Raggedy Ann and Andy for the granddaughters

One Christmas I decided to make a set of Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls for each of our 4 grand-

daughters (#5 grand-daughter wasn't born yet). The two older girls received large dolls and the two younger girls got smaller versions. I had so much fun making these dolls and sewing their hair on their heads. They became "alive" when I added the facial features. I placed them on the sofa in the living room and several times a day I would go to the living room to check on my doll family.

They were like real people and it was difficult to put them in a box and wrap them to put them under the tree! I am happy to say that these dolls are still "alive" and most are packed away with things they want to save. They adorned their bedrooms throughout their childhood. Now 3 of the girls are in college and 1 is a Jr. in high school. I had to make a 5th set of dolls later on for the youngest who is in the 6th grade.

Prior to making the dolls, every Christmas I made the girls flannel nightgowns and they loved them. They started passing them down to the younger girls. Those gowns stayed around a long time.

I've made many costumes for them over the years. Once Elizabeth, the oldest granddaughter, called from Austin, TX and asked if I could make her a Queen Elizabeth costume, "Quick" she said. She needed it to wear when she gave a book report. She said to please use royal purple for the dress since that was her favorite color and to make a "ruff" to wear around her neck. I asked why she wanted a queen dress and she said she was planning to win first place and be crowned "queen" - and she did and she got her outfit just in time to wear it.

I've made many Halloween costumes for them. Just wish they lived closer by to try them on when I'm sewing for them. For that reason I don't try to make clothes for them.

I love making memories .........

Bound for East Germany

On Aug. 12th I wrote about my trip to Europe in 1981, and promised to write about my train trip from England to Piene, Germany - near Hamburg, in northern Germany (photo of train station in Hamburg)

With a change in plans due to an airlines strike, I had to revise my travel plans to return from a weekend in London, to Peine, where I was staying with a Germany family during a Friendship Force Exchange visit for 2 weeks. It was like the "slow train to China" with our old East German train cars often being bumped and left sitting on a side track until another train would come along and take us along for awhile and "dump" us again. I really don't know how long I was on that train travelling from Belgium to the East Germany border.

I shared a compartment with 2 punks from Berlin. One had lime green hair and the other hot pink hair. They had their radios/cassette players and loved heavy metal music. I knew enough German to have a brief dialogue with them. They were from Berlin and had been to London on a holiday. They started drinking beer soon after the train pulled out from Belgium and before long both were sleeping. I was afraid to go to sleep! All of the signs, etc. on the train were written in Russian language. I couldn't read a word. I was supposed to get off at the last stop (Hamburg) before the train crossed the East German border. With some side stops along the way, the train was several hours late. I was glad that I called my host family and told them I would take a taxi from Hamburg to Peine.

I arrived at the train station at 2 A.M. Just as the train was pulling into the station, the conductor came through calling the name of the stop and when he said Hamburg, I jumped up and gathered my bag (only had 1 carry-on) and when the trained stopped, I turned the handle on the door to get off and it wouldn't open!! I didn't know what to do, so I ran down to another compartment, and was prepared to start kicking if I couldn't get that door open. I turned the handle and it opened wide and I fell out on the sidewalk with my little bag! Nobody was in sight at 2 a.m. and as soon as I got up and looked around, the train was leaving. I got off just in time.I walked thru the long tunnel to get upstairs and the big waiting room was almost empty.


I walked outside to get a taxi. Several were parked there and I went up to one and was trying to tell him in German where I wanted to go. He answered me and said he spoke English. I was so happy. I hopped in the car and away we went out into the countryside, thru asparagus fields, to the little village of Peine. He got out of the cab and escorted me to the door and knocked and waited for my host family to open the door. They spoke in German briefly, I paid him, and off he went. She said he told her that I was a nice American and very brave!

I spent a few more days with my host family and then it was time to go to the marketplatz in Peine and board the bus, along with other Americans on the trip, to travel through East Germany to Berlin. This was a very depressing ride and I was a little uneasy when we had to cross the border. We stopped at the entrance to East Germany and the bus driver told us to sit still and not talk to the guards. They got on the bus and asked us to show them our passports. When they saw mine they took it and left the bus and went inside the guard house. We waited and waited and they came back and handed it to the driver and spoke a few words to him, and then motioned us to move along. The driver said they had not seen the new computer coded passports and thought mine was illegal. I was glad they didn't make me get off the bus. We were very happy to see the Brandenburg gate in Berlin once again after a long trip through Est Germany, and we boarded the plane to come back to Winston Salem, NC.

Other than these experiences, the trip was a great experience and the good out-weighed the bad many times. We were treated royally and dined and fested all week in and around the big city of Hamburg. Spaceship Columbia landed one week-end while I was there (in April) and all the Germans gathered around their TV sets to watch this big event and cheered loudly when Columbia landed safely.

Germany was much different from the post-war days we spent there in 1954-55. I'm glad I had an opportunity to go back almost 30 years later.

A Big Pile of Rocks!

Recognize this place? James was watching TV today and called me to come look at what he was viewing. He remembered his trip to Stonehenge when he and I traveled to England in August 1993 to spend a couple of weeks with my youngest sister Carolyn and family. They were there for 3 years courtesy of Eli Lilly, living near Windsor Castle and Ascot. It was a fun-filled time, going all over London and the countryside.


One windy, cloudy morning, Carolyn took us to see Stonehenge. James really wanted to stay home and watch the summer olympics being held in Barcelona, Spain. We talked him into going with us but he wasn't too happy. When we arrived at Stonehenge, we parked the car, and walked thru a tunnel underneath the road and came up to Stonehenge on the other side of the road.
James put his hands on his hips and surveyed the area. Then he said, "My word! There's nothing here but a pile of big rocks!" and he was ready to go. Some of the many tourists on the scene laughed and said, "He's right!" The rocks are just sitting out in an open field. They are so very big.


We left there and drove to Bath and checked out the old Roman ruins. He said the baths were too dirty to get in them. He loved going to Windsor village which surrounds the old castle and made friends with the store clerks there. They called him their American friend.


Someday I'll record some more of his excursions in London. He had a good time. Especially on the return trip home when they had overbooked and upgraded us to lst class seats. He had his own private stewardess to take care of all his needs. I had to take him with me or else I would not have been able to go. We both had a good time.

Remembering Mama and Papa Wilson

My Aunt Mattie Lena took this photo and sent to us when we were living in Wurzburg, Germany in 1954. This is how I remember my paternal grandparents. I didn't see them very often after I got married in 1953. We always lived so far away.
We lived with Mama and Papa Wilson (Fannie and Jim) when I was little and I have such good memories of these times. It was during WWII and so many things were rationed. Living the country we were able to grow our vegetables, raise our own pigs and cows for meat and milk, and were pretty much self-sufficient.

My dad had a sugar cane mill and made syrup and when we couldn't get sugar (it was rationed), my grandmother would make syrup cake and it was delicious. We also had a lot of bee hives and harvested the honey to eat and cook with.

I remember the noise of the corn being ground into grits and the sweet aroma of freshly grown corn. We were not allowed inside the grist mill with the giant wheels turning.

Mama Wilson was a great cook. She would make the best biscuits to go with homemade sausage, red eye gravy, and served with whipped cream!! People laugh when I tell them we ate whipped cream with our sausage. Her tea cakes were so good. And I remember her lane cakes, fruit cakes, fig newtons, and custards. Everything she cooked was good!

She was also a talented seamstress, sewing on a pedal sewing machine. Most of the time she made her own patterns. She sewed for ladies in Opp and Elba, including Mrs. Claude Dorsey of the Dorsey Trailer family. They always bought too much fabric and would give her the left over fabric. Mama would fashion dresses for herself or us if the fabric was appropriate for our age.

Mama and Papa dipped snuff and Rooster Snuff was their favorite. They would wash the empty snuff boxes and we would put a mixture of sugar and cocoa in them and pretend to dip snuff. Once we got our "play" box mixed up with the real thing and I let my friend Evelyn be the first to take a "dip" and she was angry with me for a long time. She thought I did that on purpose.

Papa Wilson had asthma real bad and had trouble sleeping at night. He also had cataracts and back then the operation to remove them was quite serious. He was almost blind and spent a lot of time with us children, telling us stories and teaching us things. He taught me to count by dropping kernels of shelled corn into a jar. I can remember how excited I was when I could count to 100 (I must have been 4 then). He taught me how to spell a lot of hard words. He was our guardian angel. I remember we could go anywhere if Papa Wilson went along with us.

Papa Wilson always made the grape juice for church communion and Mama Wilson made the communion bread. My friends would come home from church with me on communion Sundays and we would play " church" and eat the left over bread and drink the grape juice.

My Mama and Papa Wilson were always very special to me. I'm sorry I didn't get to spend more time with them in their later years. They both lived to an old age; Mama was 83 and Papa was 87 when they died.

Washing Clothes

"The Spring" - this cold water spring was on my grandparents farm when they moved to the farm in Curtis, near Elba, AL in the early 1900's. The water came from underneath some giant oak trees. This is where we got water to wash clothes when I was growing up and take baths in the hot summer. We dug a larger area when we moved to the farm in 1996 and the ferns appeared when we cleared the area. I placed the water lily there.

Washing clothes was hard work back in the 30s and 40s. Today when I was washing bed linens, I remembered wash day when I was growing up. We didn't have a washing machine because we didn't have electricity or running water in the early days. Once a week we would load the dirty laundry in a big red wagon and pull it downhill to the spring where we would wash the clothes. It was an all morning chore. First you had to fill the big iron wash pot with water from the spring. Then you would build a fire under the pot and put some homemade lye soap in the water. While the water was heating, we had to bring buckets of water from the spring to fill three big tubs. One was for washing and others were for rinsing. Near the bench where the tubs sat was a large "battlin' block" which was a large tree stump about 3' tall. This is where we battled or beat the clothes to get the dirt out of them, using a battling stick which looked like a minature canoe paddle.

Clothes were sorted and soaked in the hot soapy water after applying lye soap to dirty spots. The whites were washed first, then the colored clothes and finally the dirty work clothes. The clothes were put in the hot boiling water in the wash pot and stirred with the big stick and then they were lifted out of the water with the stick and taken to battling block to be beaten, and then to the lst tub of water to be scrubbed by hand. Water was squeezed out of each garment and they were put into the tub of rinse water. They were rinsed twice. The water was squeezed out and the clothes were hung on a line to dry. The clothes lines were tied between trees and a long stick was used to prop them up when the heavy load of wet clothes made the line fall to the ground in the center. Some things were hung on the fence to dry.

This process took all morning and late in the afternoon we went back to the spring to take the clothes off the line, fold them and bring them home to iron. Most everything had to be ironed since all clothing was made of cotton in those days. Many of the clothes were starched before hanging out to dry. Starch was made by boiling flour and water until it was thick.

The wash water was used until it got too dirty and some more had to be heated. Mother would usually let us get into the rinse water tubs and get a bath when she was finished with the wash. The lye soap was slippery and a very good cleaning agent. We used it to wash our hair and it made it shiny and silky.

We thought we had moved up in the world when daddy dug a hole under the house and installed a hand pump which was located along one wall of the big dining room. This was ok for water used inside but we had to pump the water into buckets and take it outside to do the laundry. I wanted to go back to the "the spring" but mother enjoyed being closer to the house on wash day. I had to help pump the water. Maybe that's why I have big muscles in my arms! We moved to our own house when I was 12 (and there were 4 kids by then) . Our new house had a well on the porch and you would let the bucket down into the well and turn the crank and draw up a bucket of the coldest water. We never had a washing machine until after I left home and went away to college in 1952. In 1996, Jim and I bought the family farm and put a house in the woods near "the spring" and built a water garden there plus a large spring-fed lake behind the house. We lived there until 2003 when we sold the farm and moved to town. Too much work even with all the modern conveniences!! We loved the wildlife, especially the birds but not the armidillos or fire ants that pestered us.

I'll save ironing to write about another day. It was a hard job, especially on hot days in Ala.

Heirloom Teddy Bears

Do you know how Teddy Bears got their name? They were named for Teddy Roosevelt after he went on a bear hunting trip in Lousiana and it was a blunder. The press made a big deal of it and a toy manufacturer started making little bears and called them "Teddy Bears". I made this patriotic bear for a DAR/SAR Constitution Day luncheon in Sept 2005, held at the historic Rawls Hotel restaurant in Enterprise. The guest speaker was Teddy Roosevelt, talking about when he was President.  This colorful bear was given away at the end of the meeting as a door prize.

Do you notice something wrong with this bear made from old quilts? I didn't notice my mistake until I had finished stuffing and sewing up the opening. I had put his ears in the wrong place and he looked like a monkey! I had to remove the stitching at the neck and take the head off, remove the stuffing, turn the head inside out and put the ears in the proper position. Then I stuffed the head again and sewed it to the body. There are many pattern parts for this type bear and you can imagine how thick the cloth is since the bear is made from a very old quilt. The cotton used for the old quilt came straight from the field. It was "carded" and then spread on top of the quilt lining, then put into a quilting frame and quilted with tiny hand stitching. It was not uncommon to discover cotton seeds in the stuffing. When a granddaughter turns 18, I make her a quilted teddy bear. I think maybe she's old enough to take care of them and appreciate them. This bear went to #3 granddaughter, Nerissa. I have 2 more to make in the future.

My Hero, My Dad

This is my dad, Lawrence Wilson, dressed in a tux for my youngest sister Carolyn's wedding in Gainesville, June 15, 1974. He never did like to dress up and this is the only time I ever remember seeing him in formal attire. He was reluctant to "give away" his baby girl, the youngest of 7.

I remember daddy as a farmer, riding his tractor and plowing or picking peanuts. There were no mechanical cotton pickers on our farm in the '40's and '50's. I used to dream that someday they would invent one - and they did much later! We never had a lot of material wealth growing up but he always made sure we had the basic things. And he was so resourceful and could make of repair almost anything - especially cars and engines. He was a good mechanic. I could write a book about my dad. He always praised us when we got good grades in school and this encouraged us to do so. I never wanted to disappoint him. He rewarded us for good work, especially when we had to work in the field. He would leave and go to the store and bring back treats and drinks. Our friends like to work for my dad because he was so nice. When we finished working in the field, he would let us load up on the back of his old truck and go to the creek and go swimming.


This photo was made the week he died from cancer. He took radium treatments and we asked if we could come home and drive him to Dothan for treatments. He said "no"; that he would call us when he needed us. On Sunday, July 25, 1982, I got a call and he asked if I would call the other sisters (5) and tell them that he needed us if we could come. We were all there by Monday, coming from FL, NC, IN, & Washington DC. He wanted us to get the Dr. to let him come home from Opp hospital because he knew he was not going to live very long. We spent 7 days with him at home before he died early Monday, Aug. 2nd. Our son flew to AL from Texas to help care for him three days that week. He couldn't taste so he wanted some beer for breakfast one morningjust to see if he could taste it, and the grandchildren thought that was so funny. The little ones would come in from outside and climb in the bed with him and talk to him the last couple of days when he could no longer get up. My sister Sue is a nurse and she gave him injections for pain. This was a very special week when we could all be there with him. After the funeral, we had dinner at home with extended family, and in a way it was a celebration of his life and we rejoiced that he was no longer in pain.