My Grandmother Pauline with Me ("Crissy") and Little Dog, Candy on a Tennessee Porch |
It's fun for me to peruse through the names of those people who share my history, but Pauline Pulley Warren Pope would do more than just make me dresses, sew my wedding quilt or send me small tokens of jewelry for birthdays--she would take me (and my dog, Candy!) into her home when I was a small child still in diapers and drinking from a bottle, while my mother battled for her life in a TB hospital in Ft. Wayne, Indiana.
But back to her siblings. See if you think her brothers and sisters had interesting names and nicknames. I knew their nicknames long before I ever knew their real names!:
Effie Opal ("Jinks")
Gladys Leona ("Short")
Ernest Clayton ("Doc") He got this nickname from doctoring his sister with a dung ball covered in flour to resemble a pill to "help" his sister's headache. Yeah, pesky Doc!
Pauline (no middle name) ("Top")
Earley Clifford ("Cliff") A man who was full of "ginger peachy" until the day he died.
Ollie Larken ("Lark") Another pesky feller.
Mary Lois ("Head") I remember her warm, kid-filled house, and her boys who found it funny to loose-saddle a horse for me, hitting him on the behind, and then laughing themselves silly as I hung on while my saddle slid underneath.
James Edward ("Ton") He won my dad's marbles back for him when some mean boys at school scammed him out of his only toy. He was my dad's best friend and died from cancer way too soon, his son and wife being a friend to me when I was just a kid.
My Dad, "Wibby,"(Grandmother's 1st son) with his uncle "Ton" (Grandmother's youngest brother) in "fun" days |
I don't remember Grandmother Pauline talking much about her childhood, except calling her father, "Dad" and about how much he loved his children. She spoke about him with respect. When she was 16-years-old, she fell in love with a 24-year-old man named Roy Lee Warren. She planned to elope with him one evening, but before she could "run off," Dad caught wind of it from one of her brothers, and he sat her down to talk to her. He was a little heartbroken, and said to her (quoting Grandmother, and I hear it in his Southern accent) "If you think more of him than you do me, then go on and run off. But you can stay with us if you have another thought."
A Young Pauline |
Roy Warren, Pauline's First Love on a Tennessee Road |
Her first child, Clara Nell ("Nell") was born nine months later. She wouldn't have her second child, my Dad, Wilburn Andrew, (who took creative license with his birth certificate at 16,) until a year later.
Nell (Warren) and Rob Davis |
My Dad has a story all his own and at 16, he ran away from home to Indiana, got a woman to attest to being present at his birth in Tennessee (she wasn't,) and dropped the hated "Andrew" name. I'm pretty sure my Dad gave Grandmother more gray hairs than she should've earned. To fit into Hoosier life, he also changed the childhood name "Wibby" to Bill, and "Wibby" was always called this by his Tennessee family, but everyone in Indiana called him Bill.
"Wibby" Warren, my Dad, with my mother's nephews, Mike & Dan, long before I was born |
When Dad married my mother he called home and said, "Get the cradle out, I'm bringing home a wife." My mother was not pregnant and on top of this, he had told my mother that he was adopted. He wasn't. Imagine everyone's surprise when she brought this up to his sisters and mother. Grandmother in a half-way teasing voice said , "Law, if he weren't mine, I'd a'never taken him!"
Lillian and Wilburn Warren in Tennessee early in their marriage |
Sue Warren (Morris) with my mother, Lillian Warren in Tennessee |
A year later after Wilburn was born, she would have another child, Melba Sue, and then she got a reprieve from being pregnant for eight years. Alton Lee wouldn't be born until 1942. Alton would suffer from "spells" (epilepsy) until he died in 2008. He was my Grandmother's "baby."
Linda Ann, the youngest of Pauline's and Roy's children |
All of the Warrens: L to R back: Alton Lee, Wilburn & Lillian, Pauline, Roy, Rob & Nell. L to R front: Linda Ann, Gayla, Sue |
Through both her marriages (my Granddaddy Roy died in 1972 and she married Hiluard A. Pope in 1976 who died in 2002) she fished whenever possible. The early years would be on the "river"--Buffalo River or Tennessee River--near Clifton, Tennessee, and the family homeplace and then she fished the Atlantic Ocean when her husband, H.A., would take her to Florida for deep sea fishing.
Nothing was better than fishing, and I think she didn't even care if she got to eat the catfish, brim,bass or perch that they caught. Her hushpuppies were renown, though, and she could not only bait her own hook, but could expertly clean and cook her catch, too. Later when she no longer could go fishing, it was a treat to go to local establishments to eat fish and remember "good times" on the river.
Part 2 of Pauline's Story
2 comments:
Your grandmother was an amazing woman. I don't think they make them like that anymore.
Hi Crystal -
It's wonderful you have a detailed record of your family history. Your grandma lived a long, productive life.
Blessings,
Susan :)
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