I don’t especially like winters. The first snowfall is great, but it gets old quickly. On Monday, I was feeling grumpy and sorry for myself because of the snow and cold. Another day stuck inside. I was prepared to wallow in pity all day until I came across a YouTube video of Ethel Waters singing “His Eye is on the Sparrow” and the words, ‘Why should I feel discouraged, why should the shadows come, Why should my heart be lonely, and long for heav’n and home?’ The words took me back to my grandmother’s house in the little town of Spruce, Missouri. The town has all but disappeared now and my grandmother’s house has been gone for years, but I can still hear her singing that song as she went about her daily chores.
And chores they were. Her house had no running water or gas. She did her laundry in the ‘wash house’ which had a wood stove to heat the water and an old tub and washboard where she spent one day a week washing clothes. In later years, when the remnants of the depression had passed and her children were settled and earning enough money to help her out, they had the wash house electrified and a modern, hand wringer washing machine was installed. The clothes still had to be hung on the line, but she was grateful for the modern convenience.
She was grateful for and faithful in everything. When she was in her seventies, she woke up one morning unable to see. Her daughters surmised later that she must have had a stroke. When my aunt asked her what she did, she replied, “I sat on the side of my bed and prayed.” Her sight came back and she got up and went about her way. It is no wonder. She was well aware that the eye of her Lord watching over her.
Her way was not easy. She had ten children including twin boys that died at birth and another daughter who died in her arms when she was about six months old. She had one son, my uncle Herbert, who suffered a heat stroke when he was in his late teens and then came back from the war in the Pacific with further mental and emotional damage. He did not stay around in that little town for long after the war, but on those occasions when he did appear, he would torment the entire family and sometimes even the neighbors.
She lost a daughter, Ruth, to melanoma at an early age and had another daughter who was permanently disabled, unable to walk, after contracting Rheumatic fever as an infant. Grandmother took care of Lydia her entire life. She bathed her, she dressed her and doted on her all of her life. Her one goal in life was to outlive Lydia. Her prayers were answered. When she died at the age of 94, she had out lived Lydia by eight months.
Her husband, my grandfather was a taciturn man and quite unemotional. While he was a breadwinner of sorts, his contribution to the family was limited at best. Grandmother was the one who kept the garden, who milked the goats and cows, who made the cheese and butter, who fed the chickens, who gathered the eggs, who pickled, canned and preserved their bounty to see them through the winter. She made dresses, caps and aprons from feed sacks and quilts from the dresses once they had been worn through. Looking back, it is almost magical how she kept the family going on what would be considered nothing today.
“I sing because I’m happy, I sing because I’m free’. Those words so aptly apply to my grandmother. Of all the people I have known, she was the most free. She was not shackled. She was not encumbered by a lot of possessions or emotional baggage. She trusted her God and ask for nothing more than his favor. It allowed her to spend her time being loving and productive.
On these cold, wintry days, I am fortunate that unlike my grandmother, I don’t have to depend on a wood or coal stove for heat. I don’t have to be out in sub-zero weather milking the cow or gathering eggs and wood. I don’t have to run outside to the ‘facilities’. I don’t have to heat water on the stove in order to bathe. So, unlike Ethel Waters and my grandmother, who lived under much more difficult circumstances, I should have even more reason to sing.