SIMPLE TIMES BY SU Z Y Mc C RAY
Pennies Kept Us Together
THE CO-OP PANTRY
When one came in the mail, it was read and reread to everybody who came to my Granny and Grandpa Inmon’s house! Usually hastily written by my Aunt Estelle in “far off” Fayette County, Alabama, we were able to keep up with the activities of Estelle (who grew and “put up” a huge garden every year), her husband Jack as he traveled around the state building roads, and each of my seven cousins who ranged from a few years older than me to a few years younger. In return, Granny grabbed her stubby pencil, had Grandpa sharpen the point with his pocket knife, and wrote what was going on with all us cousins and our parents here in and around Oneonta on what they called a “penny postcard,” although the price by then had grown to three whole cents! Likewise, Granny would receive really unusual letters from my Aunt Iris in Michigan! She worked at
a “car factory” and her job was to sit on a stool and mash a button to close or open a huge garage-type door on the plant. When she had the chance, while bored at work during the nicer weather when the door could be left open most of the time, she wrote letters on whatever she could get her hands on: paper towels, backs of other letters – any scrap! Those letters were also read by all of us who traipsed through Granny and Grandpa’s house! We loved if there was a photo of “the twins” (Judy and Joyce, five years older than me) or the others. When that mailman walked up on Granny and Grandpa’s porch, whoever was there quivered in anticipation! It was our link to family!
June 2021
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