On Wednesday, we bury an icon, the matriarch of our family…my Granny. She passed on July 8, 2026. Born in 1939, she lived a life wearing many different hats. She raised her siblings at the age of 10 after her mother was killed getting off the city bus in Kennett, MO. Her mother was going to town to get chocolate so they would have it for their dessert that night for their weekly treat. Getting off the bus at her house in the outskirts of Kennett, she was hit by a truck, walking across the highway. That day, Granny became an adult, a mom to 6 kids (7 if you count her)starting at 6 months old, all while being a child herself at age 10.
She was forced by uncontrollable circumstances to grow-up, grab life by the horns, and do what had to be done. She raised all those kids to the best of her ability, and they have all been a close knit family ever since. When she met my Papaw, she had already raised a family before she even started her own. A few were still home with her when she married and started having her own kids. That last fact I didn’t even know until 7 years ago when my Papaw passed away. I also didn’t know that she was only 10 when her mother died. I thought she was 16 or 17 all these years. When my Aunt Jonie told me a few years ago that Granny was 10 with 2 babies on her hips(6 months and 2 years old), I was shocked. Imagining that for Granny is painful, and knowing she continued to suffer until the day she died, with Rheutotoid Arthritis is just hard. But she never complained, or felt God did her a disservice. She made the best of her life, and loved life, and had fun every day of her life no matter what came her way.
Fast forward to when I was a little girl, and I spent every long stint out of school with her and my Papaw. Every summer, every Christmas break, and a few times in between throughout the year, or she came to visit me. Just so long as I was with them, I was happy. They were my life and continued to be as an adult.
Every summer, 3 days after school would let out, I would go to Granny’s and not return home until 3 days before school started. Every single summer until I was 16, when I had to work, and became a lifeguard. Granny taught me how to be lady-like(sometimes I struggle with this because I’m half tomboy), and how to become a woman that others would respect and my family would be proud of. She taught me life skills, life lessons, discipline, how to work hard, love hard, have fun, and try every day to be better than the day before.
We gardened, did crafts, painted, shopped at thrift stores, clipped coupons, cooked, sewed, cleaned, read. You name it, we did it all. We also had loads of fun while we did it. But some days she would say, “Let’s go partying today”. By partying, we would go to visit Granny’s sisters(or boogied as Granny called it when I became an adult with my own family). We had painting parties with the sisters, crafting parties, sewing parties, and swimming parties. She believed in working hard most days, but having fun as a reward, for one of those days. I had no idea until the past few years, that she was viewed as like a mother figure to them.
Every summer when I would arrive, I would empty my clothes from my bags onto my bed. She would say let’s separate our “everyday clothes” from our “going to town clothes”. My clothes went in a hall cabinet that was floor to ceiling that my Papaw built. One side of the cabinet was for those everyday clothes, and the other side was for the town clothes. We never wore our “going to town clothes” at home. She taught me to take care of my clothes, to dress nice, but always have some clothes you could work in. I still do this to this day.
We used to watch Avonlea and Anne of Green Gables on the Disney Channel all the time. She would record Disney shows and movies throughout the year for us to watch over and over again. Movies like The Witching of Ben Wagner, and Goodbye Miss Fourth of July. She loved old 1960s movies, and I fell in love with Doris Day as a kid and all of her movies like By the Light of the Silvery Moon.
During the day we would also watch Aleene’s Creative Living, a craft show back in the 90s. She was a huge Aleene’s fan.
After supper in the evenings, Granny would lay on the couch, and I would lay in the recliner with Papaw and watch Nashville Now with Ralph Emery on TNT. He loved music, especially country music. He would lay reared back in the recliner looking at the ceiling, smile on his face, hands folded on his chest, and was so content. I now find myself doing the same thing when Dylan and I watch the AGT, or the CMA awards or something with music.
Around 8:30 every evening, Granny and I would go to her room and watch one episode of Dick Van Dyke and then two back to back episodes of Mary Tyler Moore, until 10 and then I would go to bed. She would come tuck me in every night, we would say prayers, and one summer we wrote in my diary on many nights. The diary was a beautiful old upholstered red diary she gave me I still have to this day. I would write what we did that day, what we cooked, where we went, what we did. She would pray that I would quit biting my nails, we would pray for VBS(Vacation Bible School at her church), anyone who was sick, my parents when they were traveling on vacation, and that she could fatten me up. Yes, she prayed that. I was very skinny(hard to believe now). Speaking of fattening up, I told her several times in the last few years, “Well Granny, God answered your prayers and then some. I gained weight. A lot of it”. She would laugh and say “yes he sure did”.
Speaking of VBS at her church, she and her sister Earlene always did the crafts portion of VBS. She would prepare for weeks before it started, getting everything ready. When I arrived in the summer, I finish helping her prepare. I can still see her in that little church in Searcy, the back of the building by the kitchen, teaching those kids how to paint, draw, build, and create a craft to take home. Granny and Earlene were sooo good at it. Crafts was her ministry at church at that time. I loved watching her teach kids how to paint a straight line, rinse the paint out of your brush so it doesn’t ruin it, brush with the grain and not against it, and how to not leave brush strokes.
Granny and her sisters were all artists. Earlene was excellent at painting portraits. Granny was excellent at painting scenes of farms, and she especially loved old barns. We would be driving somewhere, like when we went to Branson every summer, and she would see a barn on the drive and say, “oooohhh I need to paint that barn” (meaning to go home and paint a picture of that barn).
We took trips or vacations just me and her and Papaw, to Hot Springs, Eureka Springs, or Branson every summer. We went to the Passion Play in Eureka Springs. She had a portrait made of me at Shepard of the Hills that she has hanging on her wall. We went to Hot Springs to the amusement park. Granny didn’t ride the rides with me, but Papaw did. I can still see his white hair flapping up and down while we were on the old wooden roller coaster that Hot Springs had.
At Branson we went to shows like Shoji Tabuchi(he was my favorite) and The Presleys. I remember the traffic being terrible. You would have to leave two hours ahead of time to travel 1/2 mile from your hotel to the place you were going. (It isn’t that bad anymore). Papaw and I went to that dome thing and we felt like we were flying in an airplane.
Granny had a beautiful garden and flowers and plants everywhere in the yard. We would go water at 6pm every evening, because the sun was starting to set in the west and the flowers wouldn’t burn from the heat. She taught me that if we watered in the beaming sun, it hurt the plants. It’s better to wait until the sun starts going to bed, she would say.
Once a week, we would go into town to the TCBY and get ice cream in the evenings. Granny and Papaw loved ice cream. They kept Yarnell’s caramel pecan and black walnut in the freezer at all times at home. Caramel pecan was my favorite. I think my Papaw ate a bowl of ice cream every day of his adult life (at least since I had been born).
On Saturday nights (like clockwork), Granny made homemade pizza. Papaw preffered her homemade pizza over bought every time. He told her that. Whether or not that was actually true, I’ll never know, but Papaw told Granny all the time how wonderful she was. On those Saturday nights, my Papaw would drink a regular Coca-Cola with his pizza, that he poured into a glass full of ice. Granny and I would drink a decaf Coca-Cola with our pizza. That was the only day of the week they and I would drink a soda. All the other times, it was good ole southern sweet tea.
A funny story from the past 2 weeks while Granny was on hospice…I don’t ever remember Granny drinking any soda other than a decaf Coca-Cola. The last 2 weeks of her life, she drank either a regular Coca-Cola or Dr. Pepper everyday. She would even have a coke float that my momma made her almost everyday until she died. All I gotta say is, Granny, you go girl! I can’t believe she drank a regular coke. I have never seen her drink a coke that wasn’t decaf. But you know what, that woman deserved to drink a regular coke the last 2 weeks of her life, for sure. I’m so glad she did.
Granny taught me that life is what you make it. If you make it bad, it will be bad. If you decide to have fun doing the things you don’t like, you will have a good life. Treat yourself every once in a while for all your hard work you had done that week.
On Friday’s we went to town after working hard all week. Before we would leave for town, we would walk out to Papaw’s cabinet shop and he would walk to his truck and write Granny a check. It was for $75(that probably wouldn’t buy much today–lol). Granny said that was her allowance for working hard all week. I know it wasn’t really an allowance, but she was trying to teach me about using your money wisely. She taught me how to make the $40 my parents gave me for the summer, to last me the whole summer. She taught me to budget. She got me a purse and a wallet, and would let me check out at the store with my separate order so I could learn how to pay the cashier the right money that I owed. She would tell me to take care of what I bought. To savor it and not waste it.
On those days we went to town, we would look for farm trucks that were backed up with the bed of their trucks facing the road, selling fresh corn. The old farm trucks would be piled up with fresh corn. Granny start picking corn cobs from the back of the truck and pull down one side of the shucks to see if the cob was good. If not, she tossed it back into the pile and reached for another until she found the perfect corn cobs.
On days we were home, we did so many things. One of those things was we would pretend we had a cooking show before cooking shows existed. I would say out loud every single step and ingredient I was using to cook, as if I had an audience. I’ll never have my own cooking show, but in Granny’s eyes, I did.
When gardening, we would pretend we were the amish and I would pull every single weed in the garden. She taught me to love fried squash, fresh green beans, tomatoes with lemon pepper seasoning, and fried okra. We would shuck corn on the back porch, snap beans, and plan out what we would have for lunch. She always made Papaw a big lunch because he worked hard and needed a good lunch to help keep him going all day. Suppers were usually leftovers from lunch, which Papaw ate and loved even more it seemed, the second time around. Always wiping his plate clean with a piece of bread, to where it looked like he could put that plate right back in the cabinet. He didn’t of course, but he never left a crumb.
Granny killed snakes, and some, she said were good like the green and black ones. She would just go “ooooewwweee” when she would see one in the garden. I would say, “should I go get Papaw and Russ?” She would say “No, it’s a good snake so we just leave them, they just still startle me when I see them.” I thought she was so brave and tough. I still can’t do that like she did.
Then one day we saw the big snake(I remember it being the width of the driveway to the garage, but my uncle just laughed as I retold this story a few months ago, and said “it wasn’t that big”). Papaw and my Uncle Russell came and killed that one. It was about 4ft long Russell said. What can I say, as a kid, that thing was like a dinosaur!
Some days when we would want to paint a cutout, so we would go to my Papaw’s shop, get a scrap piece of wood, and draw the picture she wanted to cut out on the wood. Then she would go to the scroll saw and cut around her trace. Never afraid of a scroll saw as long as you paid attention to your hand placement. The finished product was perfect every time.
Her craft room was a dream. There was so much stuff to make. Paint, glue, colors, colored pencils, art paper, canvases, magazines, cutouts, felt, pipe cleaners, ribbon, rubber stamps. You name it, she probably had it. Granny was always saving something that could be used to make a pretty craft.
She also had a sewing room. It was also a dream. Shelves of material, and a countertop cabinet underneath to cut fabric. She would sit at the sewing machine, and I had a brown paper sack from Kroger, full of fabric scraps I would cut around on and make dolls, clothes for my baby dolls, and blankets for my dolls. We would get a little bowl and put cheez-its in it and a tall glass of fresh tea before we went to sew. We would listen to Big Band music like Glenn Miller Band on the radio while we were sewing(only she was really sewing, I was playing). She loved Big Band music.
My Uncle Russel would encourage me to read the encyclopedias she had on the shelf. Or look up words in the dictionary. Granny said I needed to be smart. That there was so much to learn in this world.
Sometimes if I got up early, like 5am, I would walk down stairs and papaw would be reading his Bible and devotionals at the kitchen bar. That image is one of my favorite memories. Granny would come down and say “Libby don’t bother your Papaw right now. Come on back up here for a while”. She would tell me that was Papaw’s time. I always respected that and can still see the kitchen not lit up all the way, him sitting in the chair next to where he usually sat to eat. I don’t know how long every morning he did that, but that was his time, and I love that role model he gave to me to look up to.
I loved to watch Papaw eat cereal. He would pour cereal (Corn Flakes) into his bowl until the Corn Flakes were flush or level to the top of the bowl. He would take his hands and go around the bowl and make sure not a one fell out of the bowl. Then he would slowly pour the milk on top, constantly “shaping” his cereal to ensure none fell out. I would just watch him. All my life, I never saw not one corn flake fall out of that bowl. It makes me smile when I think about that.
Granny would mow and do all the yard work including mowing the bank of their yard by the highway. She would say, “honey, bring me a tall glass of tea and I’ll rest for a bit”.
I remember we used to play like we lived in 1800s. She gave me a dress one summer I wore everyday. I wanted to be the women on Avonlea and Anne of Green Gables and work in dresses. She would tell me that really it’s not practical to work in a dress anymore, but back then, women were modest and that’s what they wore.
Then one summer she made me a moomoo(big long dress), and we took posing photos of one another with a new camera I had.
Sometimes we would go walk in a little subdivision down the road from their house. I remember doing that before she had rheumatoid. She would also push me in the wheel barrel when we worked outside. I remember one summer as my parents and I were driving to drop me off for the summer, and my mom told me to not make Granny push me in the wheel barrel this summer. I asked her why, and she said, well she can’t physically do that anymore. I didn’t ask Granny to push me in the wheel barrel anymore, but she did some anyway without me asking, because she wanted to. She would do anything for anyone no matter how bad it would physically hurt, and never complained. I don’t remember ever really knowing when I was kid, that she was in pain. She tried to never let me see her in physical pain. In later years, she would only moan when she would hurt, but never complain.
The emotional hurt of losing her mother and then taking the bull by the horns afterward and raising her siblings. She did what had to be done and didn’t complain about it. And she continued to do as much as she could possibly do even as her hands became unusable with her fingers pointing 90 degrees in the opposite direction, and her body completely failing her. She was still happy, and still found the good in every single moment of every single day, until the end. Hence, the regular Coca-Cola she had every day of the last 2 weeks of her life. LOL
In the mornings, Papaw would walk over from the shop to refill his cup around 8am every morning. We would be waiting for him on the back porch. This is where she gave me my first cup of coffee. We drank coffee every morning on that back porch while we waited for Papaw to walk over. Sometimes it was a little after 8 because a customer or a semi truck with a load of lumber would show up. But once they were gone, here he came. We would talk about what they were going to do that day.
We went to church every Sunday. Papaw would stop on the way to church and buy the Sunday paper at a little gas station. Then we went to church. And after church, we always stopped at Piggly Wiggly to get rolls for dinner.
They exhibited as close to a perfect life that I have ever seen, that was calm, serene, easy, and fun. The marraige my Granny & Papaw had was one to model your own marraige by. They had great love for one another. A love I have never seen before, and one that I try now to apply to my own marraige. It was the little things and the calm and caring relationship they had. Papaw would hold Granny’s hand in the car every single car ride we took. I never ever saw Papaw speak harshly to Granny and vice versa. Papaw was the most patient man I have ever met.
Granny’s sourdough bread was the best I have ever had. I have been trying to make it for 26 years, and still can’t make it like her. I will never stop trying, but have realized that mine will never be as good as hers.
We would read sometimes at night in her bed instead of watching tv. I would read a chapter out loud, and then she would read a chapter out loud. We read The Diary of Anne Frank one summer and went to the library often.
Christmas at Granny’s was an absolute wonderland. I am so blessed to have been able to wake up at her house Christmas mornings and experience the most wonderful Christmases with her and Papaw. She loved to spoil me and she loved Christmas. With homemade crafts and fireplace screen deer paintings she had done, to the painted carolers she put in the front yard every year. It was like going into a Christmas wonderland.
We played Yahtzee all the time. Granny loved games. Her favorite was Encore!! It was a music game we used to play with the family on Christmas Eve.
When we went to Kroger and grocery shopped; she pushed the big cart and I pushed the little kid carts they had.
Sometimes we would go with Papaw in the evenings if he had a house to bid for cabinets. We also helped him pickle a set of cabinets one summer. When Granny said we would pickle them, I thought would would smear pickle juice on them like you do stain. I was wrong.
This past Thanksgiving, we all got together (the 2 grandkids and their families, the 2 great grandkids, her 2 children and their spouses, and her daughter-in-laws father). It was the best Thanksgiving ever.
Granny was very particular when it came to how women dressed and how they portrayed themselves. She taught me how to shave my legs when I was finally growing hair on my legs. She said, “wooo, you need to start shaving those. It is not becoming of a girl to have hair on her legs”. So she taught me to shave all the areas that need shaving on a woman. In later years, she told me I should shave the little hairs on my face. LOL. This freaked me out, so waxing, dermaplaining, and plucking it is.
In recent years, when I would visit her, I would give her pedicures. She loved them and I loved doing it for her. When I would first start doing them, they would take almost 3 hours. I would be very careful to not hurt her because she had gotten so frail. I got faster over the years, to where it would only take about 2 hours. But I am so glad I would do that for her. She deserved to be pampered after caring for others her whole life.
When I was there just a few weeks ago, we were expecting lots of family to come over. So we were running around, picking up, cooking, etc, and if you have been to Granny’s you know how hot she likes to keep it. So I was wearing sports capris and a tee. When I walked past the couch where she was laying, she said to me ” you don’t wear that in public do you?”!. This was my cue that she didn’t approve of my outfit with company coming. Always wanting me to look presentable especially if we had company coming. I looked at her and said “No”. She looked at me and said “Good”. I went and changed before all the family arrived and had a little chuckle.
I learned almost everything I know from her and my Papaw. I am who I am today because of her and Papaw. I only wish I had written this while she was alive. She would have loved to read it. So Granny this is my love letter to you my dear dear Granny. Papaw would have loved to read it as well. I owe everything to them for helping to raise me to love and crave and strive to build a life that you love. I married my husband because he is a lot like my Papaw.
Granny’s memories and life lessons will be carried with me forever. So to you Granny & Papaw, I thank you for loving me with a love that I will forever cherish. Thank you for teaching me so much and being the best Granny & Papaw a girl could ever want.
I love you and will miss you every day. But I am so happy for you that you are getting to see your own momma that you haven’t seen since you were 10. You can tell her you raised those kids, they lived great lives, and had great families, because your own momma was such a good model. Mary made an imprint on your life while she was alive, in your 10 years you had with her, and that’s how you were able to make a great life for yourself and your siblings.
Granny I love you with every bone in my body. You are and will always be my best friend. I love you! I’ll see you one day again on the other side. And I’ll be talking to you often. Love you!
Libby
