The Red Flannel Rag

Although we never met, Grandma Mary influenced my life through my mother’s

tales of her wonderful cooking and the loving descriptions of her beautiful, bright calico

dresses that she made for herself. “My mother’s waist was as ’thin as a wasp’. Her

clothes fit really nice when she wasn’t pregnant,” she told me. “Her long skirts were

gathered full around her hips, and there was always an apron pinned to the front of her

dress above her breasts and tied behind her back. Her light brown hair was naturally

wavy, and she wore it up in a bun on the back of her he ad.” One of Mom’s favorite

memories of her mother was watching her brush her hair at night before she went to

bed.

As a young child I listened to these vivid descriptions; however, as I grew older

and became more curious, I wondered about Mom’s descriptio ns. After all, she was only

five when Grandma Mary died. However, someone in the family located an old family

picture of Grandpa John and Grandma Mary with their three oldest children, and, sure

enough, Mom’s description of her mother was perfect.

After my father died, I was sorting through his papers and came across his birth

certificate. I was surprised to learn that the midwife who brought him into this world

was Grandma Mary Morris. I had never been told that she was a midwife. She delivered

my daddy just a few months before she got pregnant with my mother.

Grandma Mary’s life still enriches my life because it was so extreme— eighteen

single births by age thirty-nine! Her story gives me lecture material on birth control and

failed birth control, changing death patterns and birth patterns. She and my Grandpa

John worried a lot about having so many children and having to work so hard to support

them. According to my Aunt Goldie, they tried to not get pregnant, but their method

didn’t work. She said, “He tried to keep from getting Mom pregnant by pulling ‘it’ out

99