One of my treasures . . .

This is a picture of my maternal Grandmother, Nina Odessa Best Woodworth in the schoolyard of the little country school that she attended in the early years of her life. She is the little girl wearing the white hat, second from the left in the second row back. 

I love this picture for it gives me a glimpse into another era, a different time, an age when life was filled with simple pleasures and the taking of a photograph was a special occasion indeed. You can tell this from the way everyone is dressed in this picture. They are all in their best bib and tucker.

My grandmother was born in a community called Inglisville, situated on the South Mountain here in the Annapolis Valley on  the 23rd of May 1897.

What I am going to show you this morning is one of the most precious things I have. It is my Grandmother Woodworth’s school reader. I know that a few of the other grandchildren would love to have it so I am really lucky that is it mine. It was given to me by her when I was four years old, just the year before she passed away.

As you can see it is getting very old now. The cover is completely gone, which is the way I received it. The pages are old and brittle, crumbling away in some places and held together with only a few fragile threads.

Here and there are notations . . . Words to learn for spelling underlined, and the odd word in my grandmother’s unskilled hand. In splotches here and there. I would hardly think that a museum would value it, but I do.

My grandmother was a farm girl and did not actually finish her education much beyond her early teens as she was needed on the farm to work, for her parents did not have any sons of their own.

As a little girl I loved to go through the pages of this tattered old book. The pictures were beautiful to me as were the words written inside it. I practically had it memorized, voracious reader that I was. I had my favourite pages and stories, most conveying a lesson of some sort to the child that would be reading it and learning it’s words. Here is one of my favourites.

"Ann had a pet goat. It had a long beard and long horns. Ann liked to feed the goat. Nan, Nan, she would call; and at once the goat would come to her. It would look up in her face, as if to thank her for the good food she had brought to it.

When Nan had no work to do in the house, she would go out and play with the goat. The goat liked to play with Ann. It would go to her when it would go to no one else.

The goat knew who was kind to it.
 

Keep this in mind, boys and girls. Be kind to your pets and you will find that they will soon learn to love you. Love wins love.”

What a wonderful message those words conveyed to me. As a young child, I took them to heart and valued the meaning of them. 

I wonder, do the schoolroom readers of today contain stories like that in them? Or are they full of cartoon like characters and nonsense, much like the programming that is presented to children on our televisions today.

I wonder, did my grandmother ever think when she was a young girl, and fingering it’s delicate pages, learning the spelling words it contained and reading it's stories, that . . . one day . . . her own grand-daughter would be holding the very same pages and enjoying it’s words and thinking of her . . . and the life that she led? Probably not. What child has the ability or desire to think that far ahead.

I ponder these thingsand others as I hold these pages in my hands. 

What were her childlike dreams and imaginations? What were her hopes? Which story was her favourite one to read? Would she have liked to have been able to stay in school longer than she did? Is she looking down on me now and loving me still?

There was a story told amongst my mother and her sisters, that my grandmother had not really loved my grandfather when they first married, at least not with the romantic love of the young and besotted. Instead, they said,  he was merely the one that her parents had approved of. I am not sure how true this is.

There had been another love before my Grandfather, a man called Lemual Weasel. Apparently  she had loved him very much, but her her parents would not allow them to marry, and so he had gone away. My Aunt Freda told a story about  how when this man had passed on in later years, my grandmother had been very griefstricken and my Aunt had come upon her crying in the pantry. She told my Aunt that the only man she had ever loved had died. 

It makes me sad to think that this happened.  Many people married out of duty back then I suppose. I am glad that is is no so much like that here in the Western world today.

I have many loving and fond memories of sitting on my gradmother's more than ample lap, feeling the softness of her calico dress and apron beneath my legs, my arms wrapped around her as she sang softly to me and held me close. Indeed, in one of the last letters my mother had that my grandmother had written to her, a few months before she passed away, my grandmother talks about how much she misses the sight of my dark little head walking down the roadway to the store and how much she loves me and favours me, not that she does not love the others, but that I am the only one who would sit on her lap and tell her that I love her. Mom always said she was going to give me that letter, but then she never did. an opportunity passed.

 I did love my grandmother very much, and always will.I am so grateful that I was of an age to really remember her before she passed away.

I am so blessed to have these lovely memories of her and to have this very special book. One day I will pass it on to one of my children or grandchildren. I hope that they will  treasure it as much as I do.

“Sing, bird, sing a song to me;

One there is who cares for thee.

Day by day, His strong right arm

Keeps both thee and me from harm.”

I have been working on a presentation I have to do for our church branch activity which will be on Zoom on Friday evening. I am not sure how it is going to work really.  Its based on Journaling for Family History.  I really am no comfortable about it, but I will do whatever I am asked. Its a bit difficult to be doing it while sitting on my bed in lockdown, but I will do my best! If we aren't willing to stretch, we are limiting our potential for growth.  Just my thoughts.

Not sure what we will get up to today. I need to work at some point. I would love to paint. I have to work on that presentation.  I guess we will just have to see how the day progresses.

A thought to carry with you . . .

° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •
•。★★ 。* 。
° 。 ° ˛˚˛ * _Π_____*。*˚
˚ ˛ •˛•˚ */______/~＼。˚ ˚ ˛
˚ ˛ •˛• ˚ ｜ 田田 ｜門 ★
 *A smart person knows what to say.

A wise person knows when to say it.

~Unknown ° * 。 • ˚ ˚ ˛ ˚ ˛ •

 

 

In The English Kitchen today  . . .  Cheese & Onion Rolls.  Delicious with soup, or a salad, stew, or even on their own. Quick and easy to make as well. 

I hope that you have a lovely day.  Its cool here but the sun is shining brilliantly.  Don't forget through the length of your day! 

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And I do too!