I don't really remember my grandmother, my Dad's mom. Her name was Beulah and she lived in Dawson Springs, Kentucky. I only saw her maybe three times in my life, because my dad joined the Navy at 17 and never went back to Kentucky to live again.
I was reminded of her today because I was cleaning up a little doll bed to put in the little antique shop booth we have in Manassas. As I was washing it down and sanding then applying steel wool, I was thinking about a similar doll bed in my grandparent's basement when we stayed there when I was about 6, when my family was moving from Athens Georgia to Portsmouth Virginia.
We stopped there for about a week and all of us kids had beds in grandma and grandpa's unfinished basement. This is impressive because at that time there were 6 of us!
What I remember about the visit most was that basement. It may be that my memory is flawed, but this is what I recall.
There was a cement floor,and a whole bunch of twin beds against the walls, and it was so cool to sleep in the same room with both my sisters and my brothers. One thing I am not sure is true, is that I
remember a toilet, that was not in a bathroom! It just sat there out in the open, to one side of the basement. There was a shower next to it that had a brick surround, I think. But the interesting thing about that shower is that the water came out of the bottom of the shower and ran across the floor and drained into a drain near the middle of the basement. Across the basement from the shower there were the dolls and beds. I don't remember any boys toys, but maybe there were some. There were boy grandchildren after all!
I remember my cousin Dale, up in a mimosa tree, singing about a little red caboose. I had never seen such a cool tree. It still amazes me that they are a nuisance tree in the south, springing up unwanted in flower beds and empty lots. The fuzzy pink flowers that smell so sweet fascinated me then and still do today. What gardener would admit that but me?
I remember my grandpa had a chair that lifted him up to stand, although I am not sure he had it yet when we visited when I was 6. He smoked a pipe and smelled almost as interesting as the mimosa tree! There were two chairs for my grandparents in a little room off the kitchen, the lift one and grandmas chair, which I don't remember anything about. It must have been really boring compared to Grandpa's chair. There was a tapestry hanging on the wall in a white frame, a kind of Versailles looking scene with boats and ladies in big dresses. I loved it and remembered it years later when my grandfather died, and I asked For it from the stuff in the house. Would you like to see it? Here it is!
On the side of this little sitting room, away from the kitchen, there was a parlor. This was something I never saw anywhere else either. There was a solid blue sofa, completely encased in plastic covers. It made into a bed at night and my parents slept there, but we were not allowed to hang out in there. The best things in there were two white lamps that lit up under their shades, like ordinary lamps, but also, amazingly to 6 year old me, had cut out shapes in the round base of the lamp that scattered a pattern of light across the parlor at night. I have one today in my house. I wonder who got the other one?
Anyway, the bed is clean, and looks pretty good. Tomorrow I will get some thin wood and replace it's bottom, and get it to the shop. Maybe some little girl's grandma will buy it...
