A Hopeful Tribute

Now that life has settled down for me somewhat here in Massachusetts, with my days consisting mostly of looking for jobs, tweaking my résumé, finding new coffee shops with free wireless & scouring graduate school websites to work on my Ph.D. applications for next year, I want to take the opportunity to give everybody a break from hearing about me!  Instead, I would like to honor someone who is and has been one of the most important influences in my life, my maternal grandmother, known affectionately by all of her grandchildren as simply “GranGran.”  

It is with a very bittersweet frame of mind that I begin writing about my amazing grandmother because, as many of you already know, she has recently suffered a massive stroke that has left her partially paralyzed and unable to speak more than a few words at a time.  This sudden debilitation came as a huge shock to all of us, and I’m sure even more so to her.  

You see, until the day of the stroke, my grandmother was not what most people would think of when they conjure up images of a typical elderly retiree.  In fact, she probably was more active and involved in a variety of sports and social events than most people half her age.  Some of her weekly activities included:  at least 2 full rounds of golf per week (and not just for fun, she has WON many tournaments & is known for a couple holes in one as well!), 2 bowling leagues (because just one didn’t challenge her enough!), a bi-weekly bridge game with 3 of her closest Florida friends who are also her golfing buddies, completing the crossword puzzles daily, morning walks on the beach (these maybe not so often as a result of too much golf!), seeing all the popular movies playing at the theatre, reading constantly and filling in often as a pianist at her local church where she is also very active.  I know this list is incomplete, but even only including these activities, I’m again amazed at the vigor and zest with which my grandmother has always lived her life, even as she has suffered knee injuries, foot pain & the sadness of watching many of her older friends decide they just can’t keep up anymore.

Besides all of these activities which have kept my grandmother young and given her the chance to enjoy her retirement, I have always considered her love for conversation and story telling to be one of her greatest attributes.  This love for sitting around for hours on end with coffee in the morning, during a long car ride or flight (she, my mother & I recently travelled together to Argentina for my cousin’s wedding!) or just by the pool on a warm Florida morning has always been something I cherished about the time we have spent together.  The stories that she has told me over the years, along with those from other grandparents, have played an important role in my life and have always meant a lot to me as I value greatly my family history and relationships.  One such story deals with the details of her family’s situation leading up to the time she was born.  I will attempt to recount it here...

The year was 1932 and the grim reality of the failed economy (which in the South was pretty much just the way things had been since Civil War) had forced my newly married great-grandparents to move to New Orleans from their home in Whitfield County, GA in order for my great-grandaddy R.L. to find work.  This was not the first time that my great-grandfather had been forced to go to great lengths to find work in order to provide for his family.  He had actually dropped out of school after finishing the 8th grade in order to walk miles every day into town to work at the Cotton Mill, something he did in order to provide his mother with the extra income she needed to take care of all 9 or so children.  Oddly enough, he never went back to school, but managed throughout the rest of his life to educate himself and become more successful than most folks I know who (myself included) have more formal education than we know what to do with!  So, Grandaddy R.L. went on to New Orleans alone at first to find work, planning on sending for his new bride as soon as he was settled in.  It didn’t take long for him to find a job; I guess because he was willing to do whatever it took to provide for his family.  So, he began working on a banana boat, unloading bananas onto the docks and getting paid $1 per day for his trouble....I’m assuming he did this 6 days a week, so $24/month was his salary at this time.  I know that money could be stretched out a lot more back then, but I still can’t imagine surviving on this type of income when you have a wife & a child on the way....but they did.  Of course, it meant that my great-grandmother T. would have to manage without certain things she would need for this new baby, soon to be their first daughter of 7 children, of which 5 are still living today.  Now we come to the part of the story that always makes GranGran laugh and shows also the innocence of a young Baptist country girl from Georgia going to the big city of New Orleans to live...

During the time that my great-grandmother was expecting her first child, she would go down every day to a kitchen to help serve lunch & in turn would receive a free hot meal.  One lady always seemed particularly interested in Grandmama T. and so pleased that she was expecting her first child.  This lady made a great impression on my great-grandmother with her beautiful clothes, perfect make-up and always nicely arranged hair...it must have been odd for someone to seem this well put together in that neighborhood during the depression years.  Be that as it may, this kind lady began to bring my great-grandmother gifts for the baby to come & provided her with all the clothes and other things necessary for when the baby would be born.  These gifts were accepted and greatly appreciated by their family and only later on did my grandmother find out something that everyone else around her already knew....this beautiful lady was actually the Madame of one of the famous New Orleans brothels of the time...This irony may be lost on some of us in this day in time where we dismiss all behaviour as a ‘personal choice’ or with the philosophy ‘live and let live,’ but for an upstanding Christian home of this time to benefit from the charity of a ‘house of sin’ must have been quite a shock...so that was how it all began!  

Soon after, my great-grandparents were finally able to move back to Georgia, where they lived in Atlanta for a short time while my great-grandfather worked as a short-order cook, developing his love for cooking that would continue throughout his life & then back to Dalton, where they raised a family, started a business & now rest in peace...I had the privilege of knowing them both & am very grateful for the time I was able to spend with them.  I can only imagine the importance of their character, hard-work and love in the life of my grandmother, who as their oldest child looked up to them so much and worked so hard to follow in their footsteps.   

From the time of my grandmother’s birth in 1932 to now, there are so many other stories, mostly happy and some sad, that could be told.  If any of you that are reading would like to contribute to a collection of stories about her life, I invite you to please reply to this post with your story or send me a private message (to:  daltonhair@gmail.com ) and my family will be sure to let GranGran have the pleasure of hearing your stories about her as a tribute and comfort to her during this hard time in her life.  

Thank you and God Bless.    

                                   GranGran's 78th Birthday on October 10, 2010