Of A Cousin And A Grammie

My friend Cyndy was talking about cousins yesterday.  I know about cousins... or one in particular.  A second cousin to be exact.  We were both the 'only child' in our households, this we had in common.  My Mama died when I was but 3 1/2 years old.  How I wish I had more memories of her.  I was raised by my Daddy with help now and then by his Mom, my Grammie.  My cousin, Mick, was a victum of a broken home which left his Mom to raise him as best she could. Again with his Great Grammie (my Grammie) to help.  We two were not the first younguns my Grammie had helped to raise.  After raising her own two boys with her husband, she took on the rearing of their eldest son's two little girls who were left motherless thanks to the Spanish flu in 1918.  One was only a baby and her sister just two or so. It was the baby, grown now, who was my second cousin Mick's Mom.  We lived almost next door to them, my Dad and I.  And Grammie's house was home to four generations.  At our house it was just Dad and me. (Now this topic is fodder for yet another story, or two!)
We always had holiday meals with them all at Grammie's house.  Her kitchen was huge with an old fashioned pantry off in the north corner.  Mick and I were always together and we were quite like sibblings.  We had our little spats and rivalries .  I was almost 3 years older than he.  But he was the adventurous one.  We managed to get into trouble often and give the older folks a hard time.  we were little imps and many times Grammie would tell us she'd be taking the shallalie to us.  She was an Irish woman and we took this to be some kind of a whip.  We knew there was one of those out in the shed!
As we grew up I always watched over this fearless and daring cousin who could never say "No" to a bad idea!
I have many memories of the things we did as kids.  Once we built a cabin out by the garden out of slab wood which he talked his Grandpa into buying for this purpose.  It was a great place!  We even had a porch on the front.  What a pioneer cabin that was.  From somewhere we procured a deer head, a 10 point buck, that someone had looked at long enough on their wall...we sure liked it on our wall !  His Grandpa was my Uncle and his Gram, my Aunt.  Beteween Auntie and Grammie we always had pleanty of goodies for our cabin.
We had a friend, Charlie, who was more Mick's age than mine.  He was a real pill and wouldn't mind his Gram, who took care of him everyday.  She would call him to come home which was next door to Mick's, for lunch and he never would go home.  She always had to come and drag him off.  Her house and my Grammie's house were side by side along the high bank above the Black River at the falls.  Just below these falls were many rocks and an old ladder had come over the dam and was wedged between a couple of the bigger rocks, sticking up out of the waterl  Charlie's Gram told him that the 'Riverman' lived down that ladder and under the falls and that he ate bad little boys for supper.  Charlie believed this to be a fact.  One day she had to come fetch the disobedient Charlie home to lunch...again.  She was MAD!!  She went to the edge of the bank and yelled down to the Riverman to come right up and he could have yummie bad boy,Charlie for his supper! Well Charlie was some scared and headed home fast, promising to forever heed the call to come home when called the first time.  We never let on to Charlie that we knew there was no Riverman.
I unearthed a couple photos of 'the cousins'.  You will see how we looked in our everyday duds and how really good we cleaned up on Sunday.  Love those patten leather shoes, kept shinny and crack free with Grammie's vasoline petrolem jelly. 
As for my Grammie, she was truly super woman and lived her whole life, she lived to be nearly 90,devoted to taking care of her family. She may have coined the phrase " Use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without".  My children were her great grandchildren and she would hunt around her house and find a piece of fabric and the next thing I knew she had fashioned a little shirt or a pair of pants for one of my children. No pattern needed, just a measurement or two.  A truly amazing woman.



In our play clothes

We cleaned up pretty good, huh?  Note the patten leather shoes.

An earlier photo of the cousins.