Grannyisms

In Appalachia Grannies are famous for their healing, cooking, sewing, gardening and for their sometimes quirky ways and funny sayings. I grew up with a dear sweet Granny named Gazzie. She fit the bill for the typical Granny characteristics. Gazzie was famous for her Sunday dinners with potatoes shaped like boats, her biscuits, her stick candy and her crocheting. She was also someone who didn't put up with nonsense and showed no pity for anyone who hurt those she loved.

                                                             

My girls are fortunate to have a Granny too. Their Granny (Gazzie's youngest daughter) is famous for her green beans, crocheting, gardening, sewing, and for her strange, ridiculous, funny and precious sayings. As I post some of both my Granny's sayings and quirky ways of doing things I hope you too will post things about your Granny.

                                                             

Comments

[Marcie Shaw]

Whenever I would act up as a kid my Granny would always say "Now Marcie your Dennis is showing." This was her way of letting me know that I was being as stubborn and mule headed as the rest of the clan and she was losing patience with me. I love her and sure miss her now that I am a mom. I wish my son could of gotten to know her.

[Teresa Lynn Menendez]

My Mamaw taught me many things...a lot just by just watching her like a hawk. She's passed on, but etched in my mind is a picture of her hands rolling biscuits and placing them in the pan like they were fragile as a newborn. I watched those same hands sew (a tiny apron for me!), make medicine, wash clothes, wring a chicken's neck, and even kill a snake with a brick in her hand. Talk about superheros--Annie Mae Rollins was mine. P.S. I say Miller

[PinnacleCreek]

A priceless memory comes to me when I hear the word Granny. Once as a small child I sat in the living room at a large family gathering. Across from me was a very elderly woman who engaged me in a strange conversation about Christmas. I seemed to be the only human in that large group who actually would listen to her. Thanks to my raising with respect to elderly, I sat there and listened quietly to this old lady's rantings. Frail and thin, her voice was strong with Appalachian dialect. She told me of all the useless gifts people got her each Christmas, and especially rebuked a daughter-in-law who, "never gits me anything I like." Later on in life, I realized this was my one meeting with my great Grandmother "Gramma Tory", otherwise known as Victoria Elizabeth Emmarie Ardelia Williams. We children would recite all the names as a proud accomplishment. She was known for being spunky and plainspoken. She raised a large family with a trifling husband, and walked or rode a horse everywhere. Born in 1874, this lady never had a luxury.
I sat there as a child not realizing this was a Grandmother, and she did not seem to know nor care that I was a Grandchild. A moment in time that still haunts me. Priceless!

[Ashley]

I live in the mountain of East Tennessee (tellico plains) and have also been blessed with many mamaws. While all haven't taught me things, my great mamaw walker reminds me of your grannies. She was born in robbinsville in 1920 and has passed me plenty of wisdom. She's an awesome woman who still gets up every Saturday mornin to make her world famous biscuits and gravy for the entire walker clan ( we're pushing over 50 if we're all together) my most favorite Sayin is "don't be like the rabbit who's been pricked by the entire briar patch" haha. Thankfully we start young where I'm from or my daughter wouldn't get to grow up with her great great mamaw walker and keep the wisdom flowin through the generations. Glad I stumbled across your site :)

[Steve]

So glad I found your site, as a young'n I spent many a happy summer on my Uncle's farm (old home place)just north of Weaverville, in WNC.

Reading some of these stories here takes me back to those times, and how truly special they were.

Some of my best memories were watching my Granny cooking on a wood stove and wondering how she knew how much wood to chunk in it to get it to the right temp to cook her fluffy "Cat Head" biscuits.

[Robert]

My "Mama" had two sayings that I'll always remember but have never heard elsewhere. If we were hanging around in the house on a nice day: "Mess and gom, mess and Gom -- all you children do is mess and gom and I don't have time to clean up after you."

And the other, to let us mean she meant business after asking us to do something and we tarried: "You don't believe cow horns will hook, do you?" A threat that there would be consequences if we didn't do it NOW. :-)

[lola]

i grew up in nw pennsylvania and remember my gramma making bread and cookies before anyone else was out of bed she said she loved the quiet and couldnt sleep any way

[Hilary]

Hi! I stumbled upon your blog while looking for anyone else that had ever eaten cornbread and milk. I'm from south of Pittsburgh, and could remember sitting on my pap's knee while he watched Tv, and he'd always share little bites with me. Also, seeing a picture of your grannie just made me think of my own. She had the exact sweater your Granny is wearing, even posed for pictures with her flowers, and I can remember baking with her in the kitchen and wearing those hair caps. I'm not from Appalachia but I know my pap was born in Kentucky. My grandma was born here, but she certainly had her own grannyisms. "Well, hell's fire!" I had freckles, and she teased me one time telling me that little girls got freckles from standing too close behind a cow! Such a wonderful site, and as many others already noted..brought real happiness to me, thinking of my gran.

[tipper]

Over the weekend, me and Chitter helped Granny empty some of her old canning jars. Chitter was unscrewing lids and dumping old food while I washed jars in a bucket. Chitter said "Granny this jar looks good are you sure I should dump it?" Granny said "Yes honey that came from a lady whose food I don't trust." I said "well then why didn't you tell her you didn't need it?" Granny said "well I thought it would be worth the effort of pouring the food out to get the jar."

[JeannieMcCormic]

My Granny is my inspiration!

[Jim Casada]

Shirla--I have at least a partial solution for your hornet problem. If you have access to a good long cane pole of the kind that used to be common fishing tools, wrap the little end of it with a bunch of old rags and give them a good soaking of kerosene (not gas!). Wait until it is completely dark and light your smudge. It should smoke like nobody's business. Stick it up right at the hole into the nest, which will be at or very near the bottom, and let the smoke do the rest. Be sure to wait until full dark, not first dark (if you are familiar with that old mountain term) so all the hornets will be home. That should do the trick, and you'll know for sure the next day.
Jim Casada
P. S. If you fish, the larva of hornets in the making are mighty fine bait.

[Tipper]

Shirla-Pap said he didnt know how best to advise you LOL! Unless you waited till cold weather to go after that thing youd be stung all over is what he said : )

I hope you figure it out-let me know what you end up doing.

Blind Pig The Acorn
Celebrating and Preserving the
Culture of Appalachia
www.blindpigandtheacorn.com

[Shirla]

I have a question that might be better directed toward Pap. What is the best way to remove a huge hornet's nest from a pear tree? Everybody tells me it's the biggest one they have ever seen and it is built about 12-15 feet high. I know the bees will leave when it gets cold, but I can't wait that long. I am afraid to mow around that area and definitely afraid to pick the pears. Maybe the bees will sting the squirrels when they try to rob this tree of it's fruit like they have all the others. I hope so! Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.

[Patricia]

My Mother was borned in 1917,in a small community of Fairview in Scott County ,Va.She was raised by relatives, because her own mother passed away giving birth to her 13th child.Mom gave birth to me, her only child, in July of 1957. I lived her life in the stories that she told me about life in the 20's 30's 40's. How sad that I didn't write down all the things that she told me about canning. I was looking for a good time to make Kraut, by using the Zodiac signs. I have found sites that tell me the best time is in the third quarter of the moon, when signs are in the head,neck,breast or heart. My cabbage is ready,so I am going to try to process it while the signs are in the head. I will let you know how it turns out

[Barbara Taylor Woodall]

Everyone called her "Granny Lou" because midwives were called granny women. She lived just above our house at pasture's edge in a small shack with fake-brick siding. Cornfields grew right up to the yard's edge. A pole fence surrounded the yard to keep out the cow's manure that she called "cow pocketbooks."

I lurked for opportunity to sneak underneath the pasture gate towards her abode to become her shadow all day.

I would make my way up shaky steps to an old screen door. Its holes were plugged with wads of cotton from aspirin bottles and favored a snowy Christmas card. A fly could have kicked it down and come on in. I grabbed the thread-spool knob and entered into the presence of my guardian angel.

Her moon-shaped face and sharp cheekbones radiated with love, touching lives like pure dew on tender petals. A silver bun of shiny hair rested neatly on the top of her head, held in place with small, white hair combs. She only let it down at night to wash and comb. It always smelled like Listerine. Words of wisdom and the law of kindness were in her mouth.

A homemade, tattered dress reaached downwards, touching the tops of dusty shoes with holes cut in the side to ease ailing corns. (Did you know angels get corns?) Tan, knee-high cloth stockings were held in place by elastic garters: she was against "bareleggedness". Light blue eyes, like pools of flashing water, were beginning to dim as she sat in a wooden chair struggling to thread needles. "They make these durn things smaller every year. Somebody peeped through my 'specks and stole the strengthoutof them".....

While in her company, I felt like the only person on earth who mattered.....

[www.Debora.Worley@yahoo.com]

Dearest Tipper,

Just "lucked-up" on your website when searching for "pickled beans". Would love to know where you're from.I live in a little town called Sylva, NC. (western NC). My Appalachian roots run deep; raised by my precious granny who passed just over a year ago. What a wonderful woman she was! The Godliest woman I've ever known.She, at 95, was still my very best friend in the whole world. I learned so much from her, but realize I should've grasped even more. Boy, do I miss her! She was a "old-timey holiness" Church of God. She would wrap her hair up at night in toilet paper to keep it looking pretty. She'd say and do the funniest things, but nothing ever ugly. The only time I ever knew of her saying anything at all "out-of-the-way" was once when she got aggravated and said "shit,shit shit"! I still laugh about that. Just wanted to tell you I'm very excited to find you. Gonna' try my hand at some 'pickled beans'. I know an elderly gentleman who has been wanting some and I'm not sure how much more time he has here on earth. I just pray I can get them done for him before our Heavenly Father calls him home. Thanks again and may God richly bless you.

[bobbyredsgirl02]

I came across your site while researching how to preserve squash. The stories about the grannies took me back to canning with my second mother in law, she taught me more than either of my grandmothers, one died while I was young and the other lived too far away. But Mawmaw showed me not only how to preserve almost all garden produce but also how to quilt and sew and a multitude of other skills that kept her family safe, warm and fed during the hard times.

[Cyndia]

Lord help (one of my grandmother's sayings) I could write a book about my Grandma Cecil. She was in the middle of five boys, so grew up thinking she could do anything they could do. She loved to tell stories. She told of picking cotton to support the family, leaving the baby at the end of the row, and pick down one row and on the next row would pick her way back. She told of making dolls for her girls out of scraps and that her only cash purchase one year was a 9-cent crochet needle. Many a warm summer evening was spent rocking on her porch as we shelled peas and told stories. She put a hammer in my hand and taught me to fix things. Nobody could fry chicken livers the way she could. She could laugh in a big bellied whoop and yell "shit-fire" when she got mad. She was the strongest woman I ever knew, and she taught me so much. I sure do miss my grandma, only she never liked to be called that. She always insisted on "Cecil".

[Terri]

My mammaw said a body was "as poor as a snake" or "as fat as a pig". I am not sure if anyone ever fit right in the middle!

[Earl Barber]

After I got married for the first time, just before my 19th birthday, my new wife and I lived at my parents house.

My new wife had a tendency in warm weather to dress rather skimpily in hot pants and halters. My mom disapproved.

One day she said to my bride, "Honey, if you ain't one, don't dress like one."

Words of wisdom that served me well decades later as the father of a daughter. :-)

[Jessica Puckett]

My granny grew up in a home where her father was a southern Baptist preacher. She never had much of a formal education, she never had a drivers license. But, that woman had more wisdom in one finger than 10 women of today's time. She taught me about the Bible, she taught me most of the good things I know. She taught me about "mountain medicine", some of which I still use today, like putting tobacco on a bee sting. She never cussed, saying things like "danged ole billy to h-e- double hockey sticks". She was always singing. I still see her singing in the kitchen cooking in an old iron skillet. One of the few fancy possessions she owned was a silver plated tea set. As a little girl, I was so cherished by my granny I was allowed to play with her silver tea set. We had tea parties often, sometimes on the porch in the summer. She would make up stories for me as we drank our "tea". Then she would sing, always singing, with her beautiful voice. Now, I have my granny's tea set.Perhaps someday I will drink tea with my grand daughter on my porch, telling her stories of when I was a child. Though God did not give me a voice like my grandmother's, I still sing. I sing the old hymns she sang, I hum them when I cannot sing. I miss her so much. How blessed I was to have been loved by a granny who was so beautiful inside and out.

[Kathy Ferrell]

Glad to find your blog! W.V. girl here!
When someone made a mess, my granny would say, "Gom & Smollick, Smollick & Gom, that's all you're good for!"
She would refer to women of questionable decency as "sluvant" (an adjective). Apparently meaning both slovenly and cheap.
She was raising 12 kids during the depression, and so rarely got any treats herself. She once thought she could slip off to herself and eat a candy bar. Just as she unwrapped it, all the little children popped up from all corners of the house. In frustration, she exclaimed, "If I had a chocolate-covered dog-t***, there'd be half a dozen young'ns wanting a bite!" She was a funny woman.

[Ed Ammons]

My mother, when I was fibbing and she knew it and wanted me to know she knew, would say Psssst!

[Monica Cochran]

Mary Jane (Tipper), thank you so much for paying tribute to Granny (Gazzie). I think of her almost daily as I have several photos of her and I hanging on my refrigerator. She was one of those people who just oozed with love for everyone. I thank God for her influence in my life.

[tipper]

Granny has gone black walnut crazy this fall. She has been cracking like crazy, storing the nuts in the frigerator on the porch. She's even kept track of how many walnuts she got off of her tree-I'm pretty sure she picked up every one of them : )

She told me the other day "The Lord has truly blessed me with Black Walnuts."

[Peggy Elaine Rickard]

I don't know how I found this but I am happy I did. I have Appalachian roots also. I live now on an Indian reserve in NYS and I love to have a place to go to on the web to bring back my memories of down home.

[RB]

Our Grandmothers were both Salt of the Earth Women who put up with husbands who meted out various forms of abuse that still didn't keep those wonderful women down. They bore it all, as well as the children of those men, with strength and grace.

They worked hard to keep a good home, they were good mothers to their children and were good grandmothers to their grandchildren.

The one thing I remember most about them that sticks with me still is their lesson to - "Always leave a place nicer than you found it." I work to do that to this day, and I believe if everyone did, the world would be a better place.

God bless.

RB
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[Susie Swanson]

I couldn't help but comment on this one Tipper. You described my two grannys to a tee. They taught me so much in my lifetime, including quilting, dipping snuff, which made me sick as a dog. I miss them so much today but their legacies live on in my heart and mind...Susie

[Laura]

My granny on my Momma's side was a little country woman from upper NE TN area with long to her waist gray hair that she kept braided and rolled into a bun on the back of her head. When I was 12 I was taller than her. She probably stood about 5'. Granny was 93 when she passed away after a year long sickness and bedfast with alzheimer's. I was 17 and it devastated me. To this day, I still think of her and that can of Bruton snuff she kept tucked into her apron pocket. She was never without an apron on or a pair of stockings she kept rolled and tied at the knees with another piece of nylon. Ever once in a while, I smell Bruton snuff in the air and no one here dips the nasty stuff. I wonder if Granny is visiting and saying Hi. I can still see her praddling away in the kitchen on her old wood cookstove frying me a cornbeef sandwich with mayo on toast. Still a favorite of mine the some years later (I'm 42). I don't remember my Dad's Momma (Maw) as she passed away a year after I was born. How I miss my Granny. She now has 7 great grandchildren and 2 great-great grandchildren just from me. I am thankful that I know I will see her again one day in Heaven when we shall meet again. Thank you for the opportunity to share about my granny and I apologize for any typos as tears are now welled up in my eyes thinking of her.

[Michelle]

My Mamaw's quilt frame hung from the living room ceiling. My sister and I would play under the quilt as she sewed, looking up at the patches of color. She always said you need at least one blue room in your house. So I always have at least one blue room! I looked it up to see where this came from, and it comes from the early Colonists....blue was the most expensive paint, and so only one room was usually painted blue, the one you showed company. I don't know if this is Appalachia, but it should be, as she never lived anywhere other than the mountains!

[Cheryl]

WOW! What an awesome website. I was trying to remember how my grandmother would make leatherbritches and was doing some searching on the internet when I came across your site. I found what I was looking for and it all came back to me.
The best times of my life were riding the tractor with grandaddy and helping grandmother make biscuits, cobblers and stringing green beans.
Today I live on a portion of their farm and am truly blessed! Everyday I think of them and keep their picture on my wall.
We live in beautiful Turtletown, TN. My husband always says the next time he moves it will be in a pine box!

[Brenda Kay Ledford]

I love your posting about Granny. I had two wonderful grandmothers who made lasting impressions upon my life. They were very much like your granny.

[Tipper]

Granny is always worrying about Chitter and Chatter eating enough-they are skinny girls. Last week Chitter went down to visit Pap and Granny-as soon as she stepped in the door Granny started trying to feed her some of their leftover supper. Chitter said she wasn't hungry-but Granny just kept on telling her she should eat. Finally Chitter said "no Granny I'm not hungry I just ate some goldfish." Granny said "Lord child don't tell me you've been eating goldfish!" Of course Chitter was talking about the crackers-not the fish : )

[Connie C]

God blessed me with 2 wonderful "Grannies" both of which are in Heaven now. I also was born and raised in the Apl Mtns of NC between Asheville and Boone. Childhood memories of Granny being called on to teach how to salt Kraut correctly or her famous Pickled corn or pickled beans and corn. While my other granny was known for her salt brined pickles and her 10 layer apple stack cake at christmas time. I am now wanting to carry on those taught traditions and I am also getting ready to start me a small farm.

Thanks for your wonderful blog and may GOD bless and Keep you and yours.

Connie C

[Joe Mode]

Well, my boys mamaw, my mom, is the epitome of Appalachian wit and wisdom. Still says things like "warsh," "ye," "yonder," and "I reckon" among other great dialectual jewels. I record these words in a book about Appalachian words and dialect and attribute them to the family member who I heard speak them.

Mamaw Mode's sayings: "It's better to have a canopy over your bed than a can of pee under your bed." "If you ain't got nothin good to say about somebody....say somethin bad." Someone called once and wouldn't say anything when she said "Hello." She said hello several times, finally got frustrated and said, "Speak ass, your mouth won't." I fell out of my chair.