Grandmother died suddenly when I was 11. I remember the day. Daddy came to school to get me and my cousins and I knew immediately there was something wrong. This was my first experience with death and sorrow.
Mama and Papa Newman lived in a rural mountain farming community, Rainsville, Alabama is still pretty much that way today.
Mama and Papa were farming people in 1957. Grandmother ((Mama Newman) lay in state in a casket in the living room of their home. Some of the family sat up with her at night. I remember watching her as she lay there and thought I could almost see her move. It was not a scary time, but a sad interesting time.
I looked in the mirror after someone commented I looked like her. Maybe, but I think I look more like my Dad. I would love to have her hair, it was coal black and she wore it pulled back in a bun. I remember watching her brush it out. I don’t remember much about her. She was kind and quiet.
I remember going to the barn to watch her milk the cow. The cow switched it’s tail and hit me in the eye. I was so upset when I told what happened, I got my word jumbled which made the story more amusing to the adults. I truly wish I had more time with her and more memories.
Papa Newman was a jolly man. Tall and alway neatly dressed. He loved attention and expected it when his grandchildren came through the door.
Their life was not easy, Papa was a farmer. Corn and cotton fields and always a garden for fresh vegetables. 10 children to work in the fields, tend the babies and help with the different chores. My Mother was not impressed with the “Good Ole Days”. She did not think them so good. They would hoe the corn, picked it, shucked it, cut it off the cobb and can it. They chopped cotton, picked it dragging big cloth sacks, hands bleeding from the bolls unless you had gloves. It then was dumped into a wagon and hauled to the mill to be ginned. Papa raised hogs and had cows and chicken.
There was always something to do.
Papa never owned a car, he had 2 horses and a wagon. 
