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I was thinking about my Granny Ross tonight. She would have been 119 years old on February 23. She lived to be 96 years old and outlived all of her 9 children but three. When my Mother died at the age of 45, Granny told me that her only wish was to die before any of her other babies. She lived for three more years but still got her wish. I miss my Mother and Granny still.

My Granny was a hill woman. She was born and raised in Oil Trough, Arkansas before the turn of the 20th century. Oil Trough was a very small community between Batesville, the County seat, and Newport. Oil Trough got it’s name because the first settlers used logs to hew out troughs to render bear oil and then float it down the White River to sell in New Orleans.
Granny was well educated for a woman of her time. Her father, Grandpa Nichols, ran a ‘school for boy’ in his home. Granny and all her sisters and brother were expected to be able to take over teaching if Grandpa Nichols was not able to. In her teens, Granny studied nursing with Dr. Wyatt and later taught school in a one room schoolhouse. She married a man 4 years younger than her and “gave” him 2 of her years so they would be the same age. She survived him by 50 year, never marrying or even stepping out with another man. Granny chewed tobacco and bragged about never having a drink unless it was for medicinal purposes. She thought that Granny on the Beverly Hillbillies was based on her husband’s Aunt Laura. Granny could render lard, butcher a turtle, pick a hundred pounds of cotton a day, doctor any injury, make soap, play the piano, rock the most quarrelsome baby to sleep, and make the best biscuits in the world.
Granny’s husband died in 1932, six months before her last child, my mother, was born. All we knew of Grandpa was what Granny told us and that wasn’t a lot. She cried, even after all the years, when she talked about him. But she would tell us about her Dad and his family.
Grandpa Nichols was born near Nashville, Tennessee before the Civil War began. They lived in a two story house along the main road going into Nashville. During the War, Nashville saw some action, quiet a lot of action. With Grandpa’s Daddy gone off to the war, Grandma Nichols had to handle a houseful; her six boys, her nephews and her sister who came to live with her, and the many travelers who passed along the road. Some of the travelers were the wounded headed home, some were deserters, some were the Southern troops, and some were the Yankee troops. Grandma Nichols considered the deserters to be the worst of the worst and thought that they were dangerous to a houseful of women and kids, but they were nothing a shotgun bearing Mamma couldn’t handle. Only the Yankee troops were more dangerous.
Grandma Nichols was not an educated woman in the way of books, but she had grown up in the wilderness of Tennessee where good sense was what kept people alive. She was vigilant when watching the road for whatever harm might be on its way. When the traveler was a wounded soldier, whether Yankee or Southerner, she offered shelter in the barn and what ever food the family was having. When the traveler was a deserter, she carried her shotgun to the gate and sent them on their way. When it was the Southern troops moving through, the Stars and Bars were flown from the flag pole that was attached to the porch post in front of the house. If it was the Yankees, the Stars and Strips was flown from the flag pole. Whatever flag was flying, the other was hidden in an old pillow slip that was stacked among the quilts.
Grandma Nichols was not a dummy. Instead of burying all the silver in the house, she kept a small amount so that the Yankees would believe they were poor folk and that was all they had left. She’d keep a small amount of sugar, coffee, beans, and flour out in the kitchen and tell the Yankees that it was all she had to feed her kids, when, in fact there was more staples hidden in cave in the woods behind the house. None of the kids knew that there was food hidden so they wouldn’t slip up and tell in case the Yankees asked. All they knew was that Momma was good at finding food when food was in short supply in Nashville.
Grandma was a pretty good hunter, too. She’d learned to shoot when she was young because all wilderness women had to know how back then. The men folk weren’t always around to defend them so it was necessary for the women to be able to defend themselves and to hunt when food was needed. Grandpa Nichols said that there was always meat on the table, even if it was just squirrel or opossum.
Grandma Nichols was a strong woman and she raised her children during a time when it was necessary for a woman to be strong to survive. She buried her second son herself, sewing a shroud, washing his body and dressing it, and digging the grave herself as there were no men in the household to do the chore. This strength was what helped Grandma Nichols survive, and her family survive, during the War. She was not much different than other Southern women that lived during her lifetime; strong, smart women who kept their families safe and alive.