My Bateman grandparents lived in a big rambling house during the time I was a young child, and I loved staying with them. Since I’m not the oldest of our remaining family, others may have different and more accurate memories. But these are some of my recollections about my grandmother, who I called Mammaw.
Mammaw did not want her grandchildren playing on the steps leading to the upstairs, so she told us Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones lived up there. She wasn’t descriptive about his appearance or actions, but she didn’t have to be. His name was enough to keep us off the stairs.
Later, when they moved to a smaller house, Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones moved, too, but this time he lived in the cellar. A few years ago, I googled Rawhead-and-Bloody-Bones and found he is first mentioned in literature in 1548. I had always thought he only lived at Mammaw’s place.
Mammaw was a baby whisperer, if there has ever been one. She had a way about her that calmed babies and made them happy. We all loved her from the git-go, and each of her grandchildren thought he or she was Mammaw’s favorite. Once I told a younger cousin that Mammaw had been my Mammaw longer than she had been his, and he was almost inconsolable when she had to confirm I was telling the truth.
My cousins and I admired her so much that we mixed sugar and cocoa and “dipped snuff” just like her. We wanted to be just like Mammaw. She let us play and didn’t fuss, no matter how dirty we got. She even loaned us serving spoons to use to dig steps so we could climb to the top of the red clay bank across from the house.
Even though we were allowed to get messy and dirty, Mammaw was probably the cleanest woman you’d ever meet. She did not think the kitchen sink was for washing hands, and she had her own towel that hung on a nail behind the door that no one else used. When head lice was making its rounds in the school where I taught, she told me that it was not shameful to get head lice, but it was shameful to keep them.
Mammaw’s hands were never idle. She gardened and preserved all summer and quilted all winter. Some years, at Christmas, she gave each of her living children a quilt. My daddy loved choosing his quilt first, especially if the others accused him of being the pet.
Mammaw made every visitor feel welcome to sit and chat or to have something to eat. The Lake Emory Road, where she lived, wasn’t paved. But lots of folks walked to get to their destination back then, so many times passersby would stopped in to rest and visit with Mammaw. If you happened to come during bean stringing and breaking, you might be put to work.
If you walked into her house, didn’t see her, and called her name, she’d answer, “Whoopee.” And, she called drooling babies “slobber jeets.” She loved her brothers and sister and tried to help them whenever she could. She wasn’t school educated, but she knew how to thrive and survive and was one of the smartest women I ever knew.
I hope you had – or have – a Mammaw like mine. She sure helped make being a kid a happy time.