Was Grandma a Prairie Girl?

I was reading a book called The Prairie Girl's Guide to Life, and it has little phrases in it with the definition, and example of how it was used. Any way, one of the phrases it featured was "all to pieces", as in I love you all to pieces. Meaning with every thing, completely, etc. I didn't even realize till reading that little sidebar that the phrase was even a regional or dated saying. It was a phrase grandma Lela used often. She would always say I love you all to pieces, often right before wanting to beat the sugar off you. Which was light love pats on your back, arm, or leg, depending on if you were sitting, standing or in what vicinity you were from her. They were both sayings she often said, I love you all to pieces, and, come here so I can beat the sugar off you.

Grandma loved gardening. I've been working out in the garden the past couple of weeks, it sure brings back many memories of grandma. She grew up picking cotton for a penny a day. As a young woman she still had to pick cotton, and would tell stories of keeping her babies in a basket next to her as she went down the rows of cotton. She never forgot one story of a time when her sister was also picking cotton with her, and her sisters baby was in a basket in the shade of a tree, when a ol' whip snake began to whip the baby with it's tail and almost whipped the baby to death (or to pieces as grandma would of said!), but thankfully her sister caught sight of what was happening and was able to kill the snake with a hoe and save the babies life. After that they no longer left their babies in the shade, but kept them in the basket right near them in the cotton rows and would move the baby as they went down each row. What a hard worker she was, yet after all those backbreaking years of picking cotton her favorite pass time till the day she died was bending over and picking weeds! Oh if that was only my favorite pass time, I wouldn't have a weight problem! haha

I'm going to be planting watermelon this week in the garden. My first time growing watermelon from seed. Grandma's favorite food was watermelon. She would cut a big one in half, take it to the table with a spoon and eat the whole half! And that was breakfast. She loved watermelons! Black diamonds from the Ozarks were always her favorite. I'm going to be growing a heirloom watermelon called Moon and Stars. Sure wish she was here to enjoy them when they ripen. But, some day soon, I'm sure she will be!

Grandma used sweet petnames for all the children she loved, her favorite to use was Honey Bunny Bee Bo. I always had visions of cute little pink and white bunnies when she would use this petname. Often she would use the name while, giving you what she called "love pats". Patting you on what ever limb was most accessible at the time, rather firmly but never too hard.

Some of her Great Grandchildren in turn began to call her Sweetie Pie Grandma. The name fit well. And for her funeral they sent a wreath with a big ribbon across it, that said, Sweetie Pie Grandma.

She always had a sweet, loving, soft, kind face. She also lived by her creed of, If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. You rarely heard her say a cross word to, or about any one. Unless you crossed some one she loved. Then she could be a mama bear! Or grandma bear, whatever the case may be.

One day some people had came to her house uninvited. At the time she never locked the doors, and people drifted in and out of her home. These particular people decided to play cards at her big dining room table. I was about 4 or 5 years old and I wanted to play too. They said I couldn't play. Since it was her house and they were uninvited guests, she had already asked them to leave a few times, and they hadn't, and I was her grandchild, that really ruffled her hard to ruffle feathers. It was the last straw as they say. So as she walked to her bedroom, she said I guess I bought that shot gun just in time. They decided to scat before she came back out of the bedroom. She didn't really have a shot gun, and I can't imagine her really shooting any one unless it was out of defense of her children or grandchildren's lives. That or climbing on a newly bought fence! But, that's another story, or stories for another day.

This morning the song, Hey Good Looking by Hank William's came on. It sparked my memories, of Grandma Lela saying that was a song Grandpa Ralph, her husband, would often sing to her. He was very musically inclined. He played the fiddle and many other instruments, often all night long at barn dances. However, grandma Lela's favorite instrument was the harp. She loved to listen to the harp.

Our cousin Timsley Johnny Carver, once told me, when we were in the Harrison Cemetery at Grandpa Ralph's and Timsley's father, Archie's, oldeer sister, Vesty's, funeral, that Grandpa Ralph was his favorite uncle. He knew there would be singing and fiddle playing at night, and catfish for breakfast when ever he spent the night with them. He said grandpa was so much fun.

I remember pictures of Grandma Lela, and her sisters wearing dresses, and pearls on the banks of a river cleaning fish their husbands had caught. I so wish I had those pictures.

I began to tell my daughter, Lela, stories of her grandma she was named after. She keeps wanting to know more. So I'm sure there will be more stories and sayings to come soon.

Baby Lela

Grandma Lela has had two grandchildren named after her first name Lela, and 3 named after her middle name Christina.

I have a older cousin, by my mom's oldest sister Ila Jean, she named her first born after grandma's middle name Christina. Then my mother gave me my middle name Christina, after grandma's middle name, and then my cousin Michael, my mom's next oldest sister Geraldine's son, oldest daughter is also named Christina after grandma Lela's middle name. Which grandma Lela got her middle name after her mother, Ina's, middle name Christina as well.

Then Michael remarried and had a 4th daughter with his second wife, and they named her Lela. His wife, Maggie, loves the name Lela.

When my husband and I found out we were having a little girl for our first born, I was kind of secretly hoping for the name Lela, but my husband is a Junior and had always said he didn't like being named after some one, so I didn't even ask, since he had always said he didn't want to do the naming after people thing. One day he said, how about the name Lela, I really like that name. He never had met my grandma Lela as she had died before we ever met, but he had heard me share many stories about her. And I said yes right away. All his family really loves the name too. And so on September 9, 2006 we welcomed our baby Lela into world!

When grandma was a very young woman she had Rocky Mountain Spotted Tick fever.

The doctors thought she was going to die. She said at the hospital, every morning when the nurses would come back, they would say they didn't think she was going to make it through the night and how happy they were to see her again.

The fever caused her to go a little crazy. She went running through the hospital naked, splashing water on herself in the fountain.

Grandpa, signed for the dr to give her more medication then was legal so she wouldn't be in so much pain.

Grandpa also would go all the way from Harrison to Little Rock every weekend and sleep under a bridge just to see her.

Grandma said when she finally was released from the hospital her two daughters didn't even recognize her.

I haven't told a saying of grandma's in a while so today's entry will be a saying.

When ever any one was having a hard or difficult time she would always tell them, Prayer works when nothing else can.

Grandma told me when she was younger before grandpa died, when she couldn't stay she would go in the bathroom and cross stitch and embroider, and crochet.