My Two Grandmothers

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     "Nobody can do for little children what grandparents do.  Grandparents sort of sprinkle stardust over the lives of little children."  -Alex Haley

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     I don't know many people as lucky as me when it comes to grandparents.  For most of my childhood all four of mine lived within walking distance.  I spent countless hours hanging out with them.      

     My father's mother was born Elizabeth Ardelta Perry.  My mother's mother was Sarah Octavia Cobb.  Oddly enough, they both went by their peculiar middle names.   I consider it a lucky break that I was not named for my grandmothers.  Sarah Elizabeth would have been nice, but that wouldn't have felt like being named for them.  My grandmothers were known, far and wide, as Ardelta and Octavia.

           My granddaddies were similarly wonderful, but my grandmothers could not have been more different.

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      Grandmother Scott was a teetotaler.  Grandmother Stewart and Jim Beam were the best of friends.  Ardelta chain smoked; I can hardly conjure a mental picture of her without a cigarette in her hand.   Octavia made any smokers that came to her home "take those stinky things outside!"   

      Grandmother Scott could knit, crochet, sew, quilt, embroider, applique, and tat lace...and frequently did.  Grandmother Stewart could sew...but almost never did.  

      Grandmother Scott deferred to her husband on most things.  She called him "Daddy".  Grandmother Stewart called her husband Tom...when she was feeling charitable.  He called her 'sir'...when he was feeling charitable.

      Well, that's an exaggeration.  But only by a little.  My brother, David, says that "Grandmother Stewart was the first of the really strong Stewart men."  

      Grandmother Scott doted on me.  Grandmother Stewart made me toe the line.  

       

      Octavia read the Bible.  Ardelta read everything else.

      Informally, Octavia was known by many as Aunt Ta Ta (in Texan-speak this sounded like:  Ain't Tay Tay).  Ardelta was not known informally.  People, mainly, called her Mrs. Stewart or Ma'am. (I have a pet theory that she was Henry the VIII in a previous life.)  People feared Ardelta.  

     I don't really remember ever being in trouble with Grandma Scott.

     I never really felt that I wasn't in trouble with Grandmother Stewart.

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Grandma Scott

      I have vivid memories of getting out of the car at the Scott's farm in Haskell, after a long drive to west Texas.  I remember hearing the screen door slam, seeing my Grandma with her arms flung open wide, and her wonderful southern drawl excitedly saying:  "Look!  It's Susie!!"  I'd fly into the best Grandma hug in the world just as fast as my feet would carry me.  She always made me feel like visiting royalty.    

      Grandmother Scott was a farm wife.  She worked very hard her whole life, but she was never the boss.  She kept my granddad and any field hands fed.  She made it possible for them to work all day.  She raised three children.  She ran the house.

      When I was six years old my grandaddy Scott retired from farming.  They moved to Boyd, just a few blocks from me and then I didn't have to wait for holidays and summers.  I got to see them all the time.  Some of my favorite memories were of Grandma Scott calling our house.  (She only had to dial four digits to reach me back then.)  She'd say:  "Susie...I made banana pudding.  Would you like some?"  I doubt she'd hung up the phone before I was halfway to her house.  When I hit the living room she'd always say:  "Come give me some sugar!", followed by:  "Now you go and hug your Granddady's neck."  I swear, if there's a heaven, these will be the first words I hear.  

      The Scott's were busy people.  They always had a million house or garden projects going.  My granddad farmed their small lot in town for maximum production, so grandma spent a lot of time canning, preserving, and freezing.  They also traveled a lot.  They loved to meet their friends at various state and national parks.  There were always friends and family visiting.  Still, somehow, they managed to make me feel like when I wasn't there, they were forever in a state of suspended animation-like they were always just waiting for me to show up and give their lives meaning.

      I don't think I ever left their house without eating something.  My grandmother always had a pot of something simmering on the stove-beans cooking with a ham bone, stuffed bell peppers, turnip greens, roast, new potatoes with snap beans, and usually some dessert was in the works.   The best, in my opinion, was her banana pudding:  the real-deal kind where the cooked pudding made the wafers get soft on the bottom.  

      Grandmother Scott and I spent countless hours together cooking up things in the kitchen, going out to fuss over whatever was blooming in the yard, heading to the little laundry room off of their garage to add fabric softener or switch loads.  We'd putter a little in the garden, put eggshells on something, pour rainwater on something else...or just sit on the glider, gently moving to and fro, shelling peas and talking.

      She'd tell me what kind of birds were on the feeders and bird baths, which flowers were in bloom, what vegetables were 'making'...  I'd tell her about my teachers or friends.  We could talk all day about nothing...just what was happening in school, at church, how to tie up roses, sew a button on, or whatever thing she might be working on.

      Octavia loved fun, or to "cut-up", as she called it.   She was in her glory when she had a crowd of people gathered around her food-covered table, laughing and having a "big time".

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Grandmother Stewart

      The Stewart's lived right next door.  I usually went to their house to watch baseball or play cards with Granddaddy Stewart.  Seeing Grandmother was kind of the price of admission.  I loved her, but she wasn't a person you could relax around.  I'm pretty sure she liked it that way.  

     In her first career Grandmother was a nurse.  By the time I came along she was a real estate broker.  She was a business woman before that was a common thing.  She was always heading off to meetings, or showings, or whatever.  She cooked and cleaned a bit, I guess.  A lot had been ceded to my Granddad Stewart, who was retired from the oil fields.  But she didn't linger over things.  The work she did in the house was done so efficiently that I barely remember seeing her do it.  

      When Grandmother was home she'd mostly sit in the dining room at a huge (from my memory, anyhow) ornately carved table.  Behind her sat a huge, dark, and ornately carved buffet.  There she held court.  The ceilings in the room were about 12 feet high in her Victorian-era house.   Every inch of those twelve feet was filled with smoke from their dueling cigarettes.  They weren't wealthy, but in my memory their dining room went on forever, like a scene from the Citizen Kane mansion.

     It wasn't the kind of place kids enjoy.  Well, not exactly.  For sure it wasn't cozy and casual.  You always had to behave yourself at Grandmother Stewart's.  But, she made me want to please her.   

     Ardelta had an array of expectations of me.  One of her early expectations was that I be "presentable".  (And she had many rules about this...most of which I fell short of.)  On first sight of me she'd often send me off to get a brush and something to pull my hair back with.  She'd quickly corral my stringy, tangled, mess of hair.  (It hurt like hell.  I might have whined to my mom about painful hair procedures...but I never complained to my grandmother.)  Again, it was the price of admission:  no conversation or activity happened until I was 'presentable'.  

      The Stewart's spent a lot of time discussing tidbits from the newspaper, whatever books they were reading, or conversations one of them had.  

       

      I realize now that Grandmother Stewart was a feminist long before there was even a term for it.  I don't think she ever, actually, said it but I understood from her some basic things:  a man should never run my life, I should always be able to support myself, and that personal accomplishment was king. 

      There wasn't a lot of joking around with Grandmother Stewart.  Most of her humor was of the biting variety.  When I was invited to dinner at her house (you didn't just stay over...you had to be asked), I was expected to sit up straight, mind my manners, listen intently, and be prepared to participate in serious conversation.  These conversations were just confusing for a lot of my life.  I think she asked about my plans for college before I could write in cursive.  

      The older I got the more responsibility I got.  I was allowed to participate in conversation...well, mainly, just to answer her questions.  How were my grades in school?  What was I doing with my summer vacation?  What books had I read lately?   Were my friends a good influence on me?   

       She'd light another Kool menthol cigarette, stir her 4th bourbon and coke with the earpiece of her glasses, and fix me in her sites.  When she was grilling you there was no looking left or right for help...you had to look her in the eye and answer back.  

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         Growing up I adored Octavia, and, mostly, feared Ardelta. 

      Grandmother Scott was proud of me for...breathing.  My Grandmother Stewart was proud when I accomplished something.  I remember how excited I was when I overheard her repeating a story about me to the minister.  She heard, from my parents, that I'd dropped an earring down the sink, and had a wrench out disconnecting the pea trap to recover it before anyone else got home.  She thought that showed initiative.

     Octavia liked to see that I had an appetite for her food...Ardelta liked to see straight A's on my report card.   Octavia was proud if I wore one of her crocheted sweaters...Ardelta was (almost) proud when I won the science fair or did well in U.I.L. competitions.  Octavia would comment that I looked pretty in my Sunday school dress...Ardelta wondered why I didn't win the spelling bee in my class.   

      It was easy to love and appreciate Octavia; she thought I hung the moon.  But, the older I get, the more I appreciate my Grandmother Stewart, too.  I think she thought I could, if I used my brain, run the world.

     Grandma Scott gave me confidence,  Ardelta gave me worthy goals in my early life.  It was because of my grandmother Stewart that I always assumed I'd go to college, even though I'd have to pay for it myself.  It was because of my grandmother Scott that I had the confidence to think I could do it.

      I often wish I could speak with them now, as an adult.

      They always seemed so different in personality, and approach to life.  Grandmother Scott was unconditional love and adoration.  Grandmother Stewart represented unflinching personal responsibility.

      Now I see they both were doing the same thing:  preparing me for life in the ways they thought most necessary, and loving me the best they knew how.