Nanny

Someone at work last week made a remark - I forget what he said - but it reminded me of my Father's Mother: Ruth Harris or Nanny, as I called her.

She was a terrific gardener. She grew african violets in the house. Outside she had a vegetable garden at the back of the back yard. She grew wonderful tomatoes! She had a half barrel full of rose moss and by the back porch she grew lillies of the valley. In the front she had roses and iris.

She lived in the house where my Dad and his brother and sisters grew up - on Ruby Street in Kansas City, Kansas. The railroad tracks and the viaduct over the Kansas River were pretty close. Inside she had made the two downstairs bedrooms into one big one. It was fun because that room had two doors! Over one bed was an embroidered Lord's Prayer. My Mom made it for her - and I have it now. There was a divider between the front room and the dining room. On a shelf on the divider was one of those clocks in a glass dome.

Nanny called her kitchen sink a "zinc", because the first sinks were actually made of zinc (at least that's the story in our family). She called an afghan, an "african". I have no idea why, unless they sounded the same to her.

I remember several dinners at Nanny's. She would make rhubarb pie - every time I tried to eat it - and couldn't. It looked good and tasted bad (unless you like rhubarb). When the meal was over, she would put the leftovers on the kitchen table and cover them with a tea towel. She had a refrigerator - I don't know why she left the food out.

Nanny was a Baptist - and growing up I was a Methodist. I was always a little scared of her church, because in my little girl's mind - they did not sing the "right" songs. She had a picture of Jesus in her front room - one where his eyes followed you.

She liked having paraquettes. Each one was called "Pretty Boy". She would put his bird cage on her buffet.

Nanny had a third grade education. She managed well by herself after my Step-Grandpa Jack died. She use to take care of "old people". I remember one man she took care of, gave her a bunch of furniture. From that furniture, I got a rocking chair and a secretary...some little salt dishes and a tea strainer. I think I also had some pens and nibs. I still have some of the little salt dishes and the tea strainer. My first husband did not like the secretary, so I sold it to a friend. I never moved the rocking chair from my home when I got married - who knows where it ended up!

Sometimes my Dad had to help her with her checkbook. Later she moved to Florida to live with my Uncle Auggie.

I have her hall mirror. I remember that she would give me my Buster Brown hair cuts (Buster Brown was a brand of shoes and socks - and had Buster Brown - a boy - on the advertisements). I would check to see if my bangs were straight in that mirror!

It is sad, I don't remember the last time I saw her. But I do have lots of memories of being with her.
(updated with photos!)