MY GRANDMA - A memoir by Elizabeth Davis Bryan

Bertha and her second husband, Frank Hawkins - about 1940.

In 2005, my mother, Elizabeth Davis Bryan, wrote a nine page memoir about her grandmother, Bertha Davis Cooksey Hawkins, who was the mother of Claude Louis Davis, Mom's father. The story of Mom's visit to meet her grandmother is today's post. 

Claude Louis Davis and daughters, Elizabeth "Betty" and Janet. Both girls were born in New York City where the family lived until moving to Long Island.   

Claude was born in Louisville to single mother, Bertha Davis. Most of the Davis family lived in Edmonson County, Kentucky where Bertha was raised. Her mother was Olive Caroline Davis and grandparents were      Seth H. Davis and Margaret Jones. 

It is July 20, 2005 and almost fifty-one years since I took the train from New Orleans, LA to Louisville, KY to visit my Grandma, Bertha Hawkins.  Despite the many years that have passed the memories I have of that trip and of meeting my Grandma are still very vivid.   

Grandma and I had never met though we had been writing letters to each other since I was a young girl.  Her letters were difficult to read so either Mom or Dad would help my sister Janet and I to interpret them.  As a girl she had received only a second-grade education and she spelled words as they sounded.

My mother, Elizabeth M. Davis in 1953

Mom was in the Navy and stationed in New Orleans when she decided to make the trip to Elizabethtown on August 10, 1954. She took the train to Louisville and a bus to Elizabethtown. 

It took about an hour to reach Elizabethtown.  When the bus pulled into the station I saw Grandma waiting there for me.  I had no trouble recognizing her.  She looked just like Daddy, except for her gray hair and brown eyes.  I had seen pictures of her in the past but, of course, she looked much older.  She was seventy-five that year and had broken her hip a year or two earlier.  She used a cane for support, making her appear even older.  Grandma had first gone to the train station but when I didn’t get off there she walked to the bus station to see if I was coming by bus.  She seemed thrilled to see me after so many years.  I kissed her and then suggested we take a taxi to her house.  I remember that her husband, Frank, seemed a bit surprised when he saw Grandma getting out of the taxi.  He was a tall man who didn’t hear well.  He spoke with a deep voice but didn’t have much to say.  

The house was small and located along the railroad tracks.  There were four rooms, a front porch, and a small back porch.  When we stepped in the front door we entered the bedroom/sitting room.  A double bed sat catty cornered in the back corner of the room.  Near the front door was a chair or maybe two.  A small radio was close by and they played it for short periods when they wanted to hear the latest news.  Because they tried to save electricity they used only a 25W light bulb in their wall light.  The other front room was a second bedroom.  That’s where I slept.  I supposed that Grandma usually slept there because I found some gray hair on my pillow.  The kitchen was located behind their bedroom.  I saw there a table and some chairs, a refrigerator, and a wood stove.  There was no sink that I can remember.  The only running water came from a pipe outside in the little “shed” on the back porch.  The toilet was also located there.  I can remember that I was afraid to sit on the seat and when the toilet didn’t flush I asked Grandma how to flush it.  I was really embarrassed when she said, “Didn’t you sit on the seat?”  When you sat on the seat the toilet flushed automatically.  Because there was no running water inside Grandma had to wash her dishes in a big pan.  She would put it on the stove and fill it with water and the dishes and then heat the water.  She would then carry the pan over to a side table where she proceeded to wash the dishes.  I don’t remember if I suggested it to her or if I only thought about how much easier it would have been if she had waited to put the dishes in the pan until after she heated the water and had carried the pan to the table.  We took sponge baths in the kitchen, too.  

Meals were served at specific times.  Frank had his breakfast early then left his big black dog behind and walked down to Hawkins grocery store.  Someone had to stay with his dog at all times or he would destroy the house.  It was usually Grandma who stayed at home.

Grandma made her biscuits without a recipe.  She threw handfuls of ingredients into a bowl and then stirred it into dough.  Frank didn’t do any of the cooking.  When she was confined to bed after breaking her hip he brought the ingredients to her and she stirred the dough while in bed.  She seemed surprised when I told her I had never made biscuits, either.  

There were apples cut up and spread out to dry in their backyard.  It didn’t seem to bother Grandma that they were covered with flies.  She kept an apple cake in the room next to her kitchen and when she gave me some of it to take home on the train I was almost afraid to eat it.  I kept thinking about the flies.  

Lunch and dinner were the same… I remember fried chicken and corn.  She always cut the corn off the cob and, when I asked her why, she told me that Frank didn’t have dentures and couldn’t eat it on the cob.  One day she cooked some ears of corn just for me.  Instead of a tablecloth Grandma’s table was covered with newspapers.  She explained that Frank was a messy eater.  When we finished our lunch she would leave the leftovers on the table and cover everything with a tablecloth.  Milk went into the refrigerator.  When it was time for dinner she took off the tablecloth and we sat down to eat the leftovers.  

We spent one evening looking at all of Grandma’s photographs.  She identified each person… if I’d only kept a diary then.  It was the first time I’d seen a picture of someone lying in a casket… one of Frank’s brothers had died a few years earlier. 

A young fellow…a member of the Hawkins family… came to pick us up one morning to take us to Hawkins' grocery store.  I think Grandma wanted to show me off to her family and friends.  I imagine that she had talked about Janet and me over the years and this was the first time she’d had a chance to introduce one of us to everyone.  I don’t remember who was there or how long we stayed but I do remember I wanted to buy some grapefruit juice for breakfast but they didn’t have any in stock.  After leaving there I saw another store across the street.  Grandma wouldn’t go there to shop because they were the Hawkins Grocery’s competition.  I told her I’d run over there… that they wouldn’t know who I was.  She agreed and I bought a can of juice for our breakfast the next day.  She liked grapefruit juice but she didn’t have the money to buy extras.  They were living on Social Security and could barely afford the necessities.  

I believe the same young fellow who took us to the grocery also drove us down to where Rose and her family lived.  Rose was somehow related to Frank.  She was a pleasant woman… the motherly type.  There were quite a few family members there including some children but I couldn’t begin to remember their names.  At our next stop we visited with one of Grandma’s friends.  She was neatly dressed and her home appeared spotless.  During the conversation, that mainly she and Grandma had, she’d stop talking long enough to spit in her spittoon.  Later, I asked Grandma why she was spitting and she explained that she was using snuff.  That’s when it occurred to me that Grandma must have been using it, too.  I had noticed her dabbing at the corners of her mouth with her hanky.  She didn’t spit… she just dabbed the tobacco away.

I don’t recall the order of things, just the events.  My visit lasted for three days but in my mind it seems like only one.  In downtown Elizabethtown we walked from store to store.  Grandma needed some drinking glasses so I bought her a set of green glass tumblers… my favorite color.  I’d forgotten they were green until years later her stepdaughter, Carrie Knepper, gave them to me and told me they were the glasses I’d given to her.  She also gave me her blue and white sugar bowl, which I still have on display in my dining room.  The green glasses were donated and sold at our church bazaar.  A vendor was demonstrating a small cylinder shaped grater that had a handle for turning the cylinder and thus grating whatever you put into it.  I insisted on buying it for her so she wouldn’t have to chop her cabbage for slaw with a knife.  I could only guess whether or not she would ever use it.  

Claude Louis Davis and his mother,
Bertha Davis Cooksey Hawkins - 1926

While we were downtown I suggested we go to see one of the movies playing there.  Grandma refused saying she hadn’t been to see a movie since Daddy took her to see one in 1926.  She didn’t enjoy that one at all.  That’s when silent movies were still being shown.  She did agree to try an ice cream cone so we each had one.  She had trouble keeping the ice cream off her chin but I think she enjoyed it.  With her meals being almost the same everyday the ice cream must have been a welcome treat.

Grandma was ready to go home because Frank was only allowing her to be out for a short while.  He wanted her to be home with the dog so that he could make his daily visit to Hawkins’ Grocery store.  I’m not sure how we got there but as soon as we arrived Frank was off to join his family and friends. 

We had a visit from Grandma’s neighbor next door.  She was a sweet woman with several young children.  She was kind enough to show me her house.  It was similar to Grandma’s but she kept it neater.  Her kitchen was nice because her husband had brought in cold running water by adding pipe to the outdoor faucet.  I recall she had only a hand pump at her sink but it was better than having to carry water in from outside.  She loved to crochet and while I was there she gave me three of the doilies she had made.  I still have them in my home today.

I would never see Grandma again while she was alive but we continued to keep in touch over the next ten years.  Her life ended on December 26, 1965 when she was eighty-six years old.

To read more about the Davis family click on the links below.

Documenting My Davis Family: A Genealogical Challenge

Documenting My Davis Family: Olive Caroline Davis

Friday's Photo: Dora Davis Page

#52ancestors Post Forty-Two: Conflicting Information About Edward Davis of Edmonson, Kentucky

Friday's Photo: Claude L. Davis

If you want to know more about the families I research, click here to like my Facebook page where you will see each post and other genealogical finds. 

Diana

© 2020

Sources

Bryan, Elizabeth Davis. MY GRANDMA - A memoir by Elizabeth Davis Bryan. 2005.

Family photographs and documents from the collection of Diana Bryan Quinn.