The Red Flannel Rag

I remember standing next to Grandma Molly when I was about thirteen years old

and noticing that the top of her head came up to the height of my shoulder. I am five

feet two inches now, so she could never have claimed extraordinary height. She was

quite bowlegged and had a dowager’s hump on her back, neither of which got in her way

when there was work to be done. She had jet-black hair and sharp black eyes.

Grandma Molly sitting, by the bed in which Grandpa Austin died, in her rocker with her stockings over her long underwear and tied up with strings

As she aged, there were a few strands of silver in her hair, but her eyes never dulled.

No matter what season, she wore long underwear under her brown cotton

stockings, a homemade dress, and a homemade apron. The only time I saw her change

the color of her stockings was on the day of Grandpa Austin's funeral. On that day she

wore a brand new pair of black cotton stockings. She never left the house without her

homemade bonnet. I never saw her bare legs until just before she died when she was in

the hospital. She had a drawer full of dresses, including a new dress she had made to be

buried in. She sewed that dress when she was in her thirties. She showed the dress to

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