My Great Great Grandmother…Nellie May

I talked to my grandma about just about everything. We had a very close relationship. I was the first granddaughter. We held a special bond. I just figured out the other day my grandma was only forty-seven years old when I was born, yet she always seemed “old” to me. Which is ridiculous because the woman could work circles around most men. She never shied away from a hard day’s work. She told me stories of her childhood. How she shinnied up the silo and bellered at the old bull. How she spent the majority of her childhood at her paternal grandparent’s house. How she only went through 8th grade in school so it was important to her that we all were well educated.

I asked her a lot of questions like…how did Jesus walk on water and did Pop-Pop help around the house and how do you make penuche frosting. But, there were a lot of questions I wasn’t allowed to ask. Her first baby was stillborn. We weren’t allowed to talk about that. Her father left everything to his only son leaving her and her sister’s families to struggle. We weren’t  allowed to talk about that. Her beautiful sonny was killed in a plane crash when I was two. We weren’t allowed to talk about that. She lost her beloved husband just two months shy of their 50th wedding anniversary. We weren’t allowed to talk about that.

I’ve learned some of the answers by talking to my mom and her siblings. I’ve fleshed out most of the family stories by researching family trees and listening intently to the oral historians who carry my ancestors in their hearts and minds. Those hearts and minds are fading now and I have greater sense of urgency to find the answers before they’re gone for good.

When I wrote the memory book of the farm this fall, I gathered as many of the old photographs as I could. Many of them were faded, scratched, stained, and out of focus. I found an artificial intelligence app this week called Remini. You can scan old photos and run them through the app to clean them up and bring out details into sharper focus. I’ve been having a lot of fun with that. I especially enjoyed looking into the eyes of my maternal great grandmother…Nellie May.

I don’t know a lot about her other than the fact she was born out of wedlock which was a huge family scandal at the time. My mother was an avid genealogist long before the internet was a thing. She scoured bibles and libraries and newspaper archives for details. She was the oral historian of her generation and left that to me. She also was in possession of a great many of my grandma’s photos which helped me in my own pursuit of the stories behind the eyes.

When my great great grandmother had her baby girl, her parents went to the county courthouse and registered the birth as their own…something that was commonly done in those days to avoid a scandal. I remember my grandma was none to happy when Mom started diving in the family tree because she knew there were skeletons in there. Grandma had a saying… “Fools names, like their faces…always seen in public places.” Meaning…let sleeping dogs lie.

Nellie May died just four days after her 28th birthday, leaving three little children under the age of ten. She had “Bright’s Disease”…the old timey word for renal failure. She married and had her first child when she was seventeen. Life was harder in those days. No automation, no electricity, no phone. Doctors were a commodity most folks could ill afford. In the hills of Appalachia, you were more likely to be treated with herbs and folklore by an old widow woman who lived up a holler in a cabin somewhere.

Still, I look in her eyes and I see the eyes of the women who made me…my grandma’s round face…my mom’s hooded eyes, much like my own. I see Daughter #2’s complexion. I see Little’s nose. I draw strength from knowing I come from good Scotch-Irish stock. Sturdy women who can face hardships and keep on truckin’. I know there were others before her…and I have photos of her mother.

I’ll meet her one day. I will finally get all the answers to all my questions. Till then, I’ll hold Nellie May as the Leader of the Pack… the Alpha Female.

Welcome December!

❄️

“But avoid foolish controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.”

Titus 3:9 ESV