My paternal Grandmother was Orphan Annie. Her life is the hardest story to write. I mean Little Orphan Annie ended happy, right? All hard knock stories end happy. I am not sure my Grandma's did. The picture above is a little girl who was in the same orphanage as my grandma... it could have been her. When I was researching her life, I found a charitable organization who kept the few pictures and treasures from her orphanage, including this one.
Most were lost in a big flood.
My grandmother's parents.... one would have to start with their story, or what I know of it. Her mother was a poor, beautiful girl. Her father was the son of a rich family. They married and had one child, then divorced. Her mother later died and her maternal grandmother kept her. Her grandmother loved her dearly. I think it may have been the only person who showed my grandmother true love as a child.
As a child, my parents would force me to spend summers on the farm with my grandmother, after my grandfather died. At that time, I hated it. Now I strive to remember all her stories. I do remember that her face was so gentle and peaceful as she talked about her grandmother brushing her hair. She would tell those stories as I brushed her long, white hair. She said it reminded her of her own grandma brushing her hair. I would stand on her front porch every day, as she sat in an old painted, steel, porch, rocking chair, brushing her waist length, still slightly curly, snow white hair, and she would tell story after story. Her TV only received one station, and it was so grainy, you could really only listen. So entertainment was the front porch, the tree swing, the garden, the old artesian well, and the cows/chickens/barn cats. I also learned to love reading on those summers though the material I read, I would not allow my own children to read. True Story magazines and romance novels....
Back to her stories.... she loved talking about her grandmother. It was a very, very poor life, but very loving. But as fate would have it, her Grandmother died. She said she was very young, but never gave me an actual age. I am not sure she remembered her age, she was so young. Her father and his family, including his new wife, though rich enough to pay someone to care for her, chose not to and had her placed in an orphanage. An uncle tried to care for her, but his wife didn't want her, so back to the orphanage she went. Every summer, I would quiz her on her rich father... not understanding how much it must have hurt her to talk to me about him... and his complete rejection of her. I remember asking her, "But if he was rich, why couldn't he have paid someone to love you". She would just say, "B, don't blame him. He and his new wife had a new family and they were right to put that family first. I was from his old family and he divorced himself from that family. And bloodline is important. I was from the wrong bloodline. His family would never have tolerated me. No it was best for all that I went to that orphanage".
I remember getting mad and thinking, my own family deserved some of my great grandfather's estate. My own Dad, who worked three jobs and rarely got to spend time with his children, deserved some of that estate. My grandmother would set me straight, "No that money would not make you happy, it wouldn't have made me happy. Don't look to money for your happiness child.”
Now I never could get her to talk about what happened during her orphanage years. My sweet Grandmother had been coached, her entire life, not to complain. Life was what it was and we are blessed to have what we have. Wanting more, expecting more, that was just plain sinful and a slap to God who had given you the gifts you had. What an insult to tell God it was not enough.
And compared to my Uncle R... also an orphan but on my Mother's side of the family, who lived with his Mom and brothers in a wooded field, begging for soup bones, which they cooked with grass and called grass soup.... Grandma did have more to be grateful for.... life could have been harder and certainly was for many.
But yet, my heart broke then for her and still does today. One day, I will write the book of her life. I have the notes, but putting into words... wow it is hard. No matter how hard I try, I just don't capture her story right.
She did tell me they were good to her at the orphanage but she and a friend kept running away. So somewhere around 10, she was fostered out to ole Doc B. Doc. B's wife had a baby and something went wrong during the delivery and she was crippled. Grandma figured it was because Doc. B. liked the bottle too much and sometimes was drunk when he delivered babies. Grandma took care of their older boys and the baby. Those older boys must have abused my Grandmother something awful. She never told me what they did, only that it was wrong to speak evil of people and she was sure it was her fault anyway because God created man in his own image, therefore man couldn't sin. Eve tempted man to sin. Therefore all of man's sins could be tracked back to a woman. So she must have caused them to do the things they did. Now Mrs. B, my Grandmother loved her. She said if Mrs. B. knew a woman was in labor, she would have my grandmother hide all Doc B's bottles. Doc B. beat my grandmother badly for hiding them... but she would never let Mrs. B down. So she hid those bottles and took the beatings. She told me one of her biggest regrets in life was not going back to see Mrs. B, after she married my grandfather. She said Mrs. B. was a wonderful woman and she felt horrible, knowing that as a cripple, Mrs. B probably sat there lonely, once my grandmother left with only her drunk husband and mean sons for company (my words not my Grandmothers). My Grandmother said she believed Mrs. B. loved her as much as you could love a child that was not your own blood.
My grandmother worked their garden, cooked and cleaned, and was tormented by those older boys, for a few years. She said that daily, those boys would bring friends in and force her to recite the first part of the Orphan Annie poem. They thought it was hilarious that they had their own Orphan Annie, living in their own house. She said Doc. B. thought it was funny. Then she would add, "Now, B, I am not complaining, they fed me good and I lived in a beautiful house, and I learned to read and write. I am just telling you my stories. Do you understand child? Do you understand the difference between complaining and telling a story?” I would say yes, but really I didn't. I just knew I wanted to hear more of her story. Here is the first part of the poem...
The Little Orphan Annie
by
James Whitcomb Riley
Little Orphan Annie's come to my house to stay.
To wash the cups and saucers up and brush the crumbs away.
To shoo the chickens from the porch and dust the hearth and sweep,
and make the fire and bake the bread to earn her board and keep.
When she was around 12, my grandfather walked by, as she was working in the Doc's small garden. He was smitten by her beauty, which I am told, surpassed her mother's. He started going to her church and flirting. Somehow, he persuaded Doc B to sell her to him when she was 12 or 13. They were married and they jumped a ride on a train to his sister's, where he left my Grandmother to grow old enough to be his wife in truth.
I am not sure when he decided she was old enough, but she lost a baby at 14 or 15... So it was not that long. She went on to give him 2 sons and 4 daughters... that lived. Her last baby, born around age 50, was several months overdue. He was over 16lbs at birth and almost killed my grandmother. He was born deformed, missing part of his skull and brain. The midwife told my grandfather he would die within hours and left. There was no hospital in the area they lived. My own mother's father died because the nearest hospital was a days drive away. I am skipping a lot here... about how hard their life had been, how they were struggling to survive, how food was scarce, very scarce.... crippled animals and children were burdens and there were no resources to releave that burden. Social Services were non-existant where they lived. My grandfather locked the baby in a room and forbid anyone from touching it, while it died. He had to work and was afraid my Grandmother would try to prolong it's suffering by feeding it. My own father tears up when we mention that story. He was the next youngest child... and was around 12 when this happened. He said the baby took at least a day to die, it's cry weakening... while his mother cried from her bed, unable to get up and defy her husband. She too cried the many times she told me this story. She said, "B. I wouldn't have fed him and prolonged his suffering. We all knew he wouldn't live long. He didn't have a brain or much of a brain. But I would have held him while he died. I would have loved him while he died. Now understand, I am not criticizing your Grandpa, but I will never understand why I couldn't hold my baby while he died".
To this day, my Dad loves and has a soft spot, for disabled children. His face softens when he sees one and he always stops to talk to or play with one. We keep telling him that one of these days, a parent is going to get offended... but so far, no one has said anything. Bless my Dad's heart, he looks so much like Santa... it is hard to get offended by him. And he has his Mom's gentle eyes...
Grandma lost other babies. My Dad, just this past weekend, told me about one she had never told me about, in all those summers filled with stories. He remembered playing under a tree, and his Dad getting mad at him, telling him he was playing on his brother's grave. It was a brother my Dad had never known about, who died at birth. I used this story to show my Dad that his father did have soft feelings... even if he rarely showed them. I truly believe his own childhood had been so incredibly hard, he didn't have the ability to show soft feelings.
It was tough time and a very tough life.
My Grandmother told me about the pecking order at meal time. There was very limited food, never enough for all. She said the men ate first because they worked the farm and if they were not strong, no one would eat and all of them would die. The older boys ate next because they too worked the farm. The women ate next, because they were needed to care for the garden food, fix the meals, create more baby boys for future farm hands, and care for the children. The little boys ate next, then last, the little girls.
Grandma told me how Grandpa would watch her eat, to make sure she was not saving her food for the little kids. She told me how the food stuck in her throat because she knew her babies were hungry.
My Dad confirmed this was true, and he took it father, stating that as a child, he would watch the chicken vanish.... there was one man who worked the farm, that would smile an evil smile at the young kids, as he took the last leg and ate it. Dad said there was always something for them to eat, some vegetable or cornbread...but rarely a piece of chicken or meat.
In our own family, we had a pecking order too... and we still have it to this day... kids eat first. My Dad insisted his kid’s plates have food on them before he filled his own plate. My mom and her grandparents did the same.... My Dad's sister and her husband owned a farm and they would take me for a week each summer, just to give me a break from my grandmother's farm.
Their farm was still a working farm with farm hands. My Aunt A. would cook a big breakfast and a big lunch for all the workers. She always filled me a plate before calling them in because let me tell you; those men were dangerous with a fork. I sat at the table terrified as they jabbed the chicken, devouring the food in minutes, before heading back out to the field. Uncle B. laughed at me. His own young child was a pro at getting her share. I wasn't. But he and my aunt made sure I got my share. After all, his wife had grown up in the same family as my Dad and was once on the bottom rung... a little girl... the very last on the pecking order.
Now I need to clarify, my Grandfather and Uncle did not own their farms... they were sharecroppers. They lived in the farm house and managed the workers. But they were definitely not the owners. The farm I stayed on with my Grandmother was a beef cow farm. She paid 25/mth in rent and called the owner if anything was wrong with the cows. I never knew the old farm.... only the 25/mth farm, which was a huge old house, without hot water or a bathroom. It was incredible though... it had hidden rooms... and I truly believed it was haunted. It was one a moon shiner’s home and the old rooms with the stills remained hidden. After my grandmother moved out, the new owners opened the two hidden rooms and the old moonshine equipment was still there. Can you imagine?
The picture below is the youngest picture I have of my grandparents. Standing beside them is my Aunt A and Uncle B, the farmers I mention above. Squated down is my own father as a child. One of the rare pics we have of him.
My Grandfather also did his time working the coal mines. As a result, he died in his early 70's of black lung. When he died, my parents began sending me to Grandma's over the summer so she would not be alone all year long. I stayed with her until I was 14. My cousin then assumed the summer stay at Grandma's job.
I know I am being very hard on my Grandfather, and his story is it's own to tell and I will... on one of these FFFF. My Dad and I talked about him a lot yesterday. Maybe I have too much of my grandmother in me... but I encouraged my Dad to remember the good that Pappaw had... and not focus on the hardness that lived in him. After all, focusing on it in anger, accomplishes nothing. Telling the stories, to learn from them, accomplishes something. But anger... what does it gain anyone. And I never have had a life as tough as my grandfather's... so how could I possibly have the right to judge him. Let his peers... who lived a similar life, judge.... let God judge... I can't judge. And he had good in him... and I will tell those stories too, when I dedicate a day to him.
Back to Grandma/Mammaw... she loved her soaps and romance novels. Once she became too sick to watch the cattle... my Aunt A and Uncle B. moved her into a home near their farm. This house got enough reception for three stations, all grainy, but some you could actually see as well as hear. Mammaw would sit in that rocking chair and watch those soaps. One day, after a particularly passionate scene, she looked at me and asked, "B. do you think men and women really kiss like that?” After a pause, where I said nothing because at 13, I was stunned to hear my Grandmother had never been really kissed, yet had birthed so many children, she stated, "No, this must just be TV, it is all made up". And she went on rocking and watching. I don't think I had ever felt so sad watching her. Even when she told me about her baby dying without her.... I had not been this sad. Had my poor Mammaw, who so loved romance novels and soaps, truly never been kissed... was she never really loved by a man... never? I had seen my grandpa kiss her on the cheek. I saw him look at her with love. Was he just unable to love her more than he did...unable to display or vocalize love? On one of our talks about him... Mammaw got onto me for criticizing him. She said, "B. it wasn't that he didn't want to give me things, he did. We were starving. Our kids were starving. It was hard times. He wasn't cruel. The things he did hurt him too but he was the man and he had to make tough choices. When we had money, he would buy me ice cream. He knew I loved it. And once we got social security, he would make me jewelry (and he did and it was incredibly beautiful, but that is for his story). " When she told this, memories came back of him buying her ice cream and of her getting once scoop per night, to make it last.... Of him smiling from his chair, with his feet on the old coal stove, while she ate it from her chair. Was this the most he could display of his love.... it is not my right to judge... but he did keep her as his wife...
One day, somewhere in the 1930's or 40's... a man in his teens appeared at their door. Turns out, he was a son from my Pappaw's previous marriage, or one of his previous marriages. Turns out there were two others, at least. My Mammaw had no idea, before this, that my Grandfather had previous wives or children. This son of his lived with them before going off to the war... where he died serving our country. I once asked my Grandmother how she felt about a son from another, previously unknown wife, living with them. She replied, "B. he was the one man who treated me kindly at all times. Some men treated me nice sometimes. But L., L. always treated me kindly. He was a man to be proud of.” She said he had every right to resent her and her children for unknowingly taking his father, but he didn't. She said he was a man to be proud of, a kind, gentle soul. She then took me and showed me his flag, stored gently and told me how she cried when he died and how sometimes, she took that flag out and cried. Here is the only pic of L. that is known to exist.
It was after this that my Mammaw told me the real reason she didn't want any of us kids to contact her father's family... why she never fought for her share of his estate.... she was afraid that the world would find out her husband had never divorced his other two wives. He promised her he had, but she didn't believe him. She didn't want her children and grandchildren known as bastards. She told me, "You kids have a right to his money... but it is not worth being labeled a bastard".
I would reply, "But Mammaw, you didn't know. You had a marriage license. You thought you were married.” She would reply that none of that would matter if the world found out. I guess, for a woman who had survived with so little, her pride... well that was one thing she had... and wanted to keep dear.
My Mammaw was not overly affectionate. But she loved deeply. She sat by her phone, waiting for any of her kids to call. She bragged on all her grandkids, except the one she was talking to. She didn't want her grandkids to be vain... so she never bragged to the one she was telling the stories to, only about the rest of the grandkids. As a result, I grew up thinking she loved me less than all my other cousins. Once she died, and all the cousins started talking, we realized we all felt this way... and that she had bragged endlessly about each of us, to the others, but never told any of us to our face, how proud she was of us. It was simply her way.
When my grandmother was in her late 70's, one of her father's children, her half sister, discovered what their father had done and hunted down my grandmother. She wanted her to come and meet her father's family. She was appalled at what had happened to my grandmother, so many years earlier. She said she waited until her own mother died before finding my grandmother, to avoid hurting her mother. But all her siblings did not feel the same need to meet and greet this long lost half sister. This was a family of wealthy college professors. They feared my Mammaw would lay claim to her share of their father's estate, which she had a right to by law. So they made her sign off on her rights before bringing her to their home. My grandmother, in poor health and barely able to walk, spent two weeks in their home. I wanted to be angry at them, but those two weeks brought her such joy. They took her out of her house, with no bathroom, no hot water, no insulation, skunks (or polecats as she called them) living in the walls, heated with coal stoves, no air conditioning... into their huge homes with every luxury. My grandmother was so thrilled. She said they treated her like a queen those two weeks. She came home grateful and talked about it with shining eyes until the day she died... I still cannot help but want to scream...."but that should have been your life too. You should never have struggled as you did. You should never have experienced the abuse you did.” To this day, I would love to scream that for her.... instead... one day I will write her story in a book... for the world to see. And hopefully, I will one day come to have peace towards those college professors (her half siblings and their descendants)... who felt they deserved their life and she didn't. I recently looked up that family tree and found that they still are college professors... their children now teaching in various prominant universities... yet my sister was the first descendant in my Grandmother's line to attend a college. Here is a pic of our family, with my Grandmother, at my sister's graduation party. My sister and my parents worked years to pay for that college. Something my own Grandmother should have been given... as her half siblings and their children were.
But these thoughts of resentment are contrary to all my Grandmother tried to teach me. They accomplish no good. Maybe simply telling her story, in a historical fiction, will honor her and still maintain the honor she tried to maintain and demonstrate to me.
And yet, just yesterday, my Aunt W., my grandmother's youngest daughter, now in her 70's, stood smiling, clutching gratefully, a bag off grass fed beef and good bacon (from free range, veggie fed pigs), as I dropped her off at her home. She struggles each month just to survive. I wish I could describe how happy she was with my small, small gift. I asked my Dad, "Doesn't anyone give Aunt W. gifts". He replied, "Not often honey. That meant a lot to her". Aunt W. never had an option of college... nor did any of my Dad's siblings. They didn't even have the option of finishing school. Eighth grade was the end of free school back then... thus it was the end of their educations. Most of them went on to get GED's. But none were able to go to college. All the while.... the children of my Grandmother's half siblings were offered great educations, in great colleges... and many are still honored on the college’s websites for their years of service and support.
Yes I still struggle to understand and accept the life my Grandmother was forced to live... and the life her children lived. And I did argue with her about her father and how wrong it was for him to send her to an orphanage. With my own father, who really, truly pampered and love us kids as much as he could, even if we didn't have money, I just could not grasp how her rich father could do that to his own child. She pointed out that if her father had kept her, she would never have had these children, or me as a grandchild... and that would have been horrible.
Regardless of how I disagreed with her, she hugely deserves to be remembered and honored. I wish I could write that she died happy... but I am almost certain she did not... instead she died content and as always, not complaining about the life she was given. She was definitely grateful for the food stamps they received as senior citizens and often told me she wished she had been able to buy food when her children were little, as she could buy it now, when she was old. Yet I remember her growing and canning her own food, raising chickens for food, grinding and sifting her flour. The only store bought luxery was her beloved ice cream. She died with several thousand dollars to her name, rolled up, between her breasts. She had saved it, a bit each month from her SS check; in fear there would one day be a shortage again... so her kids/grandkids would not go hungry ever again. Her nightly ice cream was the only luxeries I remember her having.
Is it any wonder, with both sides of my bloodline being filled with orphans, that adoption is so dear to my heart? Maybe Mammaw was right... maybe if we had never experienced the things we did... if she had not struggled as she had... if she had not had those stories to tell... maybe I would not be where I am today. My kids are certainly worth more than any inheritance. My generation has certainly prospered thanks to our hard working parents.... and perhaps, those who decended from the other line, who inherited the wealth, are not as content or happy. Maybe one day... I will know. Regardless of how grateful I am for my life today, it still hurts to know what my grandmother needlessly lived thru.
Honoring my Mammaw, a real Orphan Annie.... been there, done that... hoping to one day, write it in a book that will honor her for generations to come.
