Generations

My Great Grannie was a great character. I remember going to visit her and Great Grandad in their home in Goldthswaite with their 300 or so wild cats and their barn with all the treasures and the spittoon and the pies. The first thing you did when you got there was to watch all the cats disappear - partly because they were wild and partly because my brother, though he has long been a friend of the cat, was at that time quite a terror to them. Grannie's cat, Tiger, wasn't too fond of him, either.

When you walked in the house, before you even looked for which pies Great Grandad had made, you looked for the spittoon so you would know where to sit -always on the other side of the room. Only then was it pie time. Great Grandad put up all his own fruits and I just remember the array of pies - a fruit pie or 2, pumpkin, pecan (it's pecan country, after all!), lemon merange (although I don't know how to spell it) and whatever something he had the urge to bake. Fabulous baker, he was.

Then there was Great Grannie, sitting in state in her chair ready to talk! (And they wonder where I get it from.) She was blind all the time I knew her but boy she could tell stories. She had to go live with an uncle at a very early age - an uncle with 5 grown and almost grown sons. A recipe for a high sense of self and sense of entitlement, if ever there was one. Anyway, she got away with all sorts of things, like rallying the kids in the 1-room schoolhouse to lock the teacher out once he went to the outhouse so they could have a dance with their smuggled instruments while the teacher tried to get back into the building. I once asked my Grannie how much stretching had been done by the time the stories got to us and she told that, as far as she'd been able to find out, they'd pretty much happened as she related.

Anyway, all of that to say that I finally finished my sketch of a picture I found of my Great Grannie where we think she was about 20 years old. Although she was very trying for my poor Grannie, she was a sheer delight for the younger me. I know there are things that could be better with the drawing (I won't point them out to you, I'm sure you'll find them!) but I was very happy with how it came out overall - especially for me as I don't consider myself much at sketching. And, Mom, I finally finished the face!