Grantham – Grandma's Trunk

Week 21 – 52 Ancestor Challenge – Military – The Courage of a Mother’s Heart

…He is the darling of my heart, My Southern soldier boy. Oh, if in battle he were slain, I know that I would die, But I am sure he’ll come again, To cheer my weeping eye…

SOUTHERN SOLDIER BOY by Captain G.W. Alexander

It speaks to the courage of a mother’s heart that she could endure the personal hell of having her six sons march off to war. It speaks to the strength of a mother’s heart that she could survive three of those sons dying on the field of battle.

While researching one of my maternal lines I recently came across the family of Lucinda White Morris and William Jackson of Murray County, Georgia. Lucinda was my 4th great-aunt, she and her husband had 13 children, seven girls and six boys. The onset of the War Between the States would drastically change the dynamics of this family.

John Morris Jackson, oldest son, born 01 November 1827, died 31 August 1864 – Battle of Jonesborough.

Commissioned a Captain on 03 Jan 1862. Mustered out on 15 May 1862. Commissioned an officer in Company A, Georgia 34th Infantry Regiment on 15 May 1862. Promoted to Full Major on 01 Mar 1863. Mustered out on 31 Aug 1864 at Jonesboro, Clayton, Georgia. Burial site unknown.

Joseph Franklin Ballenger “J F B” Jackson, second son, born 1830, died 14 January 1912 in Alabama.

Commissioned as 1st Lieutenant in Company B, Georgia Phillip’s Legion Infantry Battalion on 11 June 1861. Promoted to Full Lieutenant Colonel on 20 Mar 1862. Mustered out on 20 Mar 1862. Commissioned an officer in Company S, Georgia 39th Infantry Regiment on 20 Mar 1862. Mustered out on 29 April 1864.

Thomas A Jackson, third son, born 01 October 1836, died 14 March 1869

Served as a 2nd Lieutenant in 60th Georgia Infantry. Died of war related injuries in 1869.

Eppy William Jackson, fourth son, born 02 Mar 1838, died 30 Aug 1862 – Battle of Second Manassas.

Commissioned as a 1st Lieutenant, Company C, 11th Regiment Georgia Infantry. Promoted to Captain 27 January 1862. Burial site unknown.

William White “John” Jackson, fifth son, born 18 April 1840, died 25 January 1905 in Alabama.

Enlisted as a Private 08 August 1861 in Company E, Georgia 3rd Infantry Battalion. Promoted to Full Corporal. Promoted to Full 5th Sergeant on 12 Nov 1861. Mustered out on 06 May 1863. Transferred to Company C, Georgia 37th Infantry Regiment on 06 May 1863. Served as 1st Lieutenant and Adjutant, 36th Regiment (Broyles’) Georgia Infantry. He was captured 04 July 1863 during the Siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi and was paroled on 09 July 1863. He was next captured on 16 Dec 1864 at the Battle of Nashville and was taken to a Prisoner of War camp in Ohio. He was mustered out at Greensboro, North Carolina on 26 Apr 1865. He was released from the POW camp in Ohio 16 June 1865, after the war ended.

Benjamin Floyd Jackson, the youngest son, born 25 February 1845, died 21 September 1863 – Battle of Chickamauga, Georgia.

Enlisted 26 February 1861, the day after he turned 16, as a Private in Company C&B, 1st Georgia Regulars. Burial site unknown.

When the summer breeze is sighing, mournfully along,
Or when autumn leaves are falling, sadly breathes the song.
Oft in dreams I see thee lying on the battle plain,
Lonely, wounded, even dying, calling but in vain

Weeping, sad and lonely, hopes and fears how vain!
When this cruel war is over, praying that we meet again.

WHEN THIS CRUEL WAR IS OVER by Charles Carroll Sawyer

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Whispers from the Past…..

Week 19 – 52 Ancestor Challenge – Mother’s Day – For One More Day

“But there’s a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother’s story, because hers is where yours begin.”
― Mitch Albom, For One More Day

What would I give for one more day or even one more hour with Momma? Pretty much anything. I’d love to be able to sit and laugh with her over the silliest of things –

Momma had a heart for her children, nothing was too great a sacrifice when it came to her kids and her grandkids. She loved us so much that at times I still don’t think we realize how much. She loved spending time with us and she always had a memory to share.

We’ve laughed over the unusual way I got around as a baby, she even shared it when our church had a graduation celebration my senior year of high school. See, I didn’t crawl, I would sit down on my bottom, grab my feet, and bounce. She’s told me dozens of times about how I was running through the house and tripped on the threshold crashing into an end table and gashing just below my eyebrow. She cleaned me up and put a butterfly bandage on it because she didn’t want me to have a scar from stitches. More likely she didn’t want to have to bribe me with a new Barbie to keep me from having a hysterical fit if she took me to the doctor. Then there’s the story about my older sisters and brother fabricating a story about living in a two story house. Momma was a single mother in the 1950s, Bubba was her right hand and was often in charge of “the girls”. When Momma was at work they weren’t allowed to have company inside. They told a neighbor girl that their single story house had an up-stairs. Naturally, she wanted to see inside and they had the perfect excuse not to let her in, “Momma’s not home.” They would go inside and stomp around like they were going upstairs.

When we got new carpet all of our furniture was out on the lawn, Momma and her youngest grandson, Brian, laid in the floor and rolled all over the house on the new carpet. Later, that same day, I caught her and Daddy kissing in the closet under the stairs. She shooed me away.

She was often called “Nurse Grandma” because she was always caring for our bumps and bruises. She would wait until a grandchild was sleeping and then carefully remove stitches. She could cure anything with peroxide, carbolated Vaseline, and Baby Percy medicine if you were human or egg and milk if it was an animal.

She had a white Persian cat with one green eye and one blue eye named Pitty-Pat, actually the cat was my oldest sister, Linda’s cat but right after she got the cat, she left for college. That cat lived to be 22, probably because she feed her buttered biscuits, which she would sit up and beg for. When she was a young girl, she had a wolf. She rescued three orphaned baby squirrels one time and built them a cage in our back yard, we had them for years,

Mother was so loving, kind, and patient, until she wasn’t. One time that comes to mind was the case of a half wild cat. Momma had been catching wild cats and having them “fixed”, this one old momma had a littler before Momma caught her and so the fun began trying to catch her and her wild babies. She finally managed to and was dipping them for fleas. One in particular was not having any part of this and had managed to stay just out of reach. Finally, hot dripping with flea solution and just a little irritated, Momma grabs the cat by the tail, snatches it up by the scruff of the neck and “baptizes” it. She pitched it down saying, “Well, now we know why God gave them handles.” I couldn’t stop laughing.

Momma loved to tell about her childhood and how she and her best friend, Monaree Goode would slip across the fence at night and ride the neighbors horse, because Momma knew how to make a hackamore. The neighbor couldn’t understand why his horse always seemed tired. She would tell about learning to play solitaire from an elderly lady that boarded with them and she and I would play for hours.

I always hated when she started out with, “Now don’t you dare laugh.”, that was a sure sign that I was going to laugh to the point of tears and she was going to threaten to “wear me out”, even though I was grown. Not too long before she passed, I walked into her office and she started out by telling me not to laugh. She proceeded to tell me about her adventure the night before. Some years before, Daddy had installed one of the old-fashioned oval shower kits in our big claw foot tub. Well, it seems that Momma had decided to take a shower in the middle of the night. By this time her Parkinson’s was pretty advanced and she wasn’t very steady. My Daddy was asleep across the hall and their little mutt had followed Momma into the bathroom. It seems that everything went just fine until she attempted to step out of the tub. Somehow she hung her foot and spun around at the same time thus falling backwards out of the tub. Now somewhere in this craziness she managed to catch the shower curtain between the back of her legs and the side of the tub creating a sort of hammock. Yeah, I lost it, I did ask her if she was hurt. After swatting me a couple of times she proceeded with her story telling me how she had tried to “hollar for Daddy” but by this point she didn’t have a very loud voice. Her next step was to try to get the dog to go wake him up, not. I honestly can’t tell you how she got out of the shower curtain hammock because by this time I was gasping for air and crying all while the smacked me on the arm. Momma, I’m sorry but it’s just one of my favorite memories.

Yes, I would give just about anything for one more day with my Momma, just one more hug, one more kiss, one more hug, and yes, even one more swat.

I love you Momma, till we meet again…….

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Whispers from the Past…..

Week 18 – 52 Ancestor Challenge – Close Up – Nights with MamMaw

I grew up in the town where my ancestors settled in 1875. By the time I was 18, my two older sisters and my maternal grandmother were living on the same block that we grew up on. I can’t count the times someone has asked me, “How does your family live so close together?” That’s an easy one, we’re all to busy to get in each other’s way.

MamMaw moved two houses down when I was in my teens. I remember many late nights talking with her and listening to her tell stories about the family. She had an old trunk that had belonged to her mother and there were all kinds of treasures inside. There was a boxed brush and comb set, her and Grandpa’s marriage license, a child’s depression glass cup and saucer that she got on the church Christmas tree when she was a little girl, old letters, receipts, photographs, etc. I loved looking through the items she kept inside. I remember one time that she couldn’t find the key and even as I told her, begged her actually, not to break the lock, she grabbed a screw driver and broke it open. She was extremely headstrong.

She would sit for hours and tell me about how she and her cousin Ida slipped off to see my Grandpa off at the train station near the end of World War I. Just before he was to board the train, they got word the war was over. She talked about going to taffy-pulls, and getting out of sight of home and taking her shoes off to walk to school.

One of my favorite stories was about her dropping a “dead” wasp down the back of a girls high-top boot at school one day. The girl was sitting so that her boot tops were away from her leg and when she straightened up, the wasp stung her and the fight was on.

MamMaw loved to watch Saturday Night Wrestling and many weekends I would walk down to her house and we’d drink Coca-Cola out of little glass bottles and watch the Von Erichs.

***Norma Louise, Alta, Mary Ruth (my Momma) Grantham in the 30s***

She was contrary to say the least. I asked her sisters once if my Grandpa dying when she was only 27 and leaving her with two small daughters had made her the way she was, perpetually unhappy. They responded with a resounding “NO, she was always that way, no one ever understood what your Grandpa saw in her because he was such a sweet man.” I had to laugh, you can’t argue with the truth.

As cantankerous and contrary as she could be, she could turn right around and be the kindest, most thoughtful person ever. I didn’t like peanuts until a few years ago and every year when she made peanut brittle she would pour some of the candy out with no nuts, just for me. She knew how much I loved peach cobbler with lots of crust and no peaches, just juice, she had a small pan that she would fix me cobbler in, just the way I liked it.

I’m thankful for the time I got to spend with her, for the visits to cemeteries and the hours of talking about the family. I’m grateful that she never kept secrets about the history of our family. She told me that it was important for me to know everything about our family, even the skeletons. She told me “secrets” that she made me swear not to reveal until everyone involved had passed, but she made sure that they were preserved and handed down so that they weren’t lost with time.

I’m thankful for the time I got to spend “Close Up”, just the two of us, talking until the wee hours of the morning, for her always having orange juice in a glass carafe in her refrigerator, for knowing what “faunching at the bit” means, for being fortunate enough to have inherited many of the treasures that were in her trunk, for her fruitcake recipe and “gut gravy” aka giblet gravy, and for the mental picture she painted of “having a runaway” when she decided to spray whiskey up her nose to cure a sinus infection.

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Whispers from the Past…..

Week 16 – 52 Ancestor Challenge – Storms

Storms take many forms, lightning, tornados, rain, snow, tragedy………..

What greater storm could a parent face, than the death of a child?

Pheobe Ophelia Grantham
21 Dec 1887 – 27 May 1892

Pheobe Ophelia Grantham, second child and oldest daughter of Rufus Marion and Mary Ann “Mollie” McReynolds Grantham, born 21 Dec 1887 in Bosque County, Texas.

By 1891 R. M., Mollie, Thomas Jefferson, and little Pheobe had migrated to Coleman County and the Roberson Peak area where baby Ada Elizabeth was born.

In the blink of an eye, their lives were forever altered.

“Our darling one has gone before, To greet us on the golden shore”

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Whispers from the Past…..

Week 10 – 52 Ancestor Challenge – Strong Woman – My Momma

“A woman is like a tea bag – you never know how strong she is until she gets in hot water.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

It is nearly impossible to choose one woman in my family to write about when you are referring to a strong woman. I come from many women of strength and courage.

My Momma, was raised by her widowed mother in the 1930s. Her childhood shaped her in many ways but one of the things that stands out most in my mind is her will. I’ve seen Momma literally “will” things to happen where her family was involved. Momma was a single mother of three in the 50s, this created a bond, a dynamic between her and her three oldest children that went deeper than any other relationship I’ve ever witnessed. I was her baby and as such, I got away with more than the older kids. When I was about 12, she and Daddy went to Hawaii, when I was 39 Momma passed away and we discovered the letters she had written to each of us. Even in death, Momma found a way to make sure her babies knew we were loved and in her typical style, she had also given each of us instructions as to what she expected for and from us.

She loved her children with her whole heart and wanted us to have better lives than she had. It was important to her that we be children as long as possible because “adult life” came way too soon. She made sure we got to sleep late in Summer, read every chance we got, play and just be kids. Momma was determined that each of us would be able to stand on our own feet if anything happened to her and that we knew and believed that we could do anything or be anything we wanted, we just had to work for it. She often said that she thought she might have gone a little overboard in the self-confidence area where my brother and I were concerned. No matter what was going on in her life, her children and grandchildren were her treasures on earth and the most dangerous thing anyone could do was to hurt one of her babies.

I remember always knowing that Momma was there for me, no matter what I needed or what was going on in my life. She was a literal “force to be reckoned with” when it came to her family. Momma’s children respected her and loved her and we each knew that we were her greatest pleasure in her earthly life. Momma prayed over us daily and she believed, without a doubt that God would always take care of us because He had promised her He would. She was a fierce defender of each of us and the foundation upon which we have built our lives.

While I could have chosen any number of women in my family to write about this week, there was never really another choice. Momma was the anchor in our lives, the calm in the storm, the sweetness of love in it’s purest form, a mother’s love for her children.

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Whispers from the Past…..