GRANDMOTHER

excerpt from COLORS OF MY WORLD (see Aug 31,2010)

Quite often there was a quilting rack set up in the middle of the floor in Grandmother's bedroom.  The rack must have been 8 foot by 6 foot.

I remember that square!  Grandmother used to wear a dress like that - rosy colored with white lilies and green daisies.  Over there was a navy blue square with red roses.  It looked like another Sunday church dress.  Her Sunday church dresses were as gentle bouquets like her sweet smile. Each quilt became a mosaic of memories recalling events and past times - a Sunday church dress, a first day of school dress, the shirt with the nose bleed stains from an overly energetic son, the printed potato sack that had been temporarily made into someone's underwear during hard times.  My aunts, Grandmother and my mother sat around it and threaded the tough white quilting thread through the squares and while the chatter of my aunts fluttered through the room, Grandmother would sometimes doze in the rocker by the window.

I remember Grandmother as she sat in the cushioned rocker with the worn old Bible in its accustomed place - her white, blue-veined hands.  Her silvery hair with the sun on it hallooed her age-creased face.  Her blue eyes smiled and her lips curved in a quiet agreement with her eyes.  Her work-bent body, in the old-fashioned dress of grey with the white lace collar, was covered by a knitted lavender shawl around her shoulders.  I can see her lift a gentle hand in greeting, a hand that wiped tears from the cheeks of twelve children, a hand that cooked and sewed for a large, very diverse family.  Six sons loved her for picking up their shattered child hopes and dreams and mending them with love and understanding, never a raised voice, but a gentle chiding with "now, child", which brought an intense desire to make her happy.  Six daughters loved her for showing them in example the true, inner qualities of a lady.  I remember tears change to smiles as she kissed my tomboy sister's bruised forehead.  Her faithful visits to the church every week were a part of my faith.  She was a peacemaker.

Anticipation was excruciating for my sister, my brother and I as we watched her churn and sing:

"Come butter, come!
Anne's at the gate
And can't hardly wait.
Come, butter come!"

We knew we would get some pale, yellow creamy butter on the hot steaming cornbread that Aunt Helen had just taken out of the oven.  I wonder if  it is important to know that she did not like Abraham Lincoln?  Why do I remember that ?  After the churning and the noonday meal was finished, we would gather in the sitting room which later became Grandmother's bedroom as she got sicker and faded away.