Grandma

I've been thinking about Grandma Jackson quite a bit lately. This was published as a "From the Desk of ..." column on our Oped page on April 14, 2005, in tribute to Grandma's 99th birthday. She left us on June 20, 2006, and while I miss her presence, her wisdom and her gentle chuckle, I rejoice in her homegoing and can almost hear the Lord's greeting, "Welcome home, good and faithful servant."

Silver threads among the golden memories

The gravel beneath her slippers barely makes a sound as she walks to greet a granddaughter. Trees tower in the yard, the pines sending their spicy scent into the air. Water trickles into the furrows that irrigate the lawn and the wind, gentle at first, bellows dust eastward.

Smell. Sight. Sound. Some things never seem to change, and this greeting is much like any other in the past four decades — a warm hug, murmured expressions of love, every sense enveloping the visitor. But these days the woman's slight frame is a little more stooped, her granddaughter's temples a little more grayed, the greeting a little more poignant. Time marches on, mercilessly taking with it all things beloved.

"Life is hard," she has said many times, "but God is good."

On Friday Arley Jackson turns 99, beginning her 100th year on Earth. She was born on a spring day in a fine two-story home in Wapanucka in the Territory of Oklahoma, mere months before its statehood. Like many Oklahomans, she sports Indian blood; how much she isn't sure. It wasn't talked about much in those days.

A farmer, her father was a sheriff who pursued notable criminals of the day. One of his grandsons recalls the tale of Grandpa Hale, having nowhere else to house one particular outlaw, brought him home and tied him up in the kitchen until morning.
Meanwhile Arley's mother had her hands full caring for a brood of 10 — six girls and four boys. From their earliest memories, Grandma and her sister Arbie labored, cooking for their younger siblings and the field hands.

Indoor plumbing was virtually unheard of those days in that part of the world, and Grandma's nostrils curl upward as she remembers the alternative — the outhouse. Water for cleaning and bathing was brought in from the well, heated on the stove and poured into a tub. Washing was done by hand, knuckles nearly rubbed raw from scrubbing fabric over a washboard.

Ever modest, ever the gentle lady, Grandma still learned how to plow a field, how to coerce the prickly cotton bolls into yielding their precious cargo. Those skills would come in handy later when, as a bride, she helped her Milt plow and harvest their own cotton crop in west Texas and later in Gotebo, Okla.

There also are the horror stories, like the time Grandma's horse, spooked by something not remembered, took off, dragging her along on the cultivator. Grandpa, plowing nearby, raced to her rescue and calmed the frightened horse.

Forever a team themselves, the pair who had known each other from childhood, who were baptized as teens in the Boggy Creek as a symbol of their faith in Christ, moved soon after their Aug. 10, 1924, marriage to west Texas, where eldest son LeRoy was born two years later.

Their second-born, whose tiny Texas grave is marked with the name "Baby Jackson," lived a mere eight hours after birth. Grandma was allowed but a glimpse of the little one, holding him briefly as she attempted to nurse him. Some 75 years later, she regrets not being allowed to choose his burial clothes and wishes the heartbroken young parents had given their second son a name.

Most of all, though, she still can hear the infant's cry.

"The baby had a voice I'll never forget," she softly says to the granddaughter prying into the past.

Each birth was a difficult one, but within a matter of years their family was complete — two living sons and two daughters.

Yet there was more hardship ahead. Black clouds of dirt and debris would sweep across the plains of west Texas. Drought would sap the life out of verdant cotton fields. The farm in Gotebo dried up. Poverty and abject hunger moved in. The Great Depression was in full swing, in league with the Dust Bowl that decimated crops.
Penniless, the cupboards emptied of food, the young farmer Milt swallowed his pride and asked the local merchant to allow him to put supplies on credit so his family would have something to eat that night.

He made good on his word to repay the merchant, but only after the family had packed its belongings and headed west, their destination as yet undecided. Somewhere along the way they chose the fertile Imperial Valley over following sister Arbie to Oregon.
Here they moved around a bit, eventually finding a home, church and many friends in Imperial. The young farmer took a government-sponsored course in welding and blacksmithing, finding a vocation that allowed him to use his creativity and mathematical intuition.

The two, who themselves never finished elementary school, sent all four living children to college. All married, producing 18 grandchildren — granddaughter Melody died as a child and her sister, Esther, as a young adult. There are also 45 great-grandchildren and three "great-greats."

In her nearly 100-year lifespan, what most has changed? Would it be technology? Time- and labor-saving appliances? The family structure? Morality?

As she ponders the question, Grandma giggles — a trademark sound in that house.
"The dress code," she says decidedly, shaking her head as she describes some of the things she's seen while watching Dr. Phil on TV.

Her greatest blessing?

"Getting the family together. ... I've always wanted the family to be together."

And how has she endured the trials of life — births, deaths, material losses?

"The Lord. He said He'd never leave me and He hasn't," she replies. "He has helped us through hard things."

Life is hard, but indeed, God is good.

Happy birthday, Grandma.