Grandma's House

Grandma's house as seen from the road by Reece's Creek. mid-February of 2016.  Though the house has changed owners several times since Grandma and my days there in the springtime of  life,, the character still remains.  The old barn stood where the broom-sedge field slopes down the hill next to the house.  Apple trees were in the field to the left of the house and black walnut trees were behind the structure,  In addition to a stone free-standing root "cellar" behind the house, there was a root cellar below the right side of the house.  A smoke house was in the rear.  Author

Going to Grandma’s house, for the weekend or for two weeks or more on summer vacation was the Disney World of my pre-teen and early teen years. The years between 1952-1964 were the primary time frame of those enchanted memories.

The drive from Paducah, Kentucky to Grandma Bessie Wilson’s house on Reece’s Creek in Wayne County, Missouri seemed to take forever, but in reality was probably no more than a two and a half hour trip. The Ancient Buried City, a group of Indian Mounds in Wickliffe, Kentucky marked my first checkpoint and my imagination always ran wild wondering about the people that lived there in the hills on the bluff above the river.  Then there were the long bridge spans that would take us into Illinois and then immediately over to Missouri across the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers.  They always caused my stomach to climb a little higher inside my body than it was supposed to be.

Then we were met with the flat prairie farmlands, usually planted with miles of cotton and sometimes dad would stop the car and my brother Ken and I would grab a few of the white clouds of cotton balls to take back to the car with us.  Almost always before we reached Sikeston, dad would pull the car over next to a roadside stand that advertised “ice-cold watermelon”.  Mother usually had a saltshaker, dad would slice up that big old Charleston melon and we would forget about how much longer we had to be in the car for a while, concentrating instead on who could spit a slippery black watermelon seed the farthest.  If dad participated, the outcome was predictable.  He had had a lot of practice, it seemed to me. 

 

We knew as soon as we saw a ridge line of rolling hills through the front windshield that we would soon be entering the Ozark foothills in the vicinity of Poplar Bluff.  An old motel, featuring concrete Indian tee-pees for travelers needing to over-night on the road, always captured our fancy and indicated that we were getting close to grandma’s white frame house on the side of the slope leading to Reece’s Creek.  If we had napped before, we were awake now.

Photo and copyright by Ken Ragan

There was an old “trading post” before we crossed over the St. Francis River Bridge, and they carried lots of Indian artifacts.  Either going or coming, I always had my fingers crossed that mother and dad would indulge me by letting me ogle the arrowheads and ax heads the man inside kept on display.  Man…..there were so many arrowheads!

When we turned off of Highway 67 onto the gravel road that took us to our destination, I was always so happy that I felt I would burst before we got there.  The intersection of the forked gravel roads supposedly was the site of a stagecoach robbery in times long since past; we would bear left and then came the long straight stretch running parallel to the creek.

There were two ways to get to Grandma’s house, and the one we chose always depended on how high the water was at the time of year of our visit.  If it was normal or low, we would cross the creek, gravel in the early days, a small concrete slab in ensuing years, before morphing again into its gravel origins next to the old homestead of the Southern farm.  If the creek was high we would go on down the gravel road a way and come back to the house through the pasture and in front of the barn.

Ken Ragan at entrance to Grandma's house, February 18, 2016.  My uncles poured a concrete slab across the creek at low flow  in the 1950's.  That slab of concrete hid little sunfish, suckers, and catfish by the dozens and became the whole gang's ambush zone for the little denizens of Reece's Creek.  The road curves gently to the left of the picture and makes its way up the hill to Grandma's house.

One of the great thrills of visiting, especially in the summer vacation months, would be the anticipation of which cousins would already be there, or were coming yet, to share adventures with us.  And there was always plenty to do in our Disney World in the bosom of the Ozark foothills.  We knew we would be fishing at the site of the concrete slab for the tiny sunfish and suckers, and also at the old water gap for catfish.  There was swimming in front of grandma’s house in the creek (well, sometimes these were actually baths that we counted as swimming) as well as the swimming hole up in the Southern’s field.  We made this journey more times than I can count.  The visit was always made more pleasant by the knowledge that the Indian Rock was there, and we would all take turns trying to figure out what the arrows and different symbols could have meant. 

Once as we walked down the dusty path towards the rock and the swimming hole, my cousin Pammie said to me while we held hands walking down the path, “you know, for a boy, you’ve got nice legs.”  This flabbergasted me so much that I choked on the weed I was casually chewing on before her compliment.  She thought my wheezing and coughing was funny.  I was maybe 12 and she no more 10. And it was about this age that I began to notice that my girl cousins always seemed to be laughing at me about something; usually at very inappropriate times.

Bevy, dear sweet AUNT Bevy was actually no more than one year older than I was and I refused for the longest time to acknowledge her as such, insisting she was “just a cousin like the rest of us”. Bev was the youngest child of Grandma Bessie Wilson, and she was pretty, and mischievous, and I was always  trying to earn her respect, somehow always falling a little short.  In my teen years I was still trying, bringing my .22 caliber pistol, bows and arrows, and everything else that I thought would impress her.  Nothing did, she always seemed amused by my efforts.  But, she was a great friend and comrade, and was ample companion in my romps along the creek, fishing, swimming, and exploring. If I had had a sister that lived, I would have wanted her to be just like Bevy.

My cousins Connie, Susie, Judy, and Pam were also pretty, and at age 10 I started to be rather awkward around all the pretty descendants of Daniel Moore and Susan Tarlton and Madison Wilson and Leoto Gardelia Toller. They were all, including AUNT Bev, my approximate age, and they all hung out together in the early teen years, like they had some big ole’ secret.  And I guess they did, because they confused the heck out of me. And they seemed to like less and less putting the big old worms from under the rocks at the house’s back door on fishhooks and accompanying me on my angling adventures. Sad times in Disney World indeed.

Most of my male cousins were younger than me, and once Ken stopped coming on the trips because he had too many things to do at home with all his cool friends (he is five years older than I am), I felt I was the leader of the gang of boys assembled at Grandma’s.  I loved Roger, he went wherever I went and pretty much tried anything that I tried. Ronnie could be counted on for the same, and then some.  Dan was there and up for whatever was on the day’s schedule.  Sometimes the “little guys” would tag along, Mikey and David. It was a neat gang, and they were loyal and I was loyal back.  Our adventures always resulted in a bucket load of chigger bites.  I considered them badges of courage.  I knew the girls wouldn’t have went all the places we did to incur the wrath of the little critters.

                                                                

                                                

Some of Grandma's gang:  From left: Ken Ragan holding Dave Bazzell, Aunt Bev Wilson, me peeking from behind her shoulder, Connie Wilson, Susie Wilson.  In front is Roger Bazzell and behind him Ronnie Wilson.

                                                       
                

"Tough Guys and Little Belles".  From left, the author Keith Ragan with cousins Susie Wilson, Connie Wilson, "Aunt" Bev Wilson, and cousin Ronnie Wilson. Standing rear is cousin Patsy Moore.

    

                    Sundance and Butch. My brother Ken Ragan (R) and me (L) at Grandma's house.  About 1953-54. Naturally, Ken was Butch Cassidy, the leader of the gang until I claimed the duty a few years later.

My grandmother was an extraordinary woman, and I know that everybody feels that way about their grandmother.  But she was a notch above.  She had a hard life, harder than I could have imagined then, but was a self-sufficient woman, independent, and capable.  She was as comfortable chopping wood for the wood stove, wringing a chicken’s neck and scalding it for supper, making soap, doing the wash in the old black iron cauldron out back of the house, as she was singing praises to her God at Camp Eight Church on Sunday mornings.  And my, her fried chicken made your tongue slap you silly waiting for the kids turn at the table.

Grandma was a quiet woman, seldom speaking except as required to communicate in the necessary manner to accomplish the menial chores of the day.  I once spent two months at grandma’s house during my mother’s illness one summer, Bevy was spending her vacation at one of the cousins’ houses in St. Louis, and it was just Grandma and me for the most part.  I doubt that she said more than a dozen sentences the entire time. I would take off each morning to fish, and she would always say to me that she would cook whatever I caught for supper.  It made me feel good to think that Grandma had that kind of confidence in me, and I seldom came home empty handed.  And true to her word, she always cooked up the catch.  We would crunch up the little fish, and then retire to the woodstove and black and white TV in the front room and watch KFVS TV channel 12.  She popped corn on occasion and I remember she asked me “what do you want on it?”  This caused a momentary pause, because I didn’t know what she meant.  Wasn’t salt the only thing you could put on popcorn?  So, I said “salt.”  And she replied, you can have salt if you wish, but I’ll have sugar on mine.”  I didn’t know you could do that.  So, I said, “I’ll have sugar on mine, too.”

Grandma had a mischievous nature, not easily discerned until you were the victim of one of her practical jokes.  I knew that any of my friends that I brought for a visit were in for at least one or two surprises.  One of her favorites that I always knew was coming when I brought a pal along involved a string tied to a sheet or cover.  I grew to a be a co-conspirator and could not wait for for the momentous occasion when she she would pull the string from another room and jerk the covers off of my unsuspecting guest. Sometimes she would just inch the cover down an inch or two, wait for it to be pulled up again in the darkness of the front porch cot, only to inch it down slowly once again.  This caused one of my friends, this second time, to sit upright in the bed obviously scared and puzzled as to what was going on.  

Grandma seemed to always sense from her remote location when the time was just right for the final tug of the string.  My friend, Gary Threatt, sitting there in the darkness staring at covers he could not possibly see, jumped straight up to stand in the bed as Grandma jerked the covers completely off the final time.  Shortly after his scream, the only sound that could be heard was the stifled cackle of Grandma.

When I was small, one time I had gotten into some trouble.  I seem to recall this was over my adventure with the bull in the pasture across the creek.  The bull had a short temper and little tolerance for bare-footed, shirtless boys calling it names while hopping over and back of the old rusted fence wire. 

The bull must have told on me because Grandma never threatened me, until then.  Ever. She told me to go and get a switch, that I was going to get a whipping.  I was afraid, very afraid.  But, I got the switch and brought it back.  It seems I had not “qualified” this switch properly for she deemed it insufficient for the job.  And she sent me for another.  My knees were knocking by this time, and I found another switch and debated whether or not it would meet her satisfaction, decided that although it was a little willowy, it would get me by with the least damage.  I was sweating when I returned with the second switch.  And it also did not pass inspection.  

I was sent for a third.  I was fighting back tears when I brought the third switch, one that I knew would tear up my now clenched, pale and cold derrière, blood now ceasing to flow to all the places they should have.  She nodded when I handed it over to her, my lip quivering I’m sure.  And she bent over and said to me…the next time you don’t mind, this will be the switch that I will use.  That’s all.  I was free.  And was that a smile on Grandma’s face?

One of my fondest memories at Grandma’s was the music that came out of that front room, and the piano it contained.  It was necessary that the cousins sang, with AUNT Bev of course, it was something that Grandma looked forward to.  Sometimes afterwards, mother and my aunts would play the piano and sing and their voices could be heard all the way across the fields to the cold clear water of the creek. I thought it sounded like heaven had opened up. Every once in a while my uncles would chime in, playing their guitars and adding baritone to the harmonies until the little house fairly shook.

Grandmother Bessie Moore Wilson and and Beverly Wilson in front of the old piano.

There was one thing or place regarding Grandma’s house which I wasn’t fond of. I was scared to death of the dark, dank cellar in Grandma’s house.  Usually I would muster up the courage in broad daylight, to venture down there and try to find the tortoise that called the place home for several summers.  When you came down those concrete stairs, the first thing that greeted you was a blast of cool, no cold, musty air. I never stayed long; I just did not like the place.  I would not approach even the entrance to the cellar door at night.  Something ugly lived down there. I was pretty skinny back then, and I was pretty sure that it had eaten people bigger than me before. And I just hoped the gang wouldn’t find out that there was someplace I was afraid to go.

Those were sweet times, altogether though.  I fished Reece’s Creek so many times that I can’t count.  Once, when my gang wasn’t around, Flip, who lived up the road about a half a mile, and I fished from Grandma’s all the way to the creek’s junction with the St. Francis River.  It was a Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer kind of day and we caught sunfish so big that Grandma couldn’t believe they came out of the creek.  It took us all day, and we lost count of the snakes we evaded as we moved from fishing hole to fishing hole.

I wish every boy could have had a grandma like I had.  She let me be a boy, trusted me, and I filled every minute of every day with one adventure after another.  When I think of children growing up today who have never milked a cow, which I accomplished only after Bevy’s patient direction, gathered eggs, bathed in a creek, killed chickens for supper, chopped wood because it was an absolute necessity to daily living, washed all their aunt and uncle’s cars because it was raining and that’s what you did when it rained, who have never left home at sunup and returned at dark knowing that you would not be in trouble, who have never dodged banty roosters in order to visit the outhouse, then prayed a wasp or snake would not make the trip too eventful, I am happy for me and sad for them. Grandma didn’t have much money.  But, she had all of us.  And we had her.  And it was more than enough.

                                                                                                                             

My grandmother, Bessie Edith Moore Wilson.  This photo was taken shortly after the sale of Grandma's house on Reece's Creek at her new residence in Kaleville, a short distance away and on the other side of the creek .

I doubt that Cecil, or Bev and certainly not Grandma ever thought of the remote little house nestled in the Ozark foothills as Disney World.  It was probably anything but.  But, to me it was.  And I would pay anything if I could just assemble the gang, and do it all over again.

Everything has it's time.  Resembling not at at all the old white board house Grandma's Gang remembers so well, the final version, changed through the past 70 years, is in it's final state of repose. Photo by Patty Bazzell Rand.

Keith Wayne Ragan