BEHOLD! The Power of the Internet

On a website devoted to old photos of my home town, I happened to mention in a comment to an entry a few weeks ago that I had lived in a certain area, behind the building that they were featuring.

This week, I got a comment from a guy who said he lived on a street parallel to mine, that backed up to our house (and the others in the row). As we corresponded, I mentioned that my grandmother lived on his street too, and that we could go out our back door and with a slight jog to the right, we could enter her back door. 

He replied "Your grandmother wasn't Mrs. Burdette?!" and of course, she was. It turns out that he lived next door to her (he was age 7 + at the time) and he was very impressed to find out that she was near 80 then, and so active and cheerful. He recalled that his mom (a nurse) and his dad (a policeman) had told him that if he ever came home and they were not there, he should go to Mrs. Burdette's, and she would look after him till they returned. Knowing her, it was something that she relished. I am sorry that I didn't know him at that time, but I was already 12-13, and little boys held no fascination for me... (but big ones were beginning to....LOL)

My grandmother was a favorite of mine in the family, and it is so nice to know that someone else has fond memories of her. She has been gone 40 years now; she died when my last baby daughter was six weeks old.

Mammaw, as I called her, is rather a legend in the family. Back in the days when it was nearly unthinkable to do so, she divorced my grandfather (for cruelty) and moved 100 miles away (with five children) to the "big city" of Charleston, WV and opened a rooming house for young working women. I have no idea where she got the money to buy the large house; she was able to live comfortably on the first floor and the upper floor housed anywhere from 2 to 4 girls, each in their own room.

Most of those girls, who ranged in age from late teens to late 20's, became my "aunts" and when I would stay overnight at my grandmother's house, I always slept with "Aunt Tillie", and plied her with questions about my birth and infancy. Tillie was a spinster (by the standards of those days) and one summer, while I was away at camp, I learned in a letter that Tillie was going to be married. I think she was in her early 30's at the time.  I was very upset, since that meant she would be moving out of my grandmother's house and I thought I wouldn't be able to see her again. I cried and cried. They assured me that she and Alfred would not be moving far away, and I could visit her whenever possible, which I did. Later, Tillie and Alfred had a daughter - one of the prettiest babies I've ever seen. I lost track of her after her parents died.

So, Eddie, with your short comment, you have unleashed a torrent of memories, for which I am thankful. I'm going to search out some good photos of my grandmother and post them when I can, although with the holidays coming up, it may be a while.