Grandma Bessie

I love this picture of Bessie sitting on her back porch gazing off in the distance.

Bessie was a hard worker all the days of her life. She picked cotton in the hot Texas sun when she was a little girl. As a wife and mother, she kept a spic and span house and somehow without any lessons, taught herself how to sew. She made all of her own clothes, quilted and even reupholstered her own furniture. She pinched every penny she could to make ends meet. She worked tirelessly in her kitchen canning as much stuff from their garden as possible. And she worked right beside Gran when it came time to butcher the chickens......ewww.

She was a fabulous cook and I couldn't begin to list everything that she made but I'll try at least some.
From their garden:
Cream corn
Sweet Pickles
Sour pickles
Bread and Butter pickles
Beets
Plum jelly
Fig Preserves

Also the best
Black eyed peas
Squash
New potatoes
Corn bread
Banana pudding
Blackberry and peach cobblers
Peach Ice cream
So many different kinds of cakes I can't name them all but Gran especially loved her pineapple upside down cake.

But when we were there for July 4th, the woman especially wore herself out making biscuits by the dozens. She could barely get them out of the oven before they were all eaten.

Bessie Louise Webb Etheredge lived her life for her family and she served each one of them until she just couldn't stand on her own 2 feet anymore. But, even then she still worked hard. She didn't even have a doctor of any kind until she was in her 80's. But her confidence was shattered after falling and breaking bones and so she lived out the rest of her years in a wheelchair. She worried way too much; but, one of the reasons she did, as strangely as it may sound, was because she loved each of us so much. She wanted us to be happy and healthy and live wonderful lives. And spend time with them as often as we could.

She was a tough lady and at many different times in her life, endured much physical pain. After falling at home, instead of going to the hospital, her answer was to go to her own bed, with a broken hip. She put vaseline on 3rd degree burns. Like I said she was tough. She took Dale down to the floor one time when he was trying to pry her hands off of her wheelchair so he could put her into her bed.

In the last years of her life, when Gran just couldn't take care of her by himself anymore, Mom moved back home to help care for both of them. And the rest of us drove back and forth to help, sometimes waving to each other on the highway as we passed. It was a lesson learned for me. We were able to do for her what she had done for us all of our lives. Serve. And Gran was able to let her live the rest of her days at Route 3, until the day she moved to heaven. And she died in the den in Corsicana where she spent more than 50 years of her life.

I loved to call her Grandma.

And I loved to call her Bessie.

Bessie planting caladiums.
She was superb.