I vividly remember several of the daily routines and happenings that transpired at my paternal Grandma's house on Mill Street in White Springs. I vividly remember one: Each morning, about 10 a.m., maybe a bit earlier, we would see all 89 pounds of Cousin Texie Bullard Greene, who lived around the corner on Kendrick Street in what is today Mrs. Kendrick's Cottage – owned by Scott and Julie Williams-Gay – walking ramrod straight coming to Grandma's house.
Grandma would put on a fresh pot of coffee and get ready for Cousin Texie's visit. Both ladies were in their 70's, and they seemed to have a never-ending supply of family stories and history, how "so and so" was related to "so and so," and on it went. They watched "Sky King,” drank coffee, sometimes enjoyed dish of Grandma's bread pudding and talked.
Sometimes Grandma would comment about Cousin Texie's clacking false teeth after she left, and how they got on her nerves at times. But, if Cousin Texie didn't show up around 10 a.m., Grandma was phoning to check on her. That told me a lot without a word being spoken. They loved each other. Cousin Texie died before Grandma, not long before, and it was not until then Grandma told me about Cousin Texie's first husband, Ben Carter, who was, for his time, from the turn of the 20th Century 'til the 1930's, one of North Florida's largest Naval Stores businessmen.
"When your Granddaddy and I married in 1920, we went to visit Texie and Mr. Carter in Jacksonville. They had a big home in the St. Johns section of town on Richmond Street. I had never seen a house that big or elaborate. They had a butler, a cook, a maid and a gardener. Fine furniture, the best of everything. Texie had a big car and a driver, but she was the same Texie you remember. She loved her family, and she loved talking. Tough times came in the 30's, and she lost the big house in Jacksonville or had to sell it,” Grandma related. “They later moved to White Springs and lived in the same house the Frank Wiggins family live in now. Mr. Carter died, Texie remarried Mr. Greene and had a son. She lost her only child when he was very young. She almost died from grief losing that child, but she lived. It's not bad times or things happening to you that make you stronger honey, it's living on and enduring after you have been completely broken that strengthens you. Texie was a survivor and she kept her joy and laughter and shared with others. When she moved back to White Springs, she bought her cottage and told me she was happy and content there. I know she was."
There's an old African American spiritual sung often on the south end of Hamilton County: "This joy I have within, the world didn't give to me. The world didn't give it. The world can't take it away." The generation of my grandparents and my parents knew what struggle was about, and they found that joy that eludes so many.
We can learn many lessons from previous generations if we listen with an open mind and heart. Somewhere up in Glory, I visualize Grandma standing at a window and, upon seeing Cousin Texie, saying, "Here comes Texie, I will put on a fresh pot of coffee." Good memories of cherished friendships and great stories. I am so blessed I was privy to so many of those stories.
From the Eight Mile Still on the Woodpecker Route north of White Springs, wishing you a good day.