Precious Memories

I'm approaching another birthday, which has me feeling a little nostalgic and thinking about days gone by.

I had the great blessing of growing up next door to my grandmother. Some children go over the river and through the woods to visit their grandmother; I went past the swing set and the clothesline!  Grandmother Neil, my mother's mother, was one of the women I loved and admired most in this life.  Even now, almost 50 years after her passing from this life to the next, it's still true. I have often been told that I'm a lot like her, and I consider that a great compliment. She was strong-willed. Determined.  A woman of great faith. A woman who loved her family. Who loved her Lord. And who loved to laugh!

Grandmother Neil worked in the local dry cleaners after my granddaddy died. Every morning on her way to work, without fail, she stopped by our house and stuck her head in the back door just to say "good morning". I can almost hear her voice even as I remember that!

Grandmother Neil made the best fried chicken and the best chicken & dumplings and the best banana pudding ever. Ever!  And she made the strongest coffee, which she laced with cream and then poured out into a saucer to cool. Did your grandmother do that?

This is a picture of Grandmother Neil, taken many years ago, holding one of my cousins. 

I never knew my other grandmother. Grandmother Austin, my daddy's mother, died just a few weeks before I was born, so my memories of her are all second-hand, based on what others have told me about her. Those memories all paint a picture of someone I would have really liked to know. Even though I never knew Grandmother Austin, I had an "almost like a Grandmother" in my life.

My second cousin Anne Sevier was in many ways like a Grandmother to me. Anne was the daughter of Nettie Daniel Sevier, the sister of my Grandmother, Eudora Daniel Austin. Nettie had died after giving birth to Anne's brother, Richard, so Anne and Richard were raised by my grandparents. Anne was older than my dad and his siblings, so even though I knew we were cousins, in many ways she filled the grandparent role for me.

Like Grandmother Neil, Anne was a woman I loved and admired very much. She was independent and feisty, a woman of strong opinions and great determination. Anne taught English and Literature at Winthrop College (now Winthrop University), and when I was a child, I would often visit her there during the summers when she typically taught one session of summer school. While she was in class, she often made certain I was properly settled in the college library under the watchful eye of Miss Schinn, the college librarian at the time, where I sat on the floor in the children's section, blissfully surrounded by more books than were contained in our town's library! When I wasn't in the library, she arranged swimming lessons for me in the college pool. I much preferred the library to the pool, and am still a terrible swimmer!

As I grew older, Anne would sometimes leave me alone in her apartment, where I enjoyed the company of her collection of porcelain figurines of characters from Dickens' novels. I'm sure she would have been horrified to know that I played with them as though they were my dolls! Of course, she was likely astute enough to know they had been moved about on the shelf!

Those "Dickens people", as we now affectionately refer to them, are among my treasured possessions.  They were a gift from Anne when she moved into assisted living many years ago.

Anne outlived my parents and my grandparents. In fact, Daddy used to say, "Anne will outlive us all!" I'm not sure he meant that literally. But it was true. She outlived my parents. Her brothers. Her cousins. There were only second and third cousins remaining at the time of her passing.

If she were still with us, she would now be 114 years old. She didn't make it quite that far, but she did live to be 106! Here we are on the occasion of her 106th birthday:

Anne lived just a few months beyond her 106th birthday. Although she had lost her sight and most of her hearing, her mind was still sharp. On that last birthday back in 2013, she quoted her favorite poet, Robert Browning. Quoted it perfectly, I might add! Spending time with her that day and hearing her quote Browning one more time....that's a precious memory indeed!

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in His hand

Who saith "A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!''

(from "Rabbi Ben Ezra" by Robert Browning)