Tell About That Time by Jane Chambers Greenwood

Before the stories begin:  my grandmother, Jane Chambers Greenwood, was born in 1880.  She was the 5th of 6 daughters born in Mississippi and grew up around the time of Reconstruction.  Her father was an ex-Confederate soldier whose father had fought in the War of 1812.  Her parents were Sunday School organizers, especially for former slaves on nearby plantations.  Her mother was also a writer; she worte poetry and fiction and was published in magazines, and she worked in missions.  Jane's youngest sister, Nora, died at age 10 of illness, when Jane became the youngest (but became the matriarch of the family later on).  Her older sisters were:  Ida, Lulu, Nina, and May.   As an aside, I'd like to add that the great-granddaughters of Lulu and Nina are very close cousins to me now.  So thankful to be related! Here is part of the Foreword of her book.

King Solomon in a pessimistic mood lamented that of the making of many books there was no end, and patient old Job fervently wished that his adversary had written a book, presumably paving the way to his destruction.

My reason for writing these haphazard memoirs is that I have a Public, demanding constantly, that I "tell about when you were little."  Ages of this clamoring group range from 2-16, and the undeniable fact that my life is utterly void of adventure has no effect on the demand for stories about it.

My childhood summers in the Deep South were concerned with wading in the swift clear streams, climbing sweet apple trees and "playing house" on the green moss beneath great oaks, with china dolls for babies.  Winters meant the roasting of chestnuts or yams in the ashes of the wide hearth where green oak logs were burned, day and night, while Father read aloud to us.

We were poor, but I was nearly grown before I knew it, partly because then, in the South of the 1880's and 90's, poverty was more honorable than wealth, but mostly it was the gallant courage and gay spirit of our mother.  She patched and made over our dresses, but the patterns were from Demorest's Magazine or Godey's Ladies Book, and we wore them proudly.

Growing up in that rarely chronicled period between Reconstruction and the Spanish American War, our family occupied that wide and happy middle ground between the rich planter life and the "Poor Man's Land," as described by James Street.  The unreal world of William Faulkner was unknown, and the radio and movies had not been invented either.  Around the log fire Father read aloud from Josephus, or the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire.  The children read aloud from Sir Walter Scott or Dickens. Sometimes a tiny hand-turned sewing machine was bolted to the table and Mother stitched endless tucks and ruffles for petticoats and dresses.

To portray the scenes and thinking of The Family, these haphazard fragments are written.

Stay tuned....