NANA'S MEMORIES

My Aunt Lizzy gave me something very special tonight. Thank you again Auntie. See the platter on the end. It is a platter that belonged to my Great Aunt Maggie. She was my Grandpa's sister. I remember her having long plaited hair she coiled along the top of her head. I remember her soft spoken and very kind. Her chihuahua Princess Kay was called PK for short. Her husband's name was George. He was called Rip. I remember him as a big man with a big laugh. I really like this piece. Somehow I ended up with the rest of Aunt Maggie's dishes after Grandma passed away.  These were obviously Aunt Maggie's everyday dishes as they are quite worn. They were in a box when I got them. I do not remember Grandma using  them. As much as I love them, if Aunt Maggie's boys want them, I will be glad to let them have them. I have them in my OKC Grandma's china cabinet in my foyer. Beside it is a little side table my OKC Grandpa made. I have my Grandma's wire rim...

I have trouble climbing bleachers anymore. My legs are too short and my ankles too weak. Why don't they have one of those handy little chair lifts like Dr. Smith has to get up to his dentist office? Not that I have ever used it...yet. I used to be able to run up and down the bleachers in P.E. class. I did not like Physical Education. I did not like undressing in a room full of other girls. At least our showers had a door on the stall. Hubby says theirs did not. I remember one of the pretty senior high girls always wore a panty girdle. She was thin. I was wearing a gym suit similar to this when I jumped out of the tree and broke my leg. You can read about that traumatic incident  here . I remember it being hard to get out of at the hospital. Was it a gym teacher that had to quit teaching when she became pregnant? That seems like an odd reason for termination now, doesn't it? This is the maternity clothing she would have worn. We may not have even known s...

Here is a picture of my Great Grandmother on her 84th birthday. It was taken in Grandma's little kitchen in Oklahoma City. I now have the china cabinet you see in the background. Grandma kept an iron woodpecker shaped toothpick holder setting on the buffet. I played with it when we visited. I am not sure where that one is now but my son bought me one like it. He remembered playing with it as well. Now here is my problem. The foyer is the only place I have to put it without overcrowding. A china cabinet in  the foyer? What about using it as a book shelf? But then what about my Jade-ite and restaurant ware? Maybe I could just put them in the kitchen cabinets with my melmac and harvest wheat dishes. They would not be displayed though. Maybe I should be selling some of my dishes. I seriously would like suggestions. I found this aqua egg beater at a flea market a couple of weeks ago. Can you imagine actually using this to whip egg whites? Do you rememb...

Lorilee at Cackleberry Cottage  awarded Nana's Memories the Liebster Blog Award. Liebster means "dearest" or "favorite" in German. Thank you Lorilee. How very sweet. Now I have the privilege of passing on the award to FIVE up and coming bloggers with fewer than 200 followers.  They may then pass it on according to the following rules. 1. Choose 5 "up and coming" blogs to award the Liebster to. They must have fewer than 200 followers. 2. Show your appreciation by linking back to the blogger that gave you the award. 3. Post the award on your blog and list the bloggers you are passing the award to. And the bloggers are: A Colorful World Life In Pink Hi-Tops Spot On Cedar Pond EMZ-Piney Post Time Stand Still

I do not have a picture of my Aunt Inez so I will post a picture of my Daddy instead. . Next to her children, I believe Inez loved her little brother more than anyone. She was two years older than Daddy and grew up feeling responsible for him. Daddy was not judgmental and did not offer criticism. He was a good listener. I do not want to leave the impression I did not love my Aunt Inez. Despite the fact she would not give me the Kaopectate I did not want to take anyway, I did love her. We became especially close after Daddy died and as her health began to fail. As we share the same birth stone, she gave me a pair of emerald and diamond earrings before she passed away. I promised I would save them for when her grandson Zac has a daughter. Now....back to my Daddy. See how pretty his smile is.  My teeth look like Daddy's do in the top picture. His teeth in the next picture are his store bought teeth. After he and Mama separated, I cleaned the h...

This looks like a picture of my Mama's brother Bob. It may be her Uncle Glenn. I'm not sure who the girl is. I do not remember Mama saying she rode on a motorcycle with her brother but she did say she loved riding on her Uncle Glenn's motorcycle. Shortly before she passed away, she asked my husband to take her for a ride on his bike. She chickened out after we got there.  This picture of me and my OKC Grandma was taken at Lake Ludwig. I look like a little monkey up there. I wonder whose DeSoto that was? This is an Easter picture of us in front of an old salmon pink and grey Chevrolet car. This is the car my uncle would slide down into the floorboard in fear someone would see him in a pink car. SAID UNCLE This is not my "three words the whole bus ride to OKC Uncle." This is the one that took me to the movies one time. Although he did not actually stay in the theater with me, he did come back to pick me up. The movie was not quite ...

My Aunt Inez passed away several years ago. She was the oldest of Grandma's nine children. Grandma and Grandpa moved to Tulsa for a short time after Inez was born. Grandma was so afraid that someone out in the big city would steal her baby she pinned their nightgowns together. No one ever took her baby. As the oldest child, a lot of the responsibility for the younger children fell on Inez' shoulders. She said she was instructed to mind or take care of her two years younger brother and knew she had better do it well. Because Aunt Inez lived in California and only came in one time a year, I did not know her very well. Although Grandma rode a bus all the way out there to be with her daughter at the birth of her first child, Inez raised her children alone in what we thought of as a foreign land. Grandma and Inez exchanged frequent letters though. I know this because I was standing next to Grandma once when she was reading one of the newsy missives. Grandma moved the lette...

As my Grandma's grandparents died on a wagon train coming from Kentucky, she never knew them. Her daddy's mother died giving birth to him and then his father died two weeks later. Her father was raised sort of hit or miss by various relatives until he met Grandma's mother. Grandma was raised on a dairy farm around the Shady Grove area. She always said her father loved his family.  My Grandpa grew up in Limestone but lived in Clarksville when he and Grandma met. Grandma said they would use a team of horses and a wagon to go visit Grandpa's people in Limestone. They had to stop overnight along the way. I have forgotten how far Limestone is from Clarksville but I do know it is two miles straight down into Limestone Valley. It is pretty once you get there. Thinking of traveling in a team and wagon brought to mind how it was that people from the community would come into town on Saturdays and gather behind the Fair Store. Although I never saw a horse around the Fair ...

Mama and Daddy met when Daddy was working at a service station in Oklahoma City. As Mama was only sixteen years old, Grandma was not happy that she was going to marry a man she had known only a few months. Grandma told Mama, "You've made your bed, now lie in it." She made her bed in Clarksville for forty seven years. This is one of my favorite pictures of Daddy. He worked at the Lion station on East Main Street. I think it was owned by Seth Bennett. It looks like the sign behind him is advertising blackwall tires for $11. I remember playing with the tire gauges he had in his pocket. If you look closely, you can tell Daddy has light blue eyes. Freda is the only one of us kids with blue eyes. Daddy used to deliver groceries for Quality Market on the corner of Main and Rogers. I once asked him if he knocked on the door before taking the groceries in the house. He said if he did, he would be knocking all day. Since everyone left their doors unlocked, he could...

Finally a picture where my bangs are a normal length. Freda's are just about right too. I think Mama quit whacking on my bangs when Freda came along. Mama kept Freda's hair in a pixie cut. I usually wore my hair longer and pulled back in a ponytail. I remember Aunt Dorcas was visiting when I asked Mama for a wide barrette so I could pull my hair back like Susie Jones did hers. They both started in with, "Back in our day, we did good to have bobby pins."  Good Grief! I never did get that barrette! Mama gave me a lot of Tonette perms when I was a kid. They usually came right out. Hubby always asks why they call it a permanent when it only stays temporarily. He hates the smell of me when I get a perm. My sister's hair always took a permanent too well. I wonder why Mama always gave Freda a perm right before picture day? She looked cute but her hair sure was curly. I will not post a picture. I guess I don't have much room to talk about home haird...

Because I want to share with all of you other bloggers who post pictures of your goats and chickens, I thought I would re-post a picture I am calling my pet chicken. Before I posted this I asked my sister if she minded me calling her a little chicken. She said it was okay but she just wished she could bend over like that again. Now to look for a picture of a goat. This could get interesting.

Our son helped hubby bring my OKC Grandma's buffet down from the old house. I will now be able to display my Fire King and Restaurant Ware. I somehow ended up with Aunt Maggie's set of yellow china that will look pretty in there as well. After dinner we looked at old pictures where I found this one of my Grandma and me when we lived in the little house behind Aunt Maggie's. Check out Grandma's glasses. Apparently they were very fashionable back in the fifties. Look at my leg - it looks like I had Rickets. I couldn't have - I was raised on Pet Milk. My sister brought me two pair of Grandma's old glasses. One has little rhinestones on the frames and the other has a butterfly at the peak of the rims. They weigh a ton - well at least ten or twelve ounces. Slight exaggeration. I weighed them and they each weigh three ounces. I almost like the ones on top. My little Sierra tried on the pair on top. I took a picture but I better not post it. S...

This is the only picture I have of Daddy as a boy. Although the picture is not dated, I think he looks eight or nine years old. I do not remember anyone saying how he got the middle name of Leon. I have always liked it though. Grandma and Grandpa called him Leon. When he got to be a teenager, the kids started calling him Prof. Although he was always very smart, he was never a professor. My aunts say they dreaded hearing Grandma tell them to wake their brother. They stood behind the door when they did because he would throw a shoe at them. This is Grandma's handwriting on the back. It says the picture was made when we lived on Hill Street. Grandma gave this picture to me because she wanted to make sure I had one of my Daddy. I am so glad.

Sunday will be my brother's birthday. His birthday is one week after my sister's. Her birthday is exactly one week after the New Year. How did that happen? David's daughter was born the day before his birthday. He asked his wife if she could wait just one more day. She could not. I do not have as many memories of my three years younger brother as I do of my sister. I have heard stories of how he got his name. Mama wanted to name him Paul Dean after her brother and Daddy's brother. Due to the anesthesia she received during the delivery, Mama was still sleeping when Daddy named him David. Aunt Lizzie said she remembers Daddy high-stepping down the hall of the old hospital declaring he was a Junior. How excited he was to have a son. David was a cute little feller. I always felt protective toward him yet I was often mean to him. I always made him get his immunizations before I got mine. He would say it did not hurt but I thought it did. I remember the same public hea...

Today is my sister's birthday. I was not quite nine and Mama was twenty five when she was born. Mama was much older at twenty five when she had Freda than I was when I had my daughter at that age. Mama was sick before, during, and for quite a while after this last baby was born. I remember she mostly ate only toast and jelly. Our OKC Grandma came to stay with us while Mama was in the hospital and stayed long enough to help Daddy move into a different house before they brought Freda home. We always rented. Speaking of rent houses...we looked at a really pretty house on Sevier Street while I was still in grade school. It had a big picture window and enough bedrooms that we would not have to share. Daddy said we could not get it because the rent was $100.00 a month. I do not remember what should have been the memorable event of bringing a baby sister home from the hospital. I do remember Grandma staying a little while and asking me to take a dish back to a neighbor at the end o...