My Grandmother’s Autobiography

My paternal grandmother wrote her autobiography in 1972.  The title is “From Death Into Life”.  I came across her manuscript a couple of years ago.  Her autobiography is a mixture of her life story and her testimony of her belief in God.  I had forgotten she had a glass eye.  Didn’t know what had happened until I read how at two years old she was climbing on some old lumber piles and as a result of a fall a rusty nail pierced her eyeball.  She lived on a farm and the family didn’t have any money for an eye specialist so they treated it with “home remedies and put poultices of various kinds on my eye.” 

I found out all sort of things in reading her manuscript. My grandmother was the youngest of 17 children.  Her mother’s sister had 18 children.  Her education, according to her, was a hit and miss.  Kids would make fun of her eye and she would refuse to go to school the next day.  Her father only cared that she learn to write her name.  “He asked the teachers not to make me study for he was afraid it would affect my good eye.”

Her father enlisted at the beginning of the Civil War and remained in the army until it was over.  He use to ask her and her brother “which would you rather have money or food?" They would say money because they had all the food they wanted…they didn’t have any money.  He told them how they (soldiers) had the money but didn’t have any food and nearly starved to death.  Sometimes they had no shoes and had to walk in the snow and ice until their feet were cracked and bleeding.  They left trails of blood in the snow. 

Grandmother also wrote how she loved to hear her mother tell her life story.  Her mother (my great-great grandmother) had died when she was six years old.  Her father was a Circuit Rider and a Baptist minister who travelled the countryside preaching and helping where there was need.  She went to live with uncle where she lived until she married.  Her only brother died from wounds received in the Civil War – the Battle of Shiloh.

Maybe this is why I’ve starting posting again.  Some day my grandchildren will read what I’ve written over the years and know a little more about who I was.  Of course, they’re going to have to find the blog first!  I wonder how long Blogger will be around?