Lisa and Bob in Memphis and Ripley Tennessee

Saturday: Stories

I don't have the 4 hours of audio tape transcribed yet. And after those 4 hours, there were stories told to us as we drove to Warren Lee's cottage, and then more stories at the cottage. And even more stories when we ate dinner together. So I'll do my best to write down everything I remember!

Nancy grew up in south-central Tennessee, on a farm with her Pop Blakeley (born 1887, a WWI veteran who was at war when she was young) and her mom, Ora Belle Smith. Ora Belle (born 1873) was known to us as Mamaw. Ora Belle was a smart, literate woman, who read a lot and was very religious and strict with her kids. Though, when we asked Nancy if she thought her mom was strict, Nancy said that she supposed others might think she was, but to her it was just the way her mom was.

This was taken in a dark area, but it's Pop Blakeley's WWI helmet from when he was a soldier.

Next to the helmet is a pair of pictures, from Ora Belle at her high school graduation, and Pop Blakeley in his uniform.

Nancy's Childhood

Nancy was born in 1918. She remembers being an indoors child. She doesn't remember it being hot, really, just that it was a normal temperature for what she expected. Her younger siblings - Jane and Joe - used to go running wild all over the farm, but she stayed inside and sewed and read some. We asked what she read, but she doesn't really remember. They didn't have money to buy books, so she just read what was around the house or what she had from school.

Ora Belle and Nancy

Her first day of school, she was scared and hid under her desk. A boy pointed at her to the teacher, who came over and dragged her out and forced her into her chair. She didn't do that again! She compares that to Lynnwood, who in his first year of school was proudly brought to the 8th grade class so he could tell them his stories of "town tacks" that had them all laughing.

We asked if her mom made her do chores since she was around, but no, apparently Ora didn't want people getting in her way. Nancy's chore was to bring in firewood (heating wood) while her sister Jane's was to bring in cooking wood for the wood stove.

Nancy and Joe

Nancy took the bus to school. She only remembers walking one time - when the baseball coach wanted her to try out for the team. She didn't like sports, but she gave it a try for him, and then had to walk home. She thought she'd never make it home!

She does remember taking dance lessons, and being very good. Her instructor wanted her to go with him to New York to do a dancing demonstration - waltzes and so on. But she refused immediately, saying that her mother would never allow such a thing.

In 8th grade, one of her good friends (who later married a cousin of hers) told her all about the "Birds and the Bees". Nancy was fascinated by this and couldn't wait to get home to tell her mom all about it. Ora Belle was less than pleased with her daughter!

Nancy went swimming down by the river about 1/4 mile from their house, and had a swimsuit. Kate asked if she'd ever skinny-dipped and Nancy said no, not in her whole life. She did worry about the fishermen near the river, with her being a young girl and all. She says now looking back that this was really dangerous, with all the pedophiles in the world, for a young girl to have been down at the river with fishermen nearby.

She remembers doing work with the 4H during her childhood years, but they didn't have much money so she didn't do anything else - just stayed home, hung out around the house. They had oil lamps to stay up a little after dark, but really they went straight to bed. They'd wake up with the sun. She remembers being down at the breakfast table - if she wasn't there for breakfast, she wouldn't get any. She was so tired she wished she could just go back up to bed and not have any breakfast.

The remembers the wood-stove being very, very hot, and the kitchen having a low ceiling. The room would get very hot, especially in the summer. In harvest season, Pop Blakely would gather up local workers to help with the harvest, and her mom would be cooking all day long to feed them. Nancy remembers it being really hot in the kitchen, and imagines that the heat affected her mom's health permanently.

Nancy's memories of her father are of him being hard working with a sense of humor. She remembers him dancing a little jig to amuse the kids before heading out into the fields to work. She remembers, when he went to get the brakes on his car tightened and thought the bill was too much, saying that they'd made the brakes "too tight". Money was tight, though. She remembers him crying when the river came up over its banks and flooded out the fields he'd worked so hard on sowing.

A Young Nancy

Nancy in Ripley

After college, Nancy immediately got a job from the government as a 'family teacher' - these women (and most were old maids) would hold monthly meetings in towns in their assigned county, to teach the women how to can, cook, garden, and take care of their families. Only unmarried women could have this job, and Nancy was very proud, with the hard economic times, to have a job and be able to earn money. She came into Ripley feeling very mature and responsible, that she would now be guiding the women of the families to build even better families. She rented a room with an older woman, and taught at local Masonic Halls and similar buildings.

She first met Lynnwood when coming out of a local restaurant, the Covered Wagon, with a date. Lynnwood and his date were driving by, and Nancy's date asked if they could get a lift to a nearby town. Lynnwood agreed and the two hopped in the back. He didn't even see Nancy. But, showing off to his girlfriend, he drove the car over curbs and down hills, which Nancy found quite shocking! Ripley was a small town, so they kept running into each other. A girl was having a party later on, and told Lynnwood to bring Nancy as his date. Around this time, Nancy got an apartment with an older, single home-ec-teacher, and this is where she lived while dating Lynnwood.

Nancy remembers thinking while she worked with the women that having a stay-at-home mom was really important to a solid family. However, when she tried to tell the women that at a meeting, she was almost lynched! Apparently the women of the day were trying to get out and do things, and didn't want to be told they should stay at home and raise kids.

Soon Nancy and Lynnwood got married, and she quit her job. He then left for 8 months because of the war. At the time Lynnwood was in pilot training, and he says that about half of all trainees were dropped from the program. The push was to get pilots trained quickly, and if you couldn't keep up, you were out. Lynnwood did make it through and in fact became a bomber pilot trainer.

One of his favorite stories was when he and Nancy were at a formal military dinner. Nancy had gone to the restroom, and had put her roll of toilet paper on her finger to use it. For some reason she then came out of the bathroom with the toilet paper still perched on her pointing-up finger. Lynnwood motioned for her to stop that, and she realized what she was doing - and ran back to the bathroom, with the roll still up on her finger!

When the war ended, pilots were a dime a dozen. There were thousands of pilots and not enough jobs. So to make ends meet, Nancy looked into going back into teaching, now at a school. She taught home economics at local schools for over 40 years, and near the end took on teaching some math courses as well when the school administration suggested she might be patient enough to help some slower students. One student said that he learned more in that one year with Mrs. Grammer than he had in the rest of his school career.

Nancy, Kate and Warren Lee are all teachers so there was some conversation about that. Nancy worked right through being pregnant with Warren Lee with no problem, but when Kate was a teacher, they were encouraged to retire when they started to "show". Also, in Kate's years, they had dress codes of skirts and panty hose, no pants. They had to fight to wear pant suits. But in Nancy's time, she remembers getting her first pants because they were cheaper than dresses - only $4/pair. Warren Lee chimed in at this point with his memories of "Nanstein" being incredibly cheap.

I asked about what she taught. It was basic cooking skills for the middle school kids. The teachers would be brought in as guests for the meals and apparently this wasn't exactly a treat. One group of students would set the table, one would cook, one would serve and one would clean up. Typical breakfasts included eggs, homemade biscuits and coffee.

Apparently all home cooking in this region was pretty much fried. There was fried okra, fried peach pies, pulled pork. Restaurants weren't really good - they were just average people trying to make money by offering home cooking to others.

Becky asked Nancy about our ancestors and Indians - Becky had thought that two twins in our past had almost been captured by Indians, but had been saved by being hidden in a washtub. Nancy didn't know anything about the Indian story. However, she thought that perhaps we did have Indian blood back in us somewhere. She'd always been considered to be darker than normal, an "off color", and thought that Jane had found that they were 1/32 Indian.

Lynnwood and his Inlaws

Lynnwood remembers a family gathering when Nancy and Jane with their husbands were visiting with Ora Belle and Pop Blakeley. George and Lynnwood were complaining about the two girls. Blakeley said something like, "you boys don't have anything to complain about. You each only have 50% of the source ... I have the whole 100% in Ora Belle"

Lynnwood remembers another time when he was making himself a 7-Up with gin. Ora Belle was VERY against alcohol, but was thirsty. She saw what he was drinking and asked if there was any whiskey in it. "Nope," said Lynnwood. Ora Belle asked for one for herself, and Lynnwood obediently made one for her too. He says that she was quite happy and talkative for the rest of the evening!

Nancy's Letters with More Stories

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