My brother George and his family lived nearby and my nieces, Susan, Diane and Pode, have many cherished memories of time spent with Gramma Blanche at her home in Lake Fork.  Mom believed that children needed to be kept busy. The girls didn’t come to Gamma’s to play, but to help with things like the laundry, using her old wringer washing machine.  Their tiny hands grated leftover bars of soap that she brought home from motel rooms.  Mom, always the frugal one, couldn’t stand to waste anything.  As the girls grew older, she taught them to put clothes through the wringer of the washing machine, keeping fingers safely out of its grasp. 

Other times, they found themselves laboring like convicts on a chain gang, pushing the heavy steal wheelbarrow, hauling dirt to build new flowerbeds. They loved picking vegetables from the garden, then sitting on the porch, to shell peas and snip beans. The first shelled peas plunked and plinked as they bounced in the bottom of the pan and a few of the raw peas found their way into the girls’ mouths.  Each pea popped as they bit down, bursting like spring in their mouths. This taste savored, it was better than the cooked peas they would eat that night.

Hot afternoons, the girls put on swimsuits and ran through the lawn sprinkler, icy cold water bringing goose bumps to their skin. Squeals of delight echoed, as they cavorted like wild gazelles, running, jumping until Gramma Blanche called them in
to supper. A special dessert after a day of hard work was ice cream sundaes topped with homemade strawberry jam, red as a farm girl’s cheeks...Continued...Hugs To All...OWAV:)

Sorry I don't have photo's for this story, but Gramma Blanche was only a few years younger in this photo.