When I was a little girl and we lived with my Porter grandparents. It was always special when my mother's brother, George Porter, would come to visit. He was not married and when he would come home, my Bubba would take me for long rides to see the trains in downtown Norfolk VA. He also would take me to Dr. Master's Drug Store several blocks from our house to buy me an ice cream cone. Bubba was special to me.
He lived in Richmond VA and worked for the then V. E. P. CO. One day he came home grinning all over, he had met a young lady, Lucia.. It was agreed that he would bring her to visit. Lucia 14 years younger than Bubba. She was fresh, young and to my eyes very pretty. She had heard about me from my Uncle and had made a doll just for me, Alice in Wonderland. She was having trouble getting the face just right. So mom ended up painting the face with oil paints. I adored my Alice that my soon to be Aunt Lucia made for me.
That was the beginning of my love for Lucia. She always talked to me as if I were grown. They were married in Richmond. Our family stayed at the Jefferson. The wedding was at her cousin's home. They were blessed with the birth of my very first first cousin Margaret Owen Porter, Peggy. I was elated.
Peggy, was adored by the whole family. None more than her father and mother. My Nana was so happy to have another granddaughter. I guess I got a little jealous because I was quoted as saying, "Those darn Porter kids." May be I was a little jealous. My Brother, Don and I had been the only grandchildren for a long time. Sharing was a little hard. We were always very glad when the family from Richmond came to visit my grandparents.
I was allowed to go visit occasionally for a week during the summer. Lucia was always fun to be around. She liked the garden and one time found a farmer who had chicken manure. She loaded up the back of their station wagon. After the manure was cleared out the evidence that it had once been there hung in the air. They were forced to find another vehicle.
She was curious about natural occurrences. Why did the weeds at the base of one of the trees in the front yard always grow more on one side than the other. Was it a magnetic field? Lucia was always inquisitive.
They both cared for my grandmother, Nana, after my grandfather died. They were always open to our visits even, when we called that day to say we were dropping by. We always felt the warmth of their welcome.
I remember that because Peggy, and Ralph, her little brother, loved MacDonald Fries, Lucia kept trying to make fries that were better or at least as good as McDonald's. Lucia was someone that I not only liked but loved very much.
Monday, June 25, 2012
Saturday, June 23, 2012
Cooling off with Icebergs
Recently I've been thrashing around mentally trying to find myself with my art. Writing definitely helps. I can share ideas and memories this way. I have not been able to find something to paint that I can get inspired about. I've been toying with the idea of doing something that is more modern than the impressionist landscapes that I have done of our area. I keep failing with abstract paintings. They are not easy to conceive. I tend to be a perfectionist. I guess after conquering the color green, which in itself is a real feat, I am just sick and tried of green and trees. I needed a new challenge. Lewis suggested icebergs. Wow, why didn't I think of that.
So I've been collecting pictures on line of icebergs. We have also been seeing a lot about the fact that with the warming of the earth that the glaciers seem to be calving off icebergs at a phenomenal rate.
Nature is my thing. As I remember my grandfather quoting "The Heavens declare the glory of the Lord, and the firmaments showeth His handy work ". This made a impression on me as a child and I still hold it dear to my heart.
Hot summer, and watermelon
This summer has started out hot. Recently we have been trying to cool down with watermelon. This brings back memories of hot summers, front porches and screened back porches. My maternal grandparents, who I called Nana and Dan, lived on the 900 block of Graydon Ave. in the Ghent section of Norfolk Va. My parents and my brother and I lived with them along with my great grandmother, Gram, until I was 8 years old.
My grandfather, who I called Dan, was a banker of the old school. He worked out of the Sea Board Citizens Bank in Berkley Va.. He took it upon himself after the depression to help the farmers that borrowed from the bank to be able to make their loans. He would advise them about their crops and try in any way to help them to be able to pay off their loans. These farmers would be so grateful that they would on occasion send home with him crates of strawberries, peaches, or watermelons and gifts of their produce.
Some of the best memories of that time revolved around the long slow days of summer. After dinner at night we would go out and sit on the front porch in a glider or in one of their medal out door chairs. There was a magnolia tree in the field next to the front porch and the scent of it's blooms perfumed the air. A mocking bird's song would be music to our ears. A lot of the neighbors would take walks up and down the street and often stopped by to visit. The children would eagerly wait for the ice cream man's truck to come by. As the children came out after dinner they often chased after lighting bugs to fill jars with their twinkly lights. Or they would organize games of red rover, snake in the gutter,or hide and seek. Sometimes we would take blankets and lay down on our backs and look at the night sky with all the twinkling lights. Looking for the milky way or the big dipper, guessing about the man in the moon.
Some times on very hot days when the watermelons were the ripest my grandfather would come home with a big watermelon and that evening we would cut it in chunks and sit outside on the back porch and eat the cold fruit. Later we learned to see who could spit the seeds the furthest.
Fifty, sixty years later we still have ties to these neighbors. My best friend and my Mother's still live on Graydon Ave. Most of the people have moved on or died but the ones that mean the most still live in our hearts.
My grandfather, who I called Dan, was a banker of the old school. He worked out of the Sea Board Citizens Bank in Berkley Va.. He took it upon himself after the depression to help the farmers that borrowed from the bank to be able to make their loans. He would advise them about their crops and try in any way to help them to be able to pay off their loans. These farmers would be so grateful that they would on occasion send home with him crates of strawberries, peaches, or watermelons and gifts of their produce.
Some of the best memories of that time revolved around the long slow days of summer. After dinner at night we would go out and sit on the front porch in a glider or in one of their medal out door chairs. There was a magnolia tree in the field next to the front porch and the scent of it's blooms perfumed the air. A mocking bird's song would be music to our ears. A lot of the neighbors would take walks up and down the street and often stopped by to visit. The children would eagerly wait for the ice cream man's truck to come by. As the children came out after dinner they often chased after lighting bugs to fill jars with their twinkly lights. Or they would organize games of red rover, snake in the gutter,or hide and seek. Sometimes we would take blankets and lay down on our backs and look at the night sky with all the twinkling lights. Looking for the milky way or the big dipper, guessing about the man in the moon.
Some times on very hot days when the watermelons were the ripest my grandfather would come home with a big watermelon and that evening we would cut it in chunks and sit outside on the back porch and eat the cold fruit. Later we learned to see who could spit the seeds the furthest.
Fifty, sixty years later we still have ties to these neighbors. My best friend and my Mother's still live on Graydon Ave. Most of the people have moved on or died but the ones that mean the most still live in our hearts.
Tuesday, June 19, 2012
Looking back on Family
Life can be interesting at any age. In our youth we strive to become an adult. It really is not until you are in your thirties that you become secure in the adult world. Then those years that follow we are secured and well grounded in that world. Each stage of our lives comes with benefits and drawbacks, but as I age I find that I can look at life almost like a kaleidoscope. Seeing several view points at once.
I no longer feel the urge to have to prove myself in the adult world, and suddenly I am approaching old age. I have barely acknowledged this as I have a active life among younger people. In fact I have trouble identifying with some people of my age group. The trick I find is to continue living without putting restrains on your life. The really neat thing is that you have experienced so much and lots of changes in the world.
As I look back I am amazed that I have both known and loved so many generations of my family and friends. I was blessed to have known two great grandmothers. We lived with my mother's parents and her grandmother,Viola Mae Spence Jones, my Gram. There were four generations living in one house. Everyone helped out. We would all sit around a large oval dining table for our meals. We would discuss all sorts of things. I would mostly listen to the adults. I remember being amazed that they could talk about things that were five or ten years before. I just could not imagine that they could remember something that seemed like ages past for me.
Gram was born toward the end of the Civil War. We heard stories about things that occurred on the family Plantation, Magnolia, in Currituck County NC. She told tales about what happen during the Civil War. I learn that my great grandfather George W. Jones, had two brothers that were killed at the battle of the Crater in Petersburg VA. Yankee soldiers arrived at Magnolia, before they arrived all the silver was lowered into the well. When they did come they desecrated the house ripping paintings and even using her mother's hairbrush leaving their hair as evidence. After the war, her beloved brother Leigh, (who I am named after) tried to hold the family estate together overworking. He died at age 23, more than likely from consumption.
My Father's grandmother lived on Warren Crescent in Norfolk, Va. Her name was Adelaide Warden Sykes. My Aunt Nell Sykes lived with her. I remember visiting and marveling at the conch shells that they had sitting around their fireplace. My Uncle Hubert Sykes had found these on the beach near his home on Willoughby Spit, across from the Naval Air Base.
Grandmother Sykes' family was relatively well off her older sister was sent away to college just after the Civil War when most Families in the South were impoverished. She married my great grandfather whose family owned a plantation in Princess Anne County. Unfortunately he lived the life of a country gentleman and in order to do so he sold off the family land. Aunt Nell told that the girls had a pet goose that would follow them around and bite at her braids. The girls would go to shows and look at magazines to find inspiration for their clothes, then they would go home and make their own dresses similar to what they had seen.
My grandfather Judd Walter Lewis was brought home to visit by one of the Sykes men hopping that he would be right for their sister Nell. Judd did take a liking to one of the fair ladies, but it was not to Nell, who was the right age for him but to Adelaide who was a little older. He was smitten by her beauty and charm. Nell loved another gentleman of whom the family did not approve. She never married. Aunt Nell was always there to help Adelaide with her three sons and a daughter born in her forties. She way out lived her sister and was like a grandmother to my brother and my cousins and myself. She lived to be at least 90.
Grand Daddy Lewis' father came to America from Whales. He managed to get a job as a fore man at a coal mine in Scranton PA. Even luckier he married his boss's daughter.
I no longer feel the urge to have to prove myself in the adult world, and suddenly I am approaching old age. I have barely acknowledged this as I have a active life among younger people. In fact I have trouble identifying with some people of my age group. The trick I find is to continue living without putting restrains on your life. The really neat thing is that you have experienced so much and lots of changes in the world.
As I look back I am amazed that I have both known and loved so many generations of my family and friends. I was blessed to have known two great grandmothers. We lived with my mother's parents and her grandmother,Viola Mae Spence Jones, my Gram. There were four generations living in one house. Everyone helped out. We would all sit around a large oval dining table for our meals. We would discuss all sorts of things. I would mostly listen to the adults. I remember being amazed that they could talk about things that were five or ten years before. I just could not imagine that they could remember something that seemed like ages past for me.
Gram was born toward the end of the Civil War. We heard stories about things that occurred on the family Plantation, Magnolia, in Currituck County NC. She told tales about what happen during the Civil War. I learn that my great grandfather George W. Jones, had two brothers that were killed at the battle of the Crater in Petersburg VA. Yankee soldiers arrived at Magnolia, before they arrived all the silver was lowered into the well. When they did come they desecrated the house ripping paintings and even using her mother's hairbrush leaving their hair as evidence. After the war, her beloved brother Leigh, (who I am named after) tried to hold the family estate together overworking. He died at age 23, more than likely from consumption.
My Father's grandmother lived on Warren Crescent in Norfolk, Va. Her name was Adelaide Warden Sykes. My Aunt Nell Sykes lived with her. I remember visiting and marveling at the conch shells that they had sitting around their fireplace. My Uncle Hubert Sykes had found these on the beach near his home on Willoughby Spit, across from the Naval Air Base.
Grandmother Sykes' family was relatively well off her older sister was sent away to college just after the Civil War when most Families in the South were impoverished. She married my great grandfather whose family owned a plantation in Princess Anne County. Unfortunately he lived the life of a country gentleman and in order to do so he sold off the family land. Aunt Nell told that the girls had a pet goose that would follow them around and bite at her braids. The girls would go to shows and look at magazines to find inspiration for their clothes, then they would go home and make their own dresses similar to what they had seen.
My grandfather Judd Walter Lewis was brought home to visit by one of the Sykes men hopping that he would be right for their sister Nell. Judd did take a liking to one of the fair ladies, but it was not to Nell, who was the right age for him but to Adelaide who was a little older. He was smitten by her beauty and charm. Nell loved another gentleman of whom the family did not approve. She never married. Aunt Nell was always there to help Adelaide with her three sons and a daughter born in her forties. She way out lived her sister and was like a grandmother to my brother and my cousins and myself. She lived to be at least 90.
Grand Daddy Lewis' father came to America from Whales. He managed to get a job as a fore man at a coal mine in Scranton PA. Even luckier he married his boss's daughter.
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