Watching Grandma Carrie Lou sitting on her small Cracker cottage front porch snapping beans with her 2 sisters; Wealthy Ann (Her real name) and Alice came first into my mind....................They would all have 3 conversations going on, on the porch at the same time, and somehow seemed to understand and get along. Aunt Wealthy Ann would be grinding her teeth and moving her lips while Grandma was talking;... just waiting to to say her thoughts which had little to do with what Grandma or Alice had just said! Yet it worked, and they worked together and loved each other. They were raised together in very rural Florida beginnings right here in Central Florida.
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Now,
Grandma was out there in the 5 acre fields in the back (whole property was only 10) and with a Grandfather who had an early stroke at 47 who dragged a left leg but could always crank up the old lawnmower engine well to irrigate the rows of incredible veggies. There was alway an acre off to the side that was Sugar Cane.
The place was absolutely Magical to me the first and only Grandchild who lived right through the woods and around the corner on Bennett Lane. This road was named for them as they were and are the early settlers in what is now Ormond Beach Florida, and were poling down the rivers before civilization evolved, lived through Malaria in the area, and since the very early 1800's. The property was deeded to them from the old Spanish territorial maps as 'Frog Eye' in translation.
Grandpa and his father also worked as groundsmen for the Rockefellers when the 'Casements' (an historical building in Ormond) and did landscaping in their earlier years.
Before Grandpa died when I was 12, and as I watched the ambulance come up old dirt road Bennett Lane walking to the bus stop, I ran to see what was happening. There was Grandpa with his face down in his morning plate of fatty lard based grits with bacon drippings and Grandmas incredible fluffy lard biscuits. Grandma said to me, "Honey, you just stay out there. Your Grandpa just passed"; with tears in her eyes. That was the only time I ever saw my Grandmother show that kind of emotion. This is a woman who still used an outhouse even in the 60's and the same one who taught me to carry a little flashlight out to that outhouse with a stick by the backdoor to knock down the Banana Spider webs that always were redeveloped every night over the door of the outhouse. Hard to believe? Its a fact.
Back it the days when Fireflies still lit up early Summer nights it was magical to me.
Grandpa collected a lot of plants and beyond his Citrus grove of 60 or more trees (which they also sold back in those days to help make a living) loved his incredible Rose collection, Cannas, and many tropicals gleaned from the refuge and leftovers of his hard working landscaping days and from cuttings from the Rockefellers! Thats kind of neat to me!
This is where my love of gardening came from. When the lawnmower engine irrigation well was pumping water up the rows of corn, tomatoes, beans, Okra and on we go, Grandma and Grandpa allowed me the freedom to just play as their first grandchild. I would take a tiny toy boat and set it in the water as it started rolling down through the rows, while Grandma was weeding. She was so hard working, and taking up even then for Grandpas stroke and lack of abilities.
This is peaceful. These are the memories that keep me having love in my heart. This I believe is why I grow.
This is why and where I loved gardening.
