My Family Tree is Full of Nuts

I knew this day was coming and I debated as to where I should post about it or just not think about it. Then today Aunt Jan mentioned it so I felt I would say something.

Granny, Oh How I Miss You!

Sadie Mae Taylor Fitzpatrick. Granny as I knew her, my mother. Well not in the sense she birthed me but she had me from birth till she died and I was 13 and she was just 59. 

Granny was just an average woman, not beautiful as you see in the magazines today, the models, but beautiful to me. She was a holiness woman and back in the 50?s and 60?s they did not concentrate too much on makeup. They did not even wear makeup. Granny did. She would slip and put a tiny bit of rouge on her cheeks to make them blush, comb a little bit of Maybelline on her eyebrows that came in the red slide out box with the brush that you wet and applied mascara. Well she did not wear mascara but she barely put a tiny bit of tint on her brows. She would then take out that pretty little gold compact that she had that I still have and dab as she called it a tiny bit of powder on her face, then a tiny bit of lipstick and off we would go. I can still smell her lipstick. It totally looks and smells different today than it did back then. No gloss just flat, even the top of the lipstick was flat and you rolled it out usually in its gold case and painted away. I watched her get ready all the time. I loved her so much I barely could stand to be out of her sight.

She worked outside of her home. Pop worked at Goodyear and she had a job as a sales clerk at Mr. McNew’s store called Dubar’s Jewelry in our little town of Piedmont, AL. I cut my teeth on the glass counters. I stayed down there with her as much as I could. If I were not in school you can bet I went to the jewelry store to see Granny. We talked about everything on the planet and on Saturday’s she sent me to John Barnett’s across the street from Dubar’s to get a hamburger, fries and coke. When I finished she gave me a $1.00 in change to go to the “picture show.” That was what we called the movies. It cost 10 cents to get in and the extra was for Charm suckers, popcorn, coke, Milk Duds, Black Cows or anything my little heart desired.  It usually was a double feature and when it was over Granny was standing out the outside of the theatre waiting to walk home with me. We lived two blocks from town. At night I would lay my head in her lap and she would rub and scratch my ears until I was so sleepy I could not see. She would be reading the funny papers (comics) as she called it while we were watching Gunsmoke.  She taught me to write my first word before I started to school. I remember it being ALL. If Miss America would happen to be on we would be watching that with a chart she drew off at work for us to rate the contestants. I can still hear her say she would give anything to dance with Lawrence Welk. To this day I still love that show. Pop liked Norma Zimmer a lot and the Lennon Sisters, Granny loved Lawrence. That was her man. I can still see her reading my Nancy Drew books. Lord help if she got to it before I did. I would have to wait until she finished it before I could start. She loved to read.  I can still hear the paper rattling after I went to bed only to get up the next morning and on the coffee table was the biggest bowl which was my Easter basket packed full of goodies. I still remember the time we went to Sears in Anniston to pay on her bill and hear her tell me to go to the toy department to pick out one thing and swing by the candy counter and get us some Bridge Mix and cashew nuts. I can still hear her laughing so hard she cried when I asked her did they take prisoners out of prison to shoot on Gunsmoke. When she quit laughing and crying she told me “No honey, they use blanks.”

I can still remember the time we were at their farm outside of town where we lived during the week and I watched her bring a baby calf in the world like it was nothing. I saw her wring chickens neck and they end up on the table on Sunday. I remember her teaching me how to make bisquits. To this day I still make them  like Granny. I can still taste the cake batter she would turn her back and let me shovel it out of the bowl with a big spoon and she would turn around and I would have the evidence all over my face and she would just laugh. I can still hear her cooking Sunday morning breakfast, listening to gospel music on the radio, shouting “Praise the Lord , Hallellujah.” I still remember the times she and I would be at home and Pop at work in the evenings and the phone ring and it be a collect call from him telling her to be ready when he got home at 11pm that we were leaving for a weeks vacation in Panama City Beach, Florida.  I still remember when things happened in our family she would “take to the bed” with a washcloth on her head crying and praying.

I remember the time we were robbing bees and one got up under her hat and stung her in top of the head and her eyes swelled shut. Or the time she walked a week on a broken foot that she got when she was milking her cows and one popped her in the face with her tail and granny popped her good on the back end. The cow stepped back and landed right on Granny’s foot and broke it. She taught me how to milk a cow. Let me just say in this day and time we would have to drink water. I always squirted mine outside of the bucket and got in trouble. She was teaching me to churn until I got the brilliant idea of straddling the churn. That was my end of butter making.

I do have one not so good memory. January 7, 1968. I was standing on the corner of Dubar’s Jewelry store getting ready to go to church with Mr. Mc and his girls. Granny and Pop passed by and she never looked my way. It was not like she did not see me, she could not see me. She was seeing something else. I have often wondered if she knew she was dying and could not say anything. She and Pop were on their way to the Congregational Holiness Church. They had not been there long when she got sick and had to leave to go to the little hospital we had in our town.

Mr. McNew, his daughter and I left to go to their church where Mother, Daddy, Granny’s two daughters and their family were attending. They did not know I was there. I was sitting in the back and noticed one of the deacons come up and say something to my family and they got up and left. I don’t know what I thought but I stayed where I was. Then the pastor got up and announced that Mrs. Sadie Fitzpatrick had just died and if anyone wanted to leave please feel free to do so. All I remember was standing up and screaming at the top of my lungs and running out of the church and running down the highway before a member caught up with me. The preacher did not even realize I was there.

So far the death of my beloved Granny has been the absolute hardest thing that I have ever experienced in my life. Just right now going over it in this post brings back tremendous pain and heartache. I loved her so much and she loved me. I know one day I will see her but to be truthful I hope it is a very long time. I want to be here until I am over 100. I dont think that is asking to much do you???

Granny, Oh How I Miss You, If you were still here today cantankerous as you would be at 102 I would have you here with me and Gary. I would be letting you put your head in my lap and rubbing your ears and reading Nancy Drew to you while feeding you Bridge Mix. You would be a sight but I would love you better than snuff as you used to say