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| B and his friends campaigning |
Dear Mother & Daddy,
"It is nap time but Ann isn't going to take one even if she was up at 6:00. She hates to go to bed now and it takes all the tact in the world to get her asleep without a lot of fuss. Bobby would take a nap most of every day if he could and sometimes takes one before lunch. He told me this afternoon he was awfully tired & wanted to take a nap. I wish he went to school in the morning so he could sleep in the afternoon. I can usually get a short rest when they sleep & I feel so much better if I just get a few minutes rest.
We are going to a program at school tonight so it will be good to get them in bed early. I wish you could have seen them last night. We dressed them up in false faces and rang doorbells. Ann was the funniest thing you ever saw. All the neighbors had candy or cookies for them so they are still eating the loot. Each one had quite a collection in their paper bag.
I'm going to see Dr. Ball this afternoon & hope he'll dismiss me. He is so thorough, though, that I don't know whether he will or not.
We drove to Aunt Ione's last Sunday to see Granny and Aunt Maude. Granny had a headache but they both look fine. I've never seen Maude look so well even if she is awfully gray. Granny just doesn't change. We had a lovely time. Aunt Ione caught a toad for Bob and he's doing fine in a box in the basement. We'd turn it loose down there but we're afraid it will get in the washer.
The Mothers of the kindergarten children were invited to a tea on Wed. and Toni and I went for a few minutes.
Our minnows are just fine and we have two baby snails. They hatched out of eggs. The children & I have spent a lot of time this week watching them.
The wind has blown so much this week that our yard is covered with leaves & it has been raked twice. Fires have raged all week as you probably have read.
Ann is on my lap begging for the pen so I'll have to stop & hope that you can read this.
The little clipping is from a "letter to the editor". I don't know the writer but he feels the same as I do. Now that all the nasty campaigning is almost over I hope you have decided to vote for Stevenson whether you vote for any other Democrat on the ballot. Eisenhower has been a military man and out of the U.S. too long to know how to run this country. No man in such a position could do it."
Lots of love,
Bonnie
NOTE: Granny (B's grandmother) and Aunt Maude (her daughter) lived together until Granny's death in 1963. Granny was working in a field when Maude was born unexpectedly early. She was simply put in a small box next to the field while Granny continued to finish the row on which she was working. Granny was an amazing woman, married at 19 years old, had 13 children, 10 of whom survived and was a widow at age 46. She lived to be 100 years old.
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| Lucinda Jane "Jennie" Gibson, age 100. |
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| Granny, unknown event |
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| 89th birthday |
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| Playing her electric lap organ |
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| Aunt Maude, Granny and B's Mother, c 1950 |
Granny truly sounds like an astonishing woman. To think that she was able to give birth unexpectedly and then continue on as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. In any day and age, I think very few women (understandably!) would be able to that.
ReplyDeleteThough I never got a chance to meet her (she passed decades before I was born), in some ways granny reminds me of one of my maternal great-grandmas, who was a very hard working woman of the great Canadian Yukon who raised nine children and was widowed when the youngest (my grandma) was barely a teenager. I admire women like both of these strong, wonderful grannies a great deal and love that we have people like them in our respective family trees.
♥ Jessica
Agreed! I think their stories are fascinating! Thanks so much for your thoughtful comment.
ReplyDeleteIsn't that amazing. Granny sounds like my Great Grandmother Louisa who was my Great Grandfather George's second wife. Louisa looked after the 7 children from the first marriage (after wife no1 died in childbirth) and then she and George had 6 more children. George died fairly early in their marriage and Louisa was then responsible for their 13 children. All 13 survived into adulthood.
ReplyDeleteWow! I know that women were widowed at much younger ages back then, but can you imagine caring for that many children? I think that generation of women must have been very, very hard workers and took whatever came their way. These stories always make me feel a bit lazy when I think of the huge responsibility our Great-Grandmothers had to endure. Did your Louisa live a long life herself?
ReplyDeleteHi Ann my Louisa was 77 years old when she died. She had been a sufferer of Type 1 Diabetes for most of her adult life. Treatment of Diabetes was very rudimentary in those days.The family all think Louisa would have lived much longer if she had the type of treatment available today.
ReplyDeleteHello Ann, I found this account fascinating, it paints a wonderful picture of life at that time with some very poignant details. I found the tale of the toad in the basement quite amusing, especially the bit about not letting it free in case it got into the washer!
ReplyDeleteThe most amazing item was that "granny" carried on working in the field after giving birth!! What hard lives people must have had.
She looks a very determined woman in the photo's, very similar to my own great grandma who also had a hard life. Thanks for sharing.
Hello David! Thank you for writing and I'm delighted to hear from you. So glad you enjoyed this letter. I have a feeling that there were many "Grannies" who were pretty tough ladies. If you're curious about Granny Gibson, typing her name in the search box will bring up any letter in which she is pictured or referenced.
ReplyDeleteThanks again for your comments!