FAMILY
Tough as Nails — but Tender, Too
My Nana was a feminist before speaking truth to power became a thing
My Nana sang like an angel. In the church choir, and in the kitchen, too. And she spent about an equal amount of time in both.
She baked the most divine pies, and played a mean hand of canasta. She also taught her grandbabies how to say the alphabet backward.
Yeah, that’s my one and only party skill. I even exhibited this unusual predilection one year in the high school talent show. Did I win, place or show? Don’t ask. Nana was proud, at least.
My Nana was a church-going, Bible-thumping, hard-core, up-to-four-times-a-week Southern Baptist.
When my Granddaddy moved the fam out west to a small town near Abilene, her teenage son (my Daddy) had to drive 100 miles roundtrip just so he could spend a Saturday evening two-stepping around a dance floor. Wouldn’t want his mother — nor the ladies at church — to find out that he had the makings of a sinner.
No dancing in the Baptist Church. At least not in my Nana’s Baptist Church.
But despite her devotion to Old-Time Religion, my Nana was a feminist, even if she didn’t recognize her strong will and passion for life as such at the time.
She shelled her own pecans and kept chickens in the backyard, especially for Sunday dinner — really more of a large, Southern-fried, after-church lunch. Even into her later years, Nana would stride to the chicken yard after company arrived, pick out a plump hen and slaughter it, right then and right there.
She had an expression for everything. “Well, it either is or it isn’t” quelled most worries my pint-sized self could conjure.
She taught her kids to speak their minds, and they inherited a wild and wonderful imagination from this independent, creative woman, who worshipped the Love of Jesus at the First Baptist Church and the Power of Pie in her countrified kitchen.
Nana spent her life making beautiful music, from her early married years — teaching choir over at the local high school — staying home later to raise her brood, and making some pretty good money with private piano lessons.
After my Grandpa died, Nana kept on going. She still invited kids over to her home for weekly lessons. She quilted. She crocheted. She baked. She bargained for antiques down at the local flea market. She kept up with family and friends and hosted feasts that commemorated birthdays, holidays, or just reasons to be.
Even though she didn’t — wouldn’t — dance, music was really a big chunk of Nana’s faith.
She learned it in the church, and kept it close throughout her life.
She had an upright piano in the living room, and insisted that my Daddy buy one for our house. My aunt — Daddy’s sister — became a music teacher, too. One of my few regrets was that although I loved the sounds that emanated from my parents’ hi-fi system, I never really developed any mad skills in making beautiful music. I got as far as some rudimentary Beethoven, and that was about it. Patience may be a virtue, but sadly it is not one of mine.
Nana honed her teaching skills — which I may or may not have inherited — at Baylor University in Waco. It’s a private Baptist college in Central Texas, which also happens to be located in Nana’s hometown. Baylor also was the fourth university in the United States to admit women (1887), no minor feat in hard-core, rock-solid, Southern Baptist Waco.
Yeah, this Central Texas ville — which we called “Whacko” — was not the Chip & Jo trendy spot of HGTV and “Fixer Upper” fame. Just a small downtown, a pretty river running through it, about a million Baptist churches, the university, and my Nana. But that was enough.
The Superior Snap above was captured sometime in the early part of the 20th Century, I’m told. It hung in my living room forever, until the frame around it literally disintegrated.
It’s a portrait of one of Nana’s music classes at Baylor. According to the notations on the back of the print, the gentleman in the center of the shot is F. Arthur Johnson, famous enough that I even found him on Google. He apparently was Baylor’s Director of Music at the time he — and my Nana — sat for this photo.
I’m unclear about why this is a totally female class. Maybe the women were segregated from the men at the time. Or perhaps none of the male students at the school was musically inclined.
Nana was born over Labor Day Weekend, which became a holiday a couple of decades before she made an appearance in this world.
I’ve been thinking a lot about my Grandmother the past few weeks. Whenever September rolls around, or I bake a pie or hear Beethoven’s “Für Elise” (yes, I took piano lessons from Nana, too), I think about my Nana. Soft, at times, but not quite Southern — she was a Texas gal, after all — tough, most times, but tender. A wonderful paradox, really.
Yeah, she stuck with her faith and stayed away from the dance floor during her long life. But I’ll bet by now my Nana’s taught St. Peter how to do a little of the ol’ Texas two-step that my Daddy always loved. Amen.
