Granny Ollie died in 1993.  Yesterday I listened for the first time since
her death to a tape I made of her stories, and I was surprised by how 
much detail I had forgotten.

	For many years my great grandfather repaired flour mill equipment.  The 
family traveled from town to town living in whatever housing was available
at the mill site, from a thirteen room house to a one room mill office, 
until the mill was back in working order.  Great Grandma cooked on a
kerosene stove that periodically caught fire because of a leak.  She and
Ollie, who was about five, would carry it out of the house into the yard
while it burned.

	When they lived near the mill president in Loudon, his five-year-old
daughter, Marion, and Ollie played together, climbing on hundred pound 
flour sacks stacked eight feet high in the warehouse.  One day they 
climbed to the top of the sacks and, seeing a narrow vertical hole between
the stacks, decided it would be fun to climb down into it and back up.

	Granny went first and her friend followed, but the opening was too close;
they couldn't move enough to climb back out.  Granny tried to push Marion
up, but couldn't manage it. In Granny's words:

	"It was dark down in there.  She got scared and I did too.  I told 
Marion, 'We can't get out so let's holler.'

	"Marion said, 'Okay, you holler, and then I'll holler.'

	"I said, 'No, let's holler together and it'll be louder.'

	"Well, we hollered, 'Help, help,' whenever we heard a sound, because the
men would be coming and going, you know.  After 'while one of them heard 
us.

	"'What's the matter?'

	"'We're stuck in this big hole and can't get out.' He climbed up and 
looked in and said, 'Well, wait just a minute.  I'll have to get a rope.'

	"I don't know where he got the rope, but he lowered it down and pulled 

Marion up and then lowered it back down and pulled me up.  Boy, when I
told Mama about it I thought she'd beat me to death."

	There were no trees around the mill and Ollie wanted a swing, so she 
found some rope and tied it between boxcars to swing from.  When the train
started to back up from the lumber yard to pick up the cars at the mill 
she would untie the rope.  One day, she couldn't get it untied so she ran to hide
under the bed.  The brakeman couldn't untie it either and had to
cut the rope, cussing the whole time.  He finally caught her at it, and
she had to quit.

	I can imagine Granny's frustration at having no trees because she was a
climber.  Not only did she climb, but she jumped.  They thought she had 
killed herself once when she jumped off the coal house roof.  She jumped 
off roofs and out of trees everywhere they lived. 

	When she was about ten she wanted a piano.  It took her several months to
talk her father into buying one.

	He told her, "Why, you wouldn't play it if I got you one."  

	"Oh, yes I will.  You get one, and I'll show you," she said.  And she 
did.

	Not only did she learn to play, she played for church until her arthritis
prevented it.  It always aggravated her that she couldn¹t quite get the 
hang of a ragtime beat.

	During the 1920s when she began "keeping company" with young men, she cut
her long dark hair off flapper style.  Her father didn't speak to her for
a week. 

	Ollie was quite a character even when she got older.  She would never let
a cow get the better of her,  and she had the battle scars to prove it. 
One cow in particular liked to kick her every chance she got and often 
leaned against Granny, squeezing her against the stall wall.  Granny 
kicked back and was known to use two-by-fours in self defense.  	

	She taught me to play the harmonica before I can even remember.  Once she
gave me a brass button for wearing a petticoat.  I still have that 
button.

	After she began to suffer with rheumatoid arthritis she didn't mess with
cattle any more, but she still liked to work outside.  She insisted on 
helping her husband, Charley, cut down a tree on a hillside once.  She 
also insisted on pushing against the tree as he cut with the chain saw.  
When the tree moved, she fell into Charley and they both tumbled down the 
hillside.  Luckily, Charley had the presence of mind to run the chain saw 
into the ground before they were both cut in half.  Ollie broke her arm 
that time.   

	She was bedfast for almost six years.  Her mind remained clear until near
the end.  Television was her companion most days.  She watched the PBS 
station and wished that she could take a bookbinding class or reminisced 
about her flowers during "Victory Garden."  Then there were her "stories" 
as she called her favorite soap operas.  Visitors might as well leave 
during those hours because she wouldn't let them talk.  She also loved 
auto races, football, baseball, wrestling, Phil Donahue, and Oprah.  

	But when she talked, boy could she talk.  My tape can never compare to 
her story-telling in person, but now one day I'll be able to share her 
voice with my grandchildren.  I wonder if one of them will jump off a 
roof? 

Other Stories

What I believe