My grandmother was also one of the strongest women I have known. I say "one of" because I happen to have been blessed with several strong women in my life to guide me. But she definitely stands at the head of the group. Mamaw had been through many things in her life. As a seven year old, she survived a tornado that hit the small community of Cascilla, Mississippi and that took the life of her mother, one of her brothers, and her sister. As a little girl, my grandmother was taken by ambulance to Memphis with no idea of where the rest of her family was. This was at the end of the Great Depression and my great-grandfather didn't have a tractor, let alone an automobile to get him to Memphis to see his children who had each been sent to different hospitals. The ambulance driver who picked up my grandmother was dating a nurse at the hospital and the two of them looked after my grandmother and even gave her a birthday party when she turned eight during her time in the hospital. Once she was able to go home, Mamaw took on the role of "mother" for her brothers until my great-grandfather remarried.
Mamaw never went to school past high school but I think that if she had, she would have been a teacher like me. When she would stay with us once I was teaching, she would ask me every afternoon how my day was and if I had had to paddle anyone! She loved reading and always encouraged me to read. I think the first time I read Guideposts magazine was at her house and I've come to love the encouraging stories of faith just as much as she did.
Mamaw was a caretaker too. She raised three children and loved on five grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren. One of the stories that Mamaw would tell about me was how when I was about a year and a half old, I burned my feet on the furnace at my aunt and uncle's house on Christmas morning. Mamaw would talk about how I would sit so still on the side of the sink and let her and my mom dress my feet and how I never cried. I can remember so many times, while I was growing up, of my cousin, Lauren, and I staying with Mamaw on a Saturday afternoon and eating chicken noodle soup with Cheetos or tuna sandwiches. We would always watch classic tv shows. She was pretty partial to the Walton's or Little House on the Prairie.
