If you was raised like I was...

"If you was raised like I was..." Those words will be forever etched in my brain. I have heard my Grandma say this to me, my uncles and my mom so many times I cannot even begin to count them.

My Grandma was born to Joe and Alta Glass on January 31, 1932 in Louisburg, MO. She was the second child of four.

My Grandpa and Grandma Joe, as I affectionately called them were what most today would consider dirt poor. As I look back now, they never really had much. I don't ever remember the farm that my Nanny (grandma) talks about, that was gone before I ever came along.

I remember Grandpa Joe had one eye. I don't know how the other one got put out, I don't think I ever really asked or cared. That's just how he was. My Grandma Joe was always busy doing laundry. I learned later, that is how she made extra money. She did laundry for her neighbors and ironed for them. I don't ever remember going down there in the summer without there being laundry on the clothesline. I remember running in and out of all the clothes. I also remember that they had a root cellar under their house and I would sit on hot summer days in the root cellar and play. It was always cool, dark and damp. Why, I never worried about snakes down there, is beyond me.

My grandma tells stories of her great granny that sat in a rocking chair and smoked pipe tobacco and chewed. She was a full blooded Cherokee. I assume, that's where I get my high cheek bones.

I remember my Grandpa buying Grandma a brand new Poniac Catalina in 1979 from Davies Chevrolet Pontiac on the square in Buffalo. It was a soft yellow, almost pastel. I remember barely seeing over the dash and riding to Louisburg with Grandma to visit Grandma and Grandpa Joe. It was a trip we made weekly. We never wore seat belts and we didn't have car seats in those days. Any sudden stop was accompanied by a hand to the chest to catch me. It's still a reflex action in me today.

Grandma Joe would always fix us a big lunch. But, back then, it wasn't that she fixed us lunch because we were there, she fixed it because that's what she would have fixed even if we wasn't. She always fixed three meals a day, if she had company she just fixed extra.

My Grandma Joe always wore an apron and I can't recall ever seeing her in anything but a cotton dress. Most usually her dresses were homemade. In the winter she wore a sweater over her thin, sometimes almost worn too thin dress.

I remember that she could tat, crochet and knit. She pieced and made quilts from scraps. I still have a little quilt that she made for my doll cribs. Unlike Granny (Great Grandma Slack), she didn't have a quilting frame and when she quilted she took crochet thread and looped it through the quilt and knotted it in the center of each square.

I don't remember how old I was, but I can remember when my Grandma Joe was diagnosed with Leukemia. I remember leaving the dinner table and going to my room crying. When my grandpa asked me why I was crying I told him I wasn't crying my eyes were just sweating. After that, we spent a lot of time in and out of the hospital with Grandma Joe. I don't really recall her dieing and I don't think I went to her funeral. If I did, I've blocked it out of my mind.

I remember after that when we would go to Louisburg to see Grandpa Joe, grandma would always cook him a big lunch. He later died in the nursing home in Buffalo after being diagnosed with prostate cancer. He was in his late 80's.

Nanny was raised hard. She never had but one rag doll. Her older brother, Cecil, is classified as MIA from the Korean war. He was on the front line and his division was the first troops that hit land. That was always hard on my grandma, the not knowing.

My grandma came from hard times. The depression left a lasting impression even if she was at a young age when it happened.

My husband, thinks it's awful when I tell about some of the things she done when I was growing up.

By the way, Grandma and Grandpa raised six kids, then me. They had five boys and mom. Mom was the third child. I always laugh at the story of Grandpa and how he was denied welfare.(Our family name used to be well known in Buffalo before it's population grew.) When Grandpa slipped on the ice and broke his back and they could have used the extra help, the welfare office evidently told them no because he was a Slack and Slacks' didn't need welfare. Grandpa told them he would never ask again, and he didn't.

Steve thinks it's awful when I tell him how we used to share bathwater. He gags when I tell him that Grandma would cut the mold off the cheese and still use the rest of it. And his ultimate gag reflex is when I tell him how she would cook rice and if those little black bugs would come floating to the top, she skimmed them off and we still had rice. I told him that's why you have never seen any of us have food poisoning. We have cast iron stomachs. Nothing went to waste at our house. The scraps were fed to the chickens and to the pigs. And in the rainwater was caught to water the houseplants.

I can't remember ever wanting for anything and having more than most. The one thing we were never short on was discipline and love, lots of love.

I grew up in a house that there was a dinner with meat, vegetable and dessert everynight. We sat at the dinner table, not around the the television. Going out to eat was a treat that happened maybe once a month. Going to the Bolivar Pizza Hut was a BIG DEAL. And when KFC came onto the scene that was a big treat that Grandma and Grandpa went on by themselves.

We used to go "visiting". I didn't matter if it was a "school night". We would all pile in the car and head off to a relatives house or a family friend and spend the evening catching up. And "fetched on company" wasn't a big deal. You just set an extra place settings at the table.

When it was butchering time, all the families would get together and butcher. I remember having hogs and beef hanging from the tree by the house. I remember butchering our own chicken and turkey. And when it was hunting season we always had an abundance of deer.

I can remember Grandma canning. We always had two, yes two, LARGE gardens. One was all potatoes and corn and sometimes peanuts. The other was everything else.

We picked blackberries, plums and Black Walnuts. We had a strawberry bed that ran the whole lenth of the garden. We had a milk cow.

So, did I grow up like Grandma? No, I doubt it. But, I did grow up instilled with values, manners, discipline and love.