More OLD Photographs

Several of my blogger friends have mentioned in my comments how much they like the photos I have been posting, and especially the older ones. Well, these are about the oldest I have, I believe. The top one is my maternal Grandmother, Martha Belle (Halcomb) Headrick, then Hervey. That is my maternal Grandfather, Freddie Edgar Headrick. They hadn't been married very long when this picture was taken. I'm always tickled at how thrilled they look here. Notice her dark cotton stockings and button-up shoes? And how he is at least 6 inches taller than her, but their arms are the same length? His arms look like they are 3 feet long, LOL. If I remember correctly, (and there is absolutely no guarantee that I am) Grandma told me that she had just found out she was pregnant with their first baby, Elmer. The picture is dated 1921. You can read more about them here in this post from back in the February archives if you're interested. Scroll down to Sunday, February 26. Grandma was a character, I assure you, and any of the sisters can vouch for that and back me up on it.

I never saw the woman in less than 2 full slips, panties, a girdle, stockings with homemade elastic garters, and sometimes socks on over the stockings. After pantyhose came along, she wore them every day, and most of the time she had on a camisole or undershirt and her bra, and many times more full slips, too. She was a kid's dream, because she was scared of everything, and no matter how many times you threw a plastic spider on her, she screamed just as loudly the 6th time as she did the first.

In the early 70's she still had an outhouse. One day we "went out back", and while I was attending to business, I heard her screaming and cussin' (it just don't sound right with the "g" on it, does it?) and just generally raising Cain. I emerged from the toilet and she had a garden hoe, chopping at something on the ground. She had the very end of the hoe handle, and was backed as far from whatever "it" was as she could get and still whack the tar out of "it". She was cussing a blue streak about a snake. I looked for a snake, expecting to see one at least 6 feet long what with all the ruckus and all. I looked...........and I looked.........and I looked some more. I couldn't find a snake anywhere. Finally she pointed out some mangled remains. She had chopped up a poor little night crawler! An earthworm, that is, to the uninitiated. We have those around here, and some of them are a good 10-12 inches long, but they are harmless, and the poor thing died a gory, violent death at her hands. I asked her, "Grandma, couldn't you see that was a night crawler, not a snake?"
Her answer was classic "Grandma": "Well, it was doing a d**n good snake imitation at the time!!"

The second picture is of Grandma and her brother-in-law, Jesse Greenwood. Uncle Jesse was married to her sister, Aunt Lurene, or as we called her, Aint Ween. All the kids had trouble pronouncing her name, so that's what it became condensed to. My Mama was named after Uncle Jesse and Aint Ween. Her name was Jessie Lurene Headrick. I believe this pic was taken around 1935 or so. Both of them died before I was born, so I have only seen pictures and heard stories about them. From the stories, they were both characters, too, especially Aint Ween. What would any of us be without our family characters and stories? Boring, for one. :-)

We started revival at our church, and I will be gone every night this week to church. I may be a little lax on posting this week, but I will try not to let you get too far behind on all the exciting happenings in my life, LOL.

Monday was busy for me. Cecil, Sue and I went to Trumann to Walmart to do a little shopping. The Tropical Sno stand was open for the first time today, and we HAD to stop there. I got an Orange Creme, and Cecil got the Wedding Cake. They were delicious, and really hit the spot, too, since we hit an all-time record high temperature here today. It was 94 degrees, folks. The average high for this date is 70. I told Mike in a comment earlier, Spring was last Monday and Tuesday, and he missed it. Check out his blog. He works at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, and the record high there today was 101 degrees! The former record was 94, and it was set back in 1924. Poor Mike, he works outside in the heat, too. I just checked the temperature on his time/temp link to DFW International Airport, and it's still 81 degrees at 3 am. Mercy sakes, that's miserable!

We are in a drought, as well, besides the unseasonal heat. The rice farmers are having to flood their fields early just to get the rice to sprout, and the cotton, soybeans, corn and milo may not sprout at all, especially if it doesn't rain soon. If it's this hot and dry this early in the season, what's the rest of this summer going to be like? I dread the heat, 'deedy I do. :-(

Jeana has a new template on her blog, and I am so jealous. I would like to change mine, but I am gunshy after almost completely wiping mine out a week or so ago. I get aggravated with Demon Blogger sometimes, but I will just stay with the status quo for a while longer.

Well, as mentioned just above, it's 3 am here in the fair city of Bay, Arkansas, and Diane is getting sleepy for some reason. I am posting this, then going off in search of Mr. Sandman. Hope everyone has a wonderful Tuesday today. :-)