This morning at church the organist played Rock of Ages during the service.
It got me to thinking of my grandparents. I remember being at Bethlehem Methodist Church - Chester county as a child with my family including grandparents and singing that song.
My grandfather was elderly when I first remember him. He was slight of build. around 5"ft-8 it seems to me. He was stooped so could have been taller. He had a full white beard and made me think of biblical times. I remember him carrying me home on his back when I sprained my ankle. He was 72 when I was born and therefore didn't have good health at that time. We called him granddaddy Tommy. They lived near us until they died. My father had lumber sawed from the farm on which we lived with which to build granddaddy and grandma Maggie a house. My grandfather Jesse F. Beam sawed the lumber at his saw mill on Douglas Creek below our house. That house is now gone. Then moved across the road into another house.
They lived across the road from us for a while and that is where granddaddy died. Their grandchild lived with them. The road to that house was rough so Daddy had wood off the farm cut into lumber to build them a house nearer to ours. By this time grandmamma Maggie was not well and my mother looked after her.
Grandmama Maggie had reared a large family. Some lived nearby but she and granddaddy always wanted Emmie to care for them. She had six children but some how dealt with the care of 2 elderly people in addition.
Grandmama Maggie developed an abdominal hernia at some time in her life and as she grew older it sometimes would strangulate and cause her pain and thereafter her life she also suffered from what would later be diagnosed as emphysema (after her death).
Her doctor prescribed morphine for her to alleviate the pain she experienced and she developed dependence on it in her later years. My father was very upset over this and they had to try to keep her from taking too much of it.
She had, as most farm women, worked in the fields - had a garden chickens etc. She saved wood ash and made her own soap. She was a hard worker and by the time I remember her was a worn and old lady. We children loved them both dearly but we were their younger grandchildren and the excitement for small children had worn off.
She was bedridden in our home for 6 or 8 weeks before her death and someone sat by her bed for the entire time. The neighbors took turns with this and helped with meals.
My aunts and uncles came too, but the heaviest burden was on my mother as she had six children to send to school, cook, wash + iron for - all of this during Feb + Mar. I was ten when she died.
She had had a very difficult time as a child. She was born 1862 during the civil war. My mother said that she told her of her early days.
Her mother was left in charge of their farm when her father and brother went to war. A cousin of sorts promised to help her. Instead he took advantage of her and grandmamma Maggie was born. Her mother lost the farm, her slaves and of course her good name from all of this. (Again the civil war had a profound effect on the members of our family) When she [Maggie] was about 8 a neighbor family took her into their home to help her with her children. For the first time Maggie had a sense of family as this good lady treated her as her own and instilled in her a desire to better herself.
She was a good mother and wife and respected by her friends and neighbors.
We are what we make of ourselves!!!