folks will pick up the values and lessons learned from the past. Thanks again!
Daybreak

[FUTCHCAIRO]

YOUR G,MA WAS A LOT LIKE MY WIFE BABE, SHE DOESN'T THROW ANYTHING AWAY. SHE IS ALSO THE BEST COOK ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. MOST OF THE FOOD WE EAT WE RAISE OURSELVES, GOT SEVERAL FREEZERS THAT WE PUT UP STUFF NOW INSTEAD OF CANNING THEM. FREEZE IS THE BEST WAY TO GO. I CAN REMEMBER WHEN BABE WOULD BE CANNING OUR HOME GROWN VEGE'S, SHE WOULD BE SO HOT THE SWEAT WOULD JUST BE RUNNING DOWN TO THE FLOOR. BABE AND I HAVE GROWN UP TOGETHER ALL OF OUR LIVES. SHE AND I WERE IN THE SAME SUNDAY SCHOOL CLASS TOGETHER, HER MOM LEAD THE TEACHING OF THE LESSON AND MY MOM WOULD PLAY THE PIANO. BABE AND I HAVE BEEN MARRIED 68 YEARS AND HAVE KNOW EACH OTHER SINCE WE WERE 4 YRS . OLD. WE BOTH ARE GETTING A LITTLE ON THE SLOW SIDE SINCE WE HIT 90, WE BOTH HAVE HAD HEALTH PROBLEMS SINCE WE TURNED 90, WE DID NOT KNOW WHAT IT WAS TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL, I NEVER TOOK ANY MEDICATION FOR A HEALTH PROBLEM UNTILL I DEVELOPED DEEP VEIN THOMBOSIS 2 YRS. AGO, NEVER WAS IN THE HOSPITAL EXCEPT FOR BROKEN BONES AND DEEP CUTS THAT I GOT ALONG THE WAY IN MY WORK.
I SURE HATE TO SEE OUR COUNTRY GOING THE WAY IT IS GOING, IF I WERE A LITTLE BIT YOUNGER I THINK I COULD SOLVE OUR BIGGEST PROBLEM, OUR PRESIDENT AND HIS THUGS ARE RUINING OUR COUNTRY, SEEMS LIKE SOMEONE WOULD HAVE ENOUGH GUTS AND FORTITUDE TO GET THAT JACKASS AND HIS CRONIES OUT OF THE WHITEHOUSE. I SPENT 4 YRS. OF MY LIFE FIGHTING THE JAPS IN THE SOUTHWEST PACIFIC, HOPE I DID NOT DO THIS IN VAIN.
WELL I HAVE SPOUTED OFF ENOUGH, GUESS I HAD BETTER CLOSE FOR NOW.
PA
SEMPER FI
THE OLD MAN OF THE SEA

[Rangerpat]

Rhettley - Thank you so much for the story about your Grandmother. There is a reason why the older folks are called members of the "Greatest Generation," they survived the Great Depression by getting by with just about nothing. My parents were very frugal because of the same reason; nothing was ever wasted.

Mr. Futchcairo - thank you for my freedom and a big Semper Fi back at you, Sir!

[SS-342]

What a wonderful story! That was part of my life too. It sounded just like it could be my family.

Thank you so much for sharing. You are a good writer as well.

Now that is a KEEPER!

[robbankston]

[MudDucker]

Awesome story. What most youngsters on here don't realize is that what she did was the norm for folks after WWI and WWII. Most items were scarce and there were no big grocery stores outside of big cities. Back then, a majority of folks lived out on farms rather than huddled up in town. Most towns either had a small local grocery/general store or an old A&P Tea Company Grocery store (loved the smell of fresh ground coffee at the grinder). My grandmother lived on the edge of town, but you would not have known it the way she lived. They had to conserve to survive. I threw some aluminum foil away one day after one use wrapping a pound cake (she made the best) and boy did she light me up for being wasteful. She talked about hog killing days when the frost fell. Those were hard times, but most folks lived better because they made their family life special and they believed in and worshiped God like He was coming back the next day. Today we live in a society of plenty and everything is disposable. Our doctors and health departments advise to throw it away to keep from getting infections. Back then, their immune system was up to the task. Today kids see entitlement instead of opportunity. The number of good old people is shrinking fast.

[micci_man]

Enjoyed the read Rhettley and I agree with MudDucker.

[Costa1]

I wish there were more conservatives in our country today!