My dad’s forebears were glad to tell you about my grandma’s Pre-Revolutionary Virginian ancestor and other lofty relations, but they seemed to suffer from a peculiarly targeted kind of amnesia when you started asking about the Newton line. I always assumed this caginess was limited to my little branch of the family tree, but recently I tracked down my granddad’s cousin, . . .
According to her death certificate, my mother’s half-sister Bonnie died of diphtheria — “the deadly scourge of childhood” — at five years old, in a town not too far from Dallas. An aggressive vaccination campaign began in the region around the same time, but perhaps it took a while for word to reach the provinces, or maybe traveling for the . . .
A few months ago, I re-posted some of my Texan grandmother’s expressions. Since then, my sister and I have thought of a few more that circulated in our family. Two or three are Granny’s, but more are our mom’s: You sound like a dying cow in a hailstorm. Said to a whining child — i.e.,, when I was a kid, . . .
Although my mother was his only surviving child, her father always said he had another during his first marriage. He implied that the baby died as an infant, Mom says; in fact, I discovered this weekend, the little girl lived nearly six years. My grandfather, Robert Bruce, was seventeen when he wed Nettie Mason, then sixteen, in May, 1925. A . . .
Recently I remembered a compilation of my granny’s (pictured) sayings that appeared online in 2003 on a site that’s since gone to internet heaven. I managed to dig up the list, so here are the “Favorite Expressions of My Deceased (and Beloved) Texan Grandmother, with Explanations”: 1. He looked at me like a calf at a new gate. Translation: “Even . . .