Life on Granny's Farm
My mother's family is spread over and along the West Virginia/Maryland
border. Most of them were farmers and miners until my generation, which
is spread in every direction, vocationally and geographically.
I was practically raised by my maternal grandmother and my mother's two
youngest sisters. My Granny's name was Cora. She looked like anybody's
Grandmother, dressed in long dress, always with an apron. Her hair, a
million shades of gray, was pulled up in a bun, and she would have made a
good Mrs. Claus. I saw that bun undone only twice in all those years, both
times in the middle of the night when she had to come in the room because
I was sick or some such.
I never knew her to be sick. When I was little, say five, I realized that my grandmother always had, and probably always would, smell like cookies.
Every summer until I was thirteen was spent on my grandparents' farm.
They raised chickens and sold the eggs and, to a lesser degree, the
Chickens. All holidays were spent there. EVERYBODY came "up home"
for the holidays.
Granny's kitchen was as big as three normal living rooms. There was no
running water, just a cold sink. There was a pump on the porch, and a
springhouse just across the lane from the house.
The first thing that grabbed you, as you came in the door was this HUGE, black wood burning stove.
What a monster! When we were "little" this was our favorite winter place to
play; in the space between the stove and the wall. Granny worked what I still
consider being small miracles with that big old iron stove. How she
controlled her temperatures in that oven, just by pouring a little water into a
small compartment in the outer wall, in my view ranked right up there with
brain surgery.
When I was about four or five, all twelve of her children
kicked in and bought and installed an electric range. She used the oven that
day, but I don.t think that stove ever got used again, except to hold a lot of
noncooking items on the top and pots and pans in the oven compartment.
Only the kitchen was wired for electricity; it was coal oil lamps in the
rest of the house. That stove was the primary heat source in cold
Weather; that, and a coal pot belly stove in the living room. Upstairs, you
slept between blankets in winter, not sheets, on a straw mattress if you were
a kid, a down one if you were an adult.
I loved being at Granny.s. I got to eat really neat stuff, like venison,
Squirrel, wild Greens, big, round loaves of bread. Granny utilized a lot of
The things nature provided. There was a walnut tree halfway out toward
the "hard" road that gave us some great snack items every year. Granny
said I was a great walnut picker. Granny had a small assortment of
Shoemakers tools that were perfect for getting at the meat.
There was plenty of cooking and canning happening almost all the time as
Things came to maturity. And every Sunday morning, I would help Granny put down four chickens or so, which would go for Sunday dinner, a pot pie and maybe soup for later in the week.
By age ten I had learned to appreciate the
many manifestations of a Chicken carcass. I also learned very early on that
a Chicken doesn't need a head to still run around a bit.
Granny never worked with complete recipes. She didn't use measuring
Spoons - she used the cup of her hand. She had a regimen; Monday Wash
Day, (there was a wash House.) etc. to Friday, which was baking day. On
Friday, I hung about the kitchen a lot, but I didn't learn a thing... except a
Pavlovian lesson or two. I've since learned that, while Cooking is an Art,
Baking is a Science!
I flunked Science!
I inherited Granny's six cigar boxes of hand-written recipes (She actually put a note in those boxes, telling us where she wanted them to go......)
I almost always have to flesh out a "procedure" paragraph when I type up one of her Gems. Granny wrote recipes as if you already knew stuff that she knew,
But of course we didn't, and still don't. I must have a reasonable handle on
it tho'; the recipes almost always seem to work out, somehow.
A typical summer day.....
I'd get up as soon as it was light. The house would already smell like it
knew I was hungry. I would eat breakfast and do my assigned chores;
bring in wood to fill the Wood Bin, gather eggs and feed the chickens. Then
I'd take 15 eggs to the Bowers Farm in a molasses can and return with a
gallon of milk. I'd drop off milk and...
GO.....................
On some mornings, if I hurried right back with the milk, I'd be able to go
with my Uncle Delmar when he went to check his traps, a chore he did
first and last thing every day. Mostly he'd get muskrat, groundhog,
possum and such, but once in a while, he'd strike it "rich" and snag a fox or
Lynx. Uncle Delmar stretched, dried and scraped the skins and then,
every four or five weeks we'd pile them up, and walk to the farm of Mr.Earsel
Cooley, who would buy them.
Some days it would be back to the Bowers. for play. They had three kids -
Ronnie, one year older than I, Jimmy, my age, and Jenny, one year my
Junior.
One of our favorite pastimes was "calf rodeo." We rode .em, roped
'em, wrestled 'em, and generally made their young lives miserable.
Sometimes we'd cut a melon away from the vine, and take it down to the
Creek (pronounced crick) and weigh it down in the stream with a big rock.
Later, we'd return and bust that booger open and...
GO..........
Sometimes, we'd go back to Granny's and raid her Grape Arbor, or her
Strawberry patch. You had to be a commando of sorts, because that strawberry patch was visible from the kitchen and Granny would see you if you stood straight up. Sometimes, by myself, I would lay in there for an hour, just "a-pickin. and a-grinnin... She had turnips, scallions, leeks, tomatoes and what-all,
and we'd eat anything right off the vine or out of the ground. I remember,
at one point, we Kids kept a pilfered salt shaker and an old boning knife
hidden for these banquets. I used to love eating a turnip like an apple, but my
teeth aren't up to it any more.
After lunch (we called it dinner, for some strange reason) I needed to slop
the hogs. Then I could...
GO.....
Some afternoons were spent exploring, through the woods, upstream or
maybe down. Some days we'd go squirrel, rabbit or crow hunting. The days
were always full, and I don.t recall ever being bored or lonely, even if I
was alone.
Some days I'd go with Granny. She'd take a basket and we'd be off to the
Wherever to collect ramps, fiddlehead ferns, dandelion greens or whatever
else. She'd dig 'em up and I'd carry the basket, and Lord, I wish I'd paid
better attention at the time......
Granny made wine through all the warm weather. Dandelion wine, fruit
Wines and Clover Wine. Her jugs of wine were the inspiration for a "macho"
game that Ronnie and Jimmy and I played. The gallon jugs of wine were
lined up on a "low" roof (one easily accessed from ground level) and, Laws,
did these jugs ever attract the bees! I understand that the American honeybee
is near extinction, and that in some growing areas they even have to hire a
Bee truck to park next to the fields for a week so that the vegetable flowers
will get pollinated. Well, not back then, and not around Granny.s wine jugs.
We three would see who could "jar" the most bees in say, 15 minutes -
dangerous work, even for a ten year old who's gonna live forever!
Usually after supper, I'd ride back over to the Bowers' and help with the
Milking. They were dairy farmers, and I think they had about a million
Head. Mr. Bowers also sold compost on the side! (For every one of Mr.
Bowers. cows, Mrs. Bowers had a cat.) Sometimes I'd stay after milking
and we'd all play at one game or another, outdoor games or parlor games,
depending on the weather. Needless to mention, Jenny Bowers was my
first crush.
Back at Granny's house, there was lots of stuff to do at night. The two
Youngest of my aunts were still at home at this time, Janet (16) and Hazel
(13), and on those summer nights they taught me to play Rummy,
Crazy eights and such. Chinese Checkers were big, or there was Granny's
Jigsaw puzzle, and we competed to see who could put the first piece in.
Granny would still be chugging away, getting something ready for
Tomorrow's something or other.
Weekends always brought reinforcements in the form of kin. I had a lot of
Cousins, within three years or so of my age, and my Cousin Shirley was
even born on the same DAY as me, but not, of course, in the same place. So,
the House was always loaded with kids on weekends. Granny's table would
Seat six kids along one side.
In the winter at Granny's there was sledding, Skating, and plenty of room
down in the meadow for some really awesome snowball fights. In cities,
the snow is just not the same. The meadow was good for 200 snowmen or
three or four snow-forts, with plenty of Ammunition for each.
Granny kept a huge jigsaw puzzle working, on a card table against the wall
in the kitchen. That table was there from my earliest memory. Today I
can still conjure up an image of me running full tilt UNDER that table. I
went away to the Navy. When I went back to the farm to visit, I
commented that the puzzle table was gone. I was told it had been gone
longer than I had been gone, I just hadn't noticed.
I wonder at what point I stopped paying attention...........
When Granny Shelton died in 1988, her obituary listed 28 grandchildren, 88 great
grandchildren and 23 great-great grandchildren.
GRANNY - 1979
GRANNY AND MY TWO YOUNG'NS - 1986
My mother's family is spread over and along the West Virginia/Maryland
border. Most of them were farmers and miners until my generation, which
is spread in every direction, vocationally and geographically.
I was practically raised by my maternal grandmother and my mother's two
youngest sisters. My Granny's name was Cora. She looked like anybody's
Grandmother, dressed in long dress, always with an apron. Her hair, a
million shades of gray, was pulled up in a bun, and she would have made a
good Mrs. Claus. I saw that bun undone only twice in all those years, both
times in the middle of the night when she had to come in the room because
I was sick or some such.
I never knew her to be sick. When I was little, say five, I realized that my grandmother always had, and probably always would, smell like cookies.
Every summer until I was thirteen was spent on my grandparents' farm.
They raised chickens and sold the eggs and, to a lesser degree, the
Chickens. All holidays were spent there. EVERYBODY came "up home"
for the holidays.
Granny's kitchen was as big as three normal living rooms. There was no
running water, just a cold sink. There was a pump on the porch, and a
springhouse just across the lane from the house.
The first thing that grabbed you, as you came in the door was this HUGE, black wood burning stove.
What a monster! When we were "little" this was our favorite winter place to
play; in the space between the stove and the wall. Granny worked what I still
consider being small miracles with that big old iron stove. How she
controlled her temperatures in that oven, just by pouring a little water into a
small compartment in the outer wall, in my view ranked right up there with
brain surgery.
When I was about four or five, all twelve of her children
kicked in and bought and installed an electric range. She used the oven that
day, but I don.t think that stove ever got used again, except to hold a lot of
noncooking items on the top and pots and pans in the oven compartment.
Only the kitchen was wired for electricity; it was coal oil lamps in the
rest of the house. That stove was the primary heat source in cold
Weather; that, and a coal pot belly stove in the living room. Upstairs, you
slept between blankets in winter, not sheets, on a straw mattress if you were
a kid, a down one if you were an adult.
I loved being at Granny.s. I got to eat really neat stuff, like venison,
Squirrel, wild Greens, big, round loaves of bread. Granny utilized a lot of
The things nature provided. There was a walnut tree halfway out toward
the "hard" road that gave us some great snack items every year. Granny
said I was a great walnut picker. Granny had a small assortment of
Shoemakers tools that were perfect for getting at the meat.
There was plenty of cooking and canning happening almost all the time as
Things came to maturity. And every Sunday morning, I would help Granny put down four chickens or so, which would go for Sunday dinner, a pot pie and maybe soup for later in the week.
By age ten I had learned to appreciate the
many manifestations of a Chicken carcass. I also learned very early on that
a Chicken doesn't need a head to still run around a bit.
Granny never worked with complete recipes. She didn't use measuring
Spoons - she used the cup of her hand. She had a regimen; Monday Wash
Day, (there was a wash House.) etc. to Friday, which was baking day. On
Friday, I hung about the kitchen a lot, but I didn't learn a thing... except a
Pavlovian lesson or two. I've since learned that, while Cooking is an Art,
Baking is a Science!
I flunked Science!
I inherited Granny's six cigar boxes of hand-written recipes (She actually put a note in those boxes, telling us where she wanted them to go......)
I almost always have to flesh out a "procedure" paragraph when I type up one of her Gems. Granny wrote recipes as if you already knew stuff that she knew,
But of course we didn't, and still don't. I must have a reasonable handle on
it tho'; the recipes almost always seem to work out, somehow.
A typical summer day.....
I'd get up as soon as it was light. The house would already smell like it
knew I was hungry. I would eat breakfast and do my assigned chores;
bring in wood to fill the Wood Bin, gather eggs and feed the chickens. Then
I'd take 15 eggs to the Bowers Farm in a molasses can and return with a
gallon of milk. I'd drop off milk and...
GO.....................
On some mornings, if I hurried right back with the milk, I'd be able to go
with my Uncle Delmar when he went to check his traps, a chore he did
first and last thing every day. Mostly he'd get muskrat, groundhog,
possum and such, but once in a while, he'd strike it "rich" and snag a fox or
Lynx. Uncle Delmar stretched, dried and scraped the skins and then,
every four or five weeks we'd pile them up, and walk to the farm of Mr.Earsel
Cooley, who would buy them.
Some days it would be back to the Bowers. for play. They had three kids -
Ronnie, one year older than I, Jimmy, my age, and Jenny, one year my
Junior.
One of our favorite pastimes was "calf rodeo." We rode .em, roped
'em, wrestled 'em, and generally made their young lives miserable.
Sometimes we'd cut a melon away from the vine, and take it down to the
Creek (pronounced crick) and weigh it down in the stream with a big rock.
Later, we'd return and bust that booger open and...
GO..........
Sometimes, we'd go back to Granny's and raid her Grape Arbor, or her
Strawberry patch. You had to be a commando of sorts, because that strawberry patch was visible from the kitchen and Granny would see you if you stood straight up. Sometimes, by myself, I would lay in there for an hour, just "a-pickin. and a-grinnin... She had turnips, scallions, leeks, tomatoes and what-all,
and we'd eat anything right off the vine or out of the ground. I remember,
at one point, we Kids kept a pilfered salt shaker and an old boning knife
hidden for these banquets. I used to love eating a turnip like an apple, but my
teeth aren't up to it any more.
After lunch (we called it dinner, for some strange reason) I needed to slop
the hogs. Then I could...
GO.....
Some afternoons were spent exploring, through the woods, upstream or
maybe down. Some days we'd go squirrel, rabbit or crow hunting. The days
were always full, and I don.t recall ever being bored or lonely, even if I
was alone.
Some days I'd go with Granny. She'd take a basket and we'd be off to the
Wherever to collect ramps, fiddlehead ferns, dandelion greens or whatever
else. She'd dig 'em up and I'd carry the basket, and Lord, I wish I'd paid
better attention at the time......
Granny made wine through all the warm weather. Dandelion wine, fruit
Wines and Clover Wine. Her jugs of wine were the inspiration for a "macho"
game that Ronnie and Jimmy and I played. The gallon jugs of wine were
lined up on a "low" roof (one easily accessed from ground level) and, Laws,
did these jugs ever attract the bees! I understand that the American honeybee
is near extinction, and that in some growing areas they even have to hire a
Bee truck to park next to the fields for a week so that the vegetable flowers
will get pollinated. Well, not back then, and not around Granny.s wine jugs.
We three would see who could "jar" the most bees in say, 15 minutes -
dangerous work, even for a ten year old who's gonna live forever!
Usually after supper, I'd ride back over to the Bowers' and help with the
Milking. They were dairy farmers, and I think they had about a million
Head. Mr. Bowers also sold compost on the side! (For every one of Mr.
Bowers. cows, Mrs. Bowers had a cat.) Sometimes I'd stay after milking
and we'd all play at one game or another, outdoor games or parlor games,
depending on the weather. Needless to mention, Jenny Bowers was my
first crush.
Back at Granny's house, there was lots of stuff to do at night. The two
Youngest of my aunts were still at home at this time, Janet (16) and Hazel
(13), and on those summer nights they taught me to play Rummy,
Crazy eights and such. Chinese Checkers were big, or there was Granny's
Jigsaw puzzle, and we competed to see who could put the first piece in.
Granny would still be chugging away, getting something ready for
Tomorrow's something or other.
Weekends always brought reinforcements in the form of kin. I had a lot of
Cousins, within three years or so of my age, and my Cousin Shirley was
even born on the same DAY as me, but not, of course, in the same place. So,
the House was always loaded with kids on weekends. Granny's table would
Seat six kids along one side.
In the winter at Granny's there was sledding, Skating, and plenty of room
down in the meadow for some really awesome snowball fights. In cities,
the snow is just not the same. The meadow was good for 200 snowmen or
three or four snow-forts, with plenty of Ammunition for each.
Granny kept a huge jigsaw puzzle working, on a card table against the wall
in the kitchen. That table was there from my earliest memory. Today I
can still conjure up an image of me running full tilt UNDER that table. I
went away to the Navy. When I went back to the farm to visit, I
commented that the puzzle table was gone. I was told it had been gone
longer than I had been gone, I just hadn't noticed.
I wonder at what point I stopped paying attention...........
When Granny Shelton died in 1988, her obituary listed 28 grandchildren, 88 great
grandchildren and 23 great-great grandchildren.
GRANNY - 1979
GRANNY AND MY TWO YOUNG'NS - 1986
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