I Want to be Just Like You

You know how sometimes you get people on your mind and no matter what you do you can't shake their imagine out of your head? I have been thinking about my great grandmother Daugtery that way since I said I would post about her.

She was about five feet tall. When I knew her, she was wrinkled and slow. Her hands were gnarled with the effects of arthritis, but she still tended a half acre vegetable garden. She also kept a quilt frame up in one room of her home. She baked the best peanut butter cookies in the world, and made sure that everyone in the family got their very own plastic butter bucket full each Christmas.

Before I came alone, Minnie cared for her six children and her husband Ira. Ira had a stroke before age 50.  He was bed bound for seventeen years. Minnie worked all day nursing him, then she worked second shift at Cone Mills. She and Ira were married  fifty years before he passed away. I never meet him.

My grandmother Helen lived behind my great grandmother's house. When my parents would take me to visit my grandparents, I would pop in on Great Gram and sit and chat a while. She was hard of hearing, so I would have to yell  for her to hear me. I remember one conversation we had was about the gypsy wagon she used to see traveling down the road when she was a little girl. She was told not to go outside her yard because the Gypsy's liked to kidnap little girls and sell them to the circus. She never liked the circus. She was afraid of clowns, so she always stayed in her yard. She told me that there were still Gypsy's that took little girls, so I should always stay in the yard, which I did. Her yard was the best. It had a fenced garden that reminded me of Mr. McGregor's from Peter Rabbit. She had an apple tree with the sweetest apples and a plum tree that I stayed away from. You didn't mess with Gram's plums.

For a high school assignment, I interviewed Minnie Daugtery as the most amazing person I knew. I had to ask her about what she believed in most. She told me God in Heaven and his Bible were the most believable things she knew. Then I had to ask what she believed in least. She responded with, "No, man never walked on that moon!" Needless to say, I laughed. She got up from her chair, flapped her hands at me and left the room.

I loved the smell of my Great Gram's house. The best visits were on quilting days. Peanut butter cookies were baked. I would sit and watch her bent fingers thread the needle. She would stop now and then to rub her knuckles with Bengay. Her home smelled of menthol, baked goods and burnt wood. She cooked on a wood burning stove. Oh, she owned an electric oven, one of her son's had bought it for her. But she refused to use it!

Minnie never visited a doctor until she was 85. She had delivered all six of her children at home. When she became ill with stomach pains, she was taken to the hospital and a gall stone the length of her index finger was removed. She carried it home in a mason jar and set it in her kitchen window. She had lived alone in her own home until that surgery. Then, my grandmother Helen and her sister, who lived next door, took turns keeping Minnie in their home's at night. It was on one of those nights, I learned something new about my Great Gram. I was spending the weekend with my grandparents. I was fifteen. Great Gram was getting ready for bed. She said her good nights and stepped into her room. Then she began her bedtime prayers. She prayed aloud. As my grandparents and I sat at the kitchen table, they encouraged me to listen to Minnie pray. She thanked her Heavenly Father for all her daily blessings, each one mentioned in detail. She prayed by name for all her children, grand children and great grand children. I heard her call my name. (Gives me chills and brings tears to my eyes even now.) Grandma Helen told me she did this every night. She prayed for at least 30 minutes, then there was silence. She had gone to sleep.

I have thought many times about hearing my Gram pray for me. Oh, what a joy and comfort that memory brings. When I heard her the first time, I didn't know the Lord, but I knew she did, and I know she is with him now, in no pain, waiting for me to join her. She was the most humble person I have ever known. I can see her little frame in my mind's eye, throwing up her hands, walking out of the room.
I love you Minnie Daugtery. I want to be just like you!