CHARLOTTE
Memories of Christmas at Mama's
One of my earliest memories is of Anne and I going to Mama's house for
Christmas. Her house was very little--2 bedrooms about the size of my
bedroom, a living room about the same size, a slightly smaller dining
room, a very small kitchen and a very small bathroom. The kitchen had
a sink, a small gas stove and an icebox--not a refrigerator. The ice house
delivered ice every day, except maybe Sunday's. Part of the time she had
no hot water--so for bathing she heated on the stove and carried it to
the tub. Also the bathroom had only a toilet and a tub. I mention all
of this because most Christmases I remember we always felt dirty. Before
we went to bed Mama always wiped our feet with a cold, soapy washrag,
never rinsing! Usually, at Christmas Carol and Eugenia's families also
stayed at Mama's. She had a fold down sofa in the living room, but the
youngest children would be put down on pallets. We hung our stocking on
the French doors from Mama's room to the living room. Our stockings were
Mama's old silk stockings with runs in them. They were filled with apples
and oranges and nuts--Christmas was the only time we saw tangerines, incidentally.
We would have dolls and a few toys or games on the floor beside the French
doors. ( It was depression times so there was often recycled toys and
fewer of them than your children have. I got Carol's bicycle (repainted)
) for Christmas one year and I didn't know the difference until much later.
There were 8 children ranging age from Anne to Mike Dowling. We had to
wait until George, Forrest and Daddy (Big John) came over from Eugenia's,
where they had spent the night. They usually slept late and the children
woke up early, so it was a problem keeping the little ones in the bedrooms
until their fathers got there. Incidentally, Santa Claus came to see me
until the year I was 13, when I finally admitted that I knew and that
I wanted to sit up with the adults and 'wait' for Santa! Of course, by
the time the younger children were born, Anne was dating, engaged, married
and had Ginny before Mike Dowling was born.
We placed 4 O'clock blooms around the cake—
Yellow and red, the blooms wilting in the July heat,
Were the decorations on the cake.
Leftover birthday candles graced the top of
The lop-sided pound cake Mama baked in the iron skillet.
Half-melted three-way brick ice cream from Edward's drug store
Accompanied the birthday cake.
Lemonade (from real lemons—but not too sweet, sugar being rationed)
Filled our glasses, as we sang "Happy Birthday",
Tot played the piano; and again—
We wished our Mother a Happy Birthday.
Nostalgia—
June 22, 1996
There were four sisters: Lutie, Sullie, Pearl, and Tot. Lutie was the quiet, troubled, dignified old lady in a starched, neatly ironed, black dress with a white collar. She had two daughters: Virginia, (who had one daughter, Priscilla), and Carolyn who died tragically young from a ruptured appendix in rural Arkansas in the early 1920's—far from a doctor and Memphis hospitals. (Lutie was later diagnosed as being clinically depressed.) Sullie was our beloved Mama—the matriarch of our own family, widowed at a fairly young age with three small daughters to raise: Anna Gordon, Eugenia, and Carol. The baby was less than three years old when my grandfather (who I never saw, of course) died. Pearl married happily and had three children—Margaret, Frances, and Charles. When her baby, Charles, was two; Pearl also died tragically—I was told it was "female trouble". Tot was the youngest of the four sisters—eight years younger than Sullie. Tot was sensitive about her age and did not even want her birth date on her tombstone. She never married—she was a poet and a musician. As many women of that era did she 'taught' piano. However, she excelled in poetry, winning many awards nationwide and worldwide—one of the founders of the Poetry Society of Tennessee—she was also a member of Penwomen, noted for her Haiku's. She was also Poet Laureate of Tennessee. When her sister Pearl died, Tot brought the three children into her home and raised them—except for Frances, who got too close to the gas space heater and set her clothes on fire—she died from the burns when she was ten years old.
Summer Evenings
at 2265 Central
Mama sat on the glider on the front porch. Tot and Mother and Eugenia and Carol watched Anne and I chase lightning bugs across the grass in the front yard. Often I would run ask for a jar with holes in the top to keep them in. It was too hot to stay inside—Mama's one little electric fan droned on and on in the living room. Carol went in to get ready for a date with George—Anna Gordon had helped Mama make her a new dress, so she was excitedly trying it on.