by Mary Wakefield Buxton –
URBANNA —
I was lucky to have known one grandparent, Mary Poley Wakefield; born in New York the latter part of the 19th century, she died in 1951. I have treasured memories. Children need grandparents to connect them to their heritage.
Grandmother had little formal education. She couldn’t vote until 1920 with passage of the 19th amendment, yet I doubt she ever did vote as I never heard her express a political opinion. She must have been a devout Christian because I remember she hummed favorite hymns.
I spent much time at the big house. I have a first memory of being dropped off as a toddler at the back door and Mother, in a hurry and thinking Grandmother was right there to take me inside, backed the black 1940 Ford coupe into me. I was miraculously not hurt.
Grandmother did not approve of the way I was being raised. No one had taught me how to sew buttons on a shirt and she clucked disapproval with every visit. She would take my hand and lead me back to Grandfather’s old study where she kept her sewing materials and a tin full of buttons. She would thread a needle and then turn over the task to me of sewing a button onto a piece of cloth. It was difficult for my little girl fingers to get the needle into the right holes and not snag the thread and I was never very good at the task. (To this day I don’t sew buttons on shirts, much to my husband’s despair.)
When Father and Mother were married in 1936, the country was suffering a severe depression. Father built our first home right next to the big house. Grandmother came over every day, according to Mother, and went over to the stove to pick up the tea pot and shake it. It was always empty. Grandmother believed a good wife always kept water in the teapot. Maybe I don’t sew buttons on shirts but I do keep my teapot filled.
Grandfather’s first wife passed away after her first child, Clara, was born, so Grandfather asked his young cousin, Mary Poley, to come to Vermilion to help him care for the baby. They married and from this marriage came Albert, William, Robert, Ruth, Fred, Alice, my father, George, Ted and Ernest. Robert died as an infant and Alice died at age 18 during surgery.
Grandmother told me “old wives tales” in hopes of improving me. Apparently I scowled a lot when I was growing up (probably related to having to sew a button on a shirt every time I visited her) and one day she sat me down to warn me that my scowl could become permanent. “I once knew a little girl who scowled all day long,” she said, “and one day she scowled and the scowl never went away!”
I also had a habit of picking off soft fuzz from a favorite blanket and holding it to my nose to sniff it. Father called this behavior “sucking fuddy.” Grandmother was horrified when she heard that her little Mays was sucking fuddy. “Once I knew a little girl who sucked fuddy for years and one day she got a stomach ache and had to go to the hospital to have an operation and when they opened up her stomach they found a wad of fuddy as big as a grapefruit!”
I loved to go to the big house after school to visit Grandmother. As she aged, she had a stern caretaker by the name of Annie Tims. One day, when a first grader, I skipped up the long stone steps leading to her front door and knocked. The formidable Miss Tims answered the door and frowned when she saw me. “I’m here to ask Grandmother for some money, please,” I said, noticing Miss Tim’s immediate scowl.
“What a spoiled little girl you are!” Miss Tims spat, but suddenly Grandmother appeared. “May I please have some money, Grandmother, so I can buy a Coke?” I was not allowed to drink Coke so this was a major act of rebellion.
Grandmother beckoned me to the old sideboard in the dining room, took out a wrinkled black leather pocketbook and pulled out a dime to give to me. “There!” she said, giving Miss Tims a victorious look.
Our large family loved children and doted on my two sisters and me. Whether all this love was good for us or not, I’m not sure, as we grew up thinking how wonderful we were. But once we left our tender cocoon in Ohio, we found out quickly that we weren’t so wonderful. Still, it was nice while it lasted and helped prepare us for tough times ahead.
(The end of an era series concludes next week.)
© 2021.
