"The Grandmother"
By Elizabeth Madox Roberts
When Grandmother comes to our house,
She sits in the chair and sews away.
She cuts some pieces just alike
And makes a quilt all day.
I watch her bite the little thread,
Or stick the needle in and out,
And then she remembers her grandmother's house,
And what her grandmother told about,
And how a very long ago-
She tells it while she cuts and strips---
We used to live in Mary-land,
And there was a water with ships.
But that was long before her day,
She says, and so I like to stand
Beside her chair, and then I ask,
"Please tell about in Mary-land."
A sweet poem by renowned writer Elizabeth Madox Roberts (1881-1941), a native of Springfield, Kentucky, where she spent her formative and adult years. Springfield is largely known for its connection to President Abraham Lincoln whose grandfather Abraham Lincoln, Sr., settled there in the late 1700s. And it is a place with which I am familiar. The town lies not all that far from our porch on the plateau in Tennessee, directly between us and Bardstown - the Bourbon Capital of the World. But getting to the point - I did not intend to bury the lead - grandmothers, sewing, and stories.
My husband Rodney's grandmother Sadie Sylvest Bateman, the sweetest lady around, was a fine seamstress in Franklinton and was well known for her expert sewing. I came to know her well in young adulthood when her grandson and I began courting. Long before that, my grandmother Emma Elizabeth Jenkins Brumfield also sewed though not professionally. While Ga-ga did piecework by hand, she also had a sewing machine complete with wood cabinet and wrought iron pedal, which I pressed to the point of exhaustion. As strange as it sounds, the old sewing machine has disappeared. I'm not sure how a piece that large goes mysteriously missing, but it's gone from my Ga-ga and Pa-pa's farmhouse, the one I inherited. It was gone long before I got it. But it most definitely was there, in the center hall, when I was a child.
Fortunately, I did inherit a stack of my grandmother's quilts, and turn of the century, they are spectacular if for no other reason my Ga-ga, and her sisters, made them by hand. But it wasn't just quilting. Sewing up a storm, my Ga-ga made her daughters clothes, and their dolls clothes, during the Great Depression. The latter were, of course, made of scraps as were the quilts. Honing in on the sewing, my mother who was born in 1925 described for me the trips to town in the family's Model A to buy material. But she also looked forward to the time of year when her father Thomas Colter Brumfield - my Pa-pa - sold cotton. It was during cotton season that she and her sister selected store-bought dresses, likely from Burris Brothers, the well-known mercantile in town. Ga-ga even worked there part-time.
But in my mind, the store-bought frocks while stylish would have been sans the stories, the ones that came part and parcel with the sewing. Just like Ms. Roberts, I enjoyed being present when my grandmother was sewing. She told me about times long ago, the way it was in the early days of Washington Parish. Her own mother and my great-grandmother Melissa Wascom (1852-1943) and her father and my great-grandfather Charlie Abner Jenkins (1852-1937) had ten children. According to Ga-ga, they were born, in the following order: Louis Early Jenkins (1875-1963); Lillie Irene Jenkins (1877-1878); Lula May Jenkins Magee (1879-1964); Leota Jenkins Knight (1881-1967); Rosa Viola Jenkins Morris (1883-1972); Daniel Pierson Jenkins (1885-1911); Effie Eldora Jenkins Wood (1887-1973); Florence Inez Jenkins Ward (1889-1917); Laura Jane Jenkins Knight (1892-1943); and Emma Ophelia Jenkins (1895-1988). Digressing, with disdain for her middle name of Ophelia, Ga-ga later officially changed it to Elizabeth which is the middle name my husband and I gave our daughter.
Many of the cousins I mention in this column descend from this prolific Jenkins family tree. Franklinton residents and cousins Jo Ann Magee Phelps and Ricky Magee, together with their sister June Magee and brother the late Larry Magee, are the grandchildren of Effie Jenkins Wood. Great-Aunt Effie was the mother of my "Aunt" Genevieve Magee, married to "Uncle" Marvin Magee - their parents. Similarly cousins Gayle Knight Rester and her sister the late Gerrilyn Knight Keene are the grandchildren of Leota Jenkins Knight. Great-Aunt Leota was the mother of William Floyd Knight, married to Mildred Howes Knight - their parents. And cousins Margaret Magee Joffrion and her sister the late Mary Elizabeth Magee Macias are the grandchildren of Lula May Jenkins Magee. Great-Aunt Lula was the mother of Dr. Thomas Charles William "Willie" "T.C.W." Magee, married to Mary "Sister Mary" Gilmer Magee - their parents. I could go on and on, with local connections, if space only permitted. Suffice to say, the Jenkins siblings were a close-knit bunch, cut from the same cloth. A portrait of Great-Aunt Florence who died young has always hung in the hall of Ga-ga and Pa-pa's farmhouse. I can say with certitude that, close in age, they were exceptionally tight. I would not move that picture an inch.
As for the stories, Ga-ga spent sewing time with me, talking about her siblings and their early life together. Not one to leave loose ends, she explained the value in a large family, a rarity in this day and age, back then - companionship, comfort, and care. Ga-ga's mother lived to the ripe old age of ninety, and as the years waned, she lived with her children, rotating around Washington Parish a month or so at a time. I suppose if one has enough children this would be possible. The best part - when she stayed with my grandparents in the winter of her life, she and Ga-ga sewed together. I wish that I could have been a fly on the wall for the storytelling. It came naturally with sewing.
