Rosebud
Debra Jo Myers
©
Copyright 2025 by Debra Jo Myers
|
Photo courtesy of the author. |
My
hands gripped the steering wheel as my car maneuvered the sharp turns
of the mountain road. I couldn’t wait to get there. This trip
into the Appalachian Mountains of Kentucky wasn’t about the
beautiful scenery or unique wildlife. Gigi told me to watch for the
thick green trees underneath the big sky painting a breathtaking
picture. But my mind was focused on my mission, and my eyes focused
on the road winding ahead, so I hardly noticed. I had been waiting
for a chance to see what was left of the home Gigi grew up in. The
farmland Gigi talked about where her family grew radishes and picked
them to take to the Farmer’s Market. I envisioned her with her
siblings’ carrying buckets into the fields. I felt like
venturing here could help me to help Gigi.
As
I drove higher up, it felt as if the lush forest was taking over the
road as it narrowed, and I entered the town of Weeksbury. I wanted to
take good news back to Gigi that I found her sister living here.
Maybe I would learn that the family had all disbursed from Floyd
County. I wanted to go back and give Gigi answers to her questions. I
had heard stories of my great aunts and uncles since I was little.
Instead of a traditional bedtime story, Gigi would tell me colorful
adventures and tribulations of growing up in the Kentucky hills. I
wished I could meet just one of her siblings, because there weren’t
any pictures taken back in the early 1900’s. Gigi would
describe them, and I would imagine how they looked. She said all of
her sisters were ‘strikin’ beauties’, her brothers
‘rugged mount’n men’.
I
began to daydream about my own memories with Grandma Gigi.
I
jumped up and down. Daddy put my puffy coat on over my Little Lulu
pajamas. I grabbed my Mrs. Beasley doll and ran to the car. It was
time for mama to go to the hospital. I was not quite three, and our
baby was coming. I would stay with Gigi, and she would make my
favorite ‘booberry’ cakes, (blueberry pancakes). Gigi
would put in too many blueberries, and the batter would turn purple,
my favorite color. It was my first real memory. I treasure it today.
It is warm and fuzzy and with my Gigi.
Gigi
was a walking, talking Southern woman. She grew up in this part of
Kentucky in a large, poor family. The family had two meals a day.
‘Rise ‘n shine’ at 7 and supper at 4. Her cooking
specialties were Southern omelets, fried chicken, and three-layer
coconut cake. I hated coconut flakes, so when I was there, Gigi made
strawberry shortcake. She seemed to always have on an apron she made
with patchwork designs bordered with rickrack. If it wasn’t an
apron, it was an old yellow terry cloth housecoat.
I
would sit on her Formica kitchen countertop while she cooked. With
only one old rickety box fan on the floor, she’d get so hot,
she’d stand in front of the icebox and say, “Hot ‘nough
ta scald a liz’erd into a giz’erd ‘n here.”
Gigi said, “Havin’ grub’s like livin’ in high
cotton.” She told stories of when she went hungry. They
sometimes had only broth, oats, and radishes for supper. She had
eight siblings, and she was the oldest. She spent her early life
taking care of them. Then Gigi spent her later years taking care of
Papa, day and night.
She
didn’t learn to drive a car and didn’t want to. Gigi
said, “Ain’t gonna fine dis ole southern mama splatt’ed
‘n da concrete.” She was content with being at home. She
believed it’s where women were supposed to be. She’d say,
“Mama’s gotta care der young’ins, Rosebud, no goin’
off ta work ‘til day grown. Shouldn’t nobody be carin’
fer dem babies ‘cept mama!”
She
was the only person who ever called me Rosebud. As a little girl,
Gigi’s lap was comforting. As an adult, I took comfort in just
being and talking with her. Whenever I saw her, even now, she’d
say “Rosebud, give me some a dat sugar ‘n let me hug yer
perty neck.”
She
would play games with me that she made up. I got to dig in the dirt.
Mama wouldn’t have allowed it. Getting dirty meant getting in a
tub filled with Mr.
Bubble.
Gigi had a big box and would dump it in. She said, “Yer mama
not pickin’ ya up less you’s squeaky clean n fine as a
frog’s hair split three ways.”
She
called this game, ‘dem dang pests’. I’d look for
ants, worms, lightning bugs, and the coveted grasshopper. I would
coax insects into a canning jar. Each pest was one point, except the
grasshopper. Gigi said it was five points since it jumped like ‘a
cat on a hot tin roof’. Gigi would play along with me. Whoever
had the most in their jar got to pick dessert. It was a big deal.
Pie, cake, cookies, or homemade ice cream. All were equally yummy.
After
every meal, she swept the tile kitchen floor with a cornhusk broom
and mopped with an old rope mop in a metal bucket with a wringer
attached. When she finally sat down, it was not to rest, but to sew.
She’d say, “Got britches ta be mendin’, Rosebud.”
She’s the reason I learned to sew the old-fashioned way, by
hand with a needle and thread.
Gigi
enjoyed planting vegetables in her backyard. Whenever I visited,
she’d give me the tin watering can and let
me do the watering.
There were tomatoes,
beans, cucumbers, and of course, radishes. There was a clothesline
stretched across the other side of the yard, and there were clothes
on it all the time. I got to help plant Petunias every spring. Gigi
said, “Gotta plant tunias’ cuz day a hearty perty
flu’er.” There was a wooden swing on the back porch, and
a big barrel that had balls and wooden bats in it.
She
loved to sit on the front porch in her rocker. Her brothers, Albert
and David, made that chair for their mama. Gigi said, “Dis
chair’s ancient, ‘n goin’ down ‘n his’try..”
No matter what the weather, Gigi sat after supper until Papa hollered
for her. She liked to watch people go by and guess where they were
going. She didn’t really know, she made it up, and it was fun.
“See
dat gent’man in da truck, Rosebud? He be on da way ta get air
in ‘dem tires. Cuz dat one on back’s ‘bout flat. He
be mad as dickins he be late to see his boy playin’ ball cuz a
dat flat tire.” She’d giggle.
If
she saw a car with a little girl, she’d say “Dat girl’s
perty, but not like me Rosebud.” Then she’d say, “Give
me some dat sugar ‘n a neck hug.”
When
Papa hollered, Gigi went. Papa was a grumpy old man. Knowing what I
knew, he was entitled to be grumpy. Daddy said he fought in the war,
he worked in the coal mines, in the fields, and on the railroad.
Before Papa was fifty, his hands and feet were curling up. He
couldn’t hold silverware to feed himself, and he’d get
mad because he couldn’t hang on to his pipe. He had to sit in a
highchair because it was painful to bend his knees. I never thought
he was kind to Gigi or heard him thank her. She didn’t expect
that. She took care of him because that’s what she was supposed
to do.
No
matter what the temperature was outside, Papa was cold. He wore a
checkered flannel shirt, suspenders, trousers, and had a hankie
hanging out of his pocket. He would yell that he needed Bufferin then
he’d swallow a handful. I remember him yelling, “Hurry,
dagnabit! Ya make a fella mad as a mule chewin’ on bumblebees!”
When
I was there, he called me ground squirrel or bullfrog. He talked
about living in Kentucky too. He didn’t live on the mountain,
but in the town of Weeksbury where his Ma and Pa owned a hardware
store. Papa said people stole from the store. He said his Pa would
get out his rifle and shew them away. I hung on every word. Gigi told
me otherwise. She said Papa ‘Don’t have da sents God gave
a Billy goat’.
Gigi
met Papa when she was seventeen selling radishes at the Farmer’s
Market. She said he was smitten with her and kept coming back every
Saturday for weeks. He told her about his
family and about his
time in France
during World War One. Papa was twenty-two. A year had passed when he
told Gigi he got work in Tennessee in the coal mines. He wanted to
take her. Even though he didn’t have a ring, he got on one knee
and asked her if she’d get hitched. She said, “Ya, but
mama needin’ time ta sew me weddin’ dress.” A week
later up on the mountain Gigi wore her pure white dress detailed in
lace and beads mama had saved for her eldest daughter’s dress.
Surrounded by her family and officiated by the only preacher she they
knew, they said their vows. Gigi and Papa moved to Elizabethton,
Tennessee the next day.
Because
of her accent, Gigi had funny ways of wording things. She only went
to school through fifth grade. She’d had to quit to help her
mama with her younger siblings. She told me it was important to her
that I ‘git my schoolin’n git good marks’. My dad
was the youngest of her five children. They were all smart and two of
them were their class valedictorian. They all had a Southern draw
too, but not like Gigi’s or even Papa’s. I would try to
talk like them. She would laugh and say, “Ya got Southern
gumption, Rosebud, runnin’ in yer veins from yer Gigi!”
When
I was nine years old, I began to sense my mom wasn’t herself.
One night long after I went to bed, she came in and said we needed to
go for a drive. My mom parked in a dark parking lot behind a big
building. I watched her disappear inside.
Suddenly
she was back in the car, and she was mad. I tried to ask her what was
wrong, but she wasn’t talking. There were more late-night trips
to bars where my dad was drinking. Mom would go inside and tell him
to go get in the car. He would get in the back seat and make me laugh
making faces behind her back. Then he would pass out. When we got
home, mom left him in the car until morning.
After
that, worked overnight and was at home only when he was sleeping. My
mom stopped waking him to have dinner with us. He stopped coming home
to see me in the morning when he got off work before I left for
school. When he was awake mom would yell at him about drinking. It
happened over and over, day after day. I started listening more
carefully to her. One day I heard mom tell dad he was an alcoholic,
and he needed help. She said drinking was more important to him than
we were. I didn’t know much about the alcoholic part because
what resonated with me was hearing that we weren’t important to
dad.
Friday
night was when we visited Gigi and Papa. I came home and instead mom
was waiting to take me to see what would be our new home. She and dad
were divorcing, selling our house, and moving apart. I was twelve. I
asked her if after we saw the house she was taking me to see Gigi.
She said that it was dad’s responsibility to take us to visit
them now. I got mad, but mom seemed robotic in the whole process. She
didn’t talk to me about what had happened. I
began to feel like I’d lost my dad and my mom. And my Gigi.
Following
their divorce, my dad’s condition only got worse. Without a
home, he moved back into Gigi’s house. She
spent her life taking care of family. No matter what my dad did, he
was her family, and she would take care of him. On Friday’s dad
was supposed to pick me up for the night Yet I can’t think of a
time he did. I felt completely disconnected from him and from Gigi.
His time there at
Gigi’s didn’t
last long. He was drinking heavily. He was arrested and spent time in
jail. A year after the divorce, he ended up in prison as a habitual
offender driving under the influence. He was still there when my Papa
died. He was the first person close to me to die. Dad didn’t
get to go to the funeral for his own dad because he was in prison.
Mom
now had to work full-time, and I would come home after school and be
alone for hours. I had to do chores and sometimes get dinner ready. I
didn’t see or talk to my dad, and ever since he’d gone to
prison, I rarely got to visit Gigi.
When
I turned sixteen and got my first car, I drove to visit her. That day
was the first time Gigi looked old to me. She wasn’t in the
kitchen cooking or on the front porch in her rocker. I found her in
the back bedroom of the house, the room my dad stayed in when he was
there. The bed I slept in when I was younger and spent the night. I
sat down next to her, and she woke up and smiled. I talked for an
hour about school, friends, and my car while she only listened. When
I left, she said to me, “Rosebud, promise Gigi ya be comin’
back. I been missin’ ya. I been under da weather. Seein’
ya makes me smile.” And I promised.
Gigi
had a stroke a year later. I was eighteen and getting ready to leave
for college. She said she was ‘movin’ ta de ole folks’
home’. Gigi wasn’t comfortable having someone take care
of her after spending her life taking care of everyone else. She said
she felt like ‘grinnin’ like a possum eatin’ sweet
taters’. The nurses and residents loved her and voted her
Sweetheart
Queen
her first year there. Her biggest complaint - ‘Who ‘n
tarnation’s doin’ da cookin’ round here?”
Gigi missed her own cooking. I missed it too. And as hard as I tried
to imitate it, it wasn’t the same as Gigi’s. Hers were
made with southern love.
There
was no one in the family to care for her at home, so Gigi lived in
the home for the next 25 years. They gave her a room of her own. She
decorated it with her beloved dolls. My uncle hung shelves to display
them. During her years there, my aunts bought her new clothes every
Mother’s Day. Red silky blouses were her favorite. Back at
home, Gigi didn’t wear fancy clothes or think of herself as
beautiful. Her aide, Melissa, told her that was nonsense. She wheeled
her to the beauty shop at the nursing home, and they would fix her
hair, paint her nails, and help her with her makeup. She loved bright
red lipstick, and she developed a love for jewelry, especially
dangling earrings.
Two
years before she died, Gigi got dementia. It came on suddenly and
took us by surprise. Most of the time she didn’t know who
anyone was. She began calling me Flora. Flora was one of her five
sisters. I thought it was an honor being
like I was her sister.
My oldest
daughter was three then. If I brought her with me to see Gigi, she’d
think she was her youngest sister. She would call her baby Dolly.
Gigi
was closest to her sister, Georgia. One time when Gigi was a
teenager, Georgia ran away, and her mama sent her to search for her.
She ran through the woods yelling her name until it got dark. Gigi
said she sobbed when she couldn’t find Georgia. She thought
she’d been eaten up by animals or had fallen down the mountain.
As she started to go tell mama she didn’t find her, she glanced
over and spotted Georgia asleep hanging onto her baby doll in the
back of Pa’s old beat-up truck.
She
would talk about her brothers as if they were just outside. She would
say, “Y’all boys gonna make Pa mad as all git out if ya
ain’t got dem chores done.” Gigi said they wouldn’t
listen to no one but Pa. She would take her dolls off the shelves,
and line them up, calling them by her sister’s names. It could
be funny, but it could also be heartbreaking.
I
was in my thirties
before I found out Gigi’s real name. It was Charles Marcella
Raine. I asked my daddy why she had a boy’s name. He told me
Gigi’s mama wanted her name to be Charlotte, but she’d
had little schooling and didn’t know how to spell it. Gigi was
delivered at home, so her mama had no one to ask. When they got a
copy of her birth certificate, it said Charles. It didn’t
matter. Her mama called her Charlie. Gigi would say, “Lord have
mercy! Cuz a my name, folks fancied me a boy. Well, jus don’t
call me late ta supper, I say.” And she’d let out a
howling laugh.
There
were visits where Gigi asked me questions about her siblings in
Kentucky. Of course, I didn’t have the answers. When I told
Gigi, she’d either get angry, or she’d become sad and cry
for them. She’d say she wanted to go home to see them. Flora,
and I learned more about Gigi’s childhood because she talked to
me.
However,
it was the day I went to see her that Gigi was more lucid than she’d
been in weeks that ultimately sent me out on these mountain roads in
the Appalachian’s to find answers. Any answers. Gigi knew all
four of her brothers and two of her sisters were gone. But she wasn’t
sure about her two youngest sisters. She asked me to try to find her
sister, Dolly (aka Della). Gigi said she’d raised Dolly. She
told me seeing her again was her dying wish.
When
I saw the sign ahead, my heart started racing. Only another mile to
Weeksbury where Aunt Dottie said she might figure out how to find
Della. I had no idea who or what I would find, but I needed to know,
not just for Gigi, but for myself. It was a whole side of my family
I’d never met. Even finding one of them would be worth the
elevation of 1100 feet up this mountain.
After
the exit, I saw the arrow that led me to the dirt trail Gigi told me
would take me there. And there it was. It was still standing. The
little cabin where Gigi and her family once lived. It was abandoned.
I walked through all the tiny rooms trying to envision Gigi’s
siblings playing and sleeping together there. As I came back out on
the porch, I looked over the mountain to get a first-hand glimpse of
the beauty Gigi described. It was magnificent, and despite the
sadness I was feeling, I took a deep breath of the crisp air and
smiled. Living up here wouldn’t be so bad after all.
I
drove further down the dirt road and came across a cul-de-sac of four
cabins at the dead end. I felt a glimmer of hope. Could someone from
my family live here? I parked and walked toward the closest cabin
when a little girl, about five, came running toward me.
“Are
you a stranger?”
“Well,
I hope I don’t look strange to you. I’m looking for
Della. Do you know anyone with that name?”
Without
a word, the girl turned and ran back inside the cabin. My instincts
told me I should explain that I hadn’t meant to frighten her. I
knocked, and I asked the woman if she knew anyone whose last name was
Raine. She got a big grin on her face. Then she introduced herself as
Anna Blanchard. She asked me why I was asking about the Raine family.
When I began to explain, the woman began nodding her head.
“I’ll
be! You’re my cuz’in. Our grannies were sis’tas. My
grannie was Dora Raine Livin’ston. I knew ‘bout her
sib’lins but never got to meet grannie Dora. She died ’fore
I was five. My dad was her son. He didn’t talk much ‘bout
her or the fam’ly. I know they lived ‘n the cabin at the
entrance to our lane. I b’lieve it’s the reason my dad
wanted to live up here.”
Anna
talked slightly southern like my aunts. We walked outside, and Anna
pointed out the cabin her parents had lived in. Now it was empty. Her
brother lived in the cabin on the right side of hers, and her oldest
daughter’s family lived in the other.
“I’m
’fraid I don’t know much else. I’m so pleased I got
to meet ‘cha. I only know a cup’la my cuz’ins.
Would you like a cup of coffee?”
I
thanked her and declined. I explained I was on a mission to find
Della for Gigi. If Della was alive, I was determined to find a way
for a video chat. With Gigi being the oldest sibling, Della likely
thought she’d passed away. Della would only be in her early
seventies. I could make this happen for my Gigi If I found Della.
Gigi
had talked about her sister Dora. She was Flora’s twin. Talking
to Anna, she was under the impression that all the Raine siblings had
died. She said even if Della were alive, she didn’t
have any connections to
find out. Her
dad would have known, but he died two years earlier. I was grateful
to have met Anna and her granddaughter, Olivia. I got their address,
thanked her, and we shared a hug.
I
started back down
the mountain road. This time I went slower trying to take it in.
Growing up here must have been hard. In the miles I’d driven to
the little cabin nestled in the rough terrain, there were other
cabins here and there but no real signs of civilization as I knew it
growing up. I thought the town I grew up in was small but couldn’t
imagine having no town at all living in these mountains of Kentucky.
I
went into Weeksbury when I got to the bottom. There was a country
store there, and I wanted to grab coffee before I continued my
search. The older gentleman at the counter asked if I was an
out-of-towner. He said he’d lived there and owned the store for
sixty years, and he’d not seen me there before. I explained I
was an out-of-towner, and why I was there. When I said I was looking
for any of the living children of Ora and Elizabeth Raine, he got a
big grin on his face.
“I
knew a few back ‘n da day. One of da Raine boys, Daniel, I
think, ran da merc’tile his dad owned down on the left. When he
passed, da fam’ly sold it. There was a slew of ‘em. Perty
sure they all passed now. You relation?”
I
told him my grandmother went by the name ‘Charlie,’ and
she was almost 97 years old. He was tickled. He remembered her
vaguely and mentioned her leaving there when he was a boy. He also
told me that Gigi’s youngest brother, Albert, had been a
friend, and he knew all of her sisters too. As much as I wanted to
keep talking to him, he had to tend to customers. I did manage to ask
his name, so I could tell Gigi we’d met. Andy Christenson.
There
was only one more place Gigi said I might look. She said Della had
one daughter. When Papa was offered a job on
the railroad in
Indiana, he and Gigi
brought my dad and my two aunts and moved, leaving my two older
uncles in Tennessee. A year later, Papa’s daddy died, and he
went alone to his funeral in Kentucky. There, Papa’s gossipy
sister, Patty, told him Della had a daughter, but she had
complications and wasn’t able to have more children. Patty
lived in Kingsport near the hills. She said Della was living in
Virgie, a city about twenty miles east. She told Papa to tell Gigi
that Della named her daughter, Charlotte, after her. Patty said Della
had called her Lottie, not Charlie. Gigi told me when she found out
about that, she said “My baby sis, my baby Dolly havin’ a
li’l Charlie called Lottie warms my heart.” Patty
couldn’t remember what Della’s married name was. And by
now Charlotte might be married too, and she had no idea what her last
name was either.
After
that funeral Gigi and Papa didn’t go back to Kentucky. That was
the last time either she or Papa saw or talked with any family there.
I told Gigi that was unusual. Most families stay in touch even when
they move apart. She said, “Hill folk don’t take kindly
ta kin leavin’ home.” And that was that.
The
drive to Virgie wasn’t as curvy as the drive into the hills but
was just as beautiful. It was late in May, and everything was in
bloom. As I entered the small town, I needed to figure out how to
find someone without a last name. Virgie had a population of around
4500. It was already 2 pm, and I had a five-hour drive home. That
meant I had four hours to find them. And it took only ten minutes.
I
giggled when I looked up and saw a Kentucky Fried Chicken and decided
to pull in there to grab a bite. I went inside to use the bathroom
first, and while I was in the stall, I overheard two women at the
sink talking. One of their names was Lottie. It dawned on me. Della
called her daughter Lottie.
Could
it possibly be? When I came out of the stall, the women were still
there. I had to take a chance.
“Excuse
me, ladies. I didn’t mean to overhear, but is one of you
Lottie? I happen to be looking for someone by that name.”
The
older of two women said, “I’m Lottie. You are?”
I
explained I was there from Indiana looking for my grandmother’s
sister. I didn’t have a last name, but was told her daughter’s
name was Charlotte, and she went by Lottie. I told them that my
grandma’s sister’s maiden name was Della Raine.
“Well,
my word! You can stop lookin’. I’m Lottie Burke, and my
mama’s Della Raine Owens.”
I
couldn’t believe it! I was so overjoyed that I grabbed Lottie
and hugged her. It took her by surprise, but she laughed and hugged
me back. She went on to tell me that Della was alive and well, but
she no longer lived in Kentucky. She and her husband, Don, had moved
to Florida five years ago. She gave me Della’s phone number
telling me her mother would be thrilled to be able to talk to Gigi.
Lottie said Della had no idea whether any of her siblings were still
living, and especially not Gigi, the oldest.
Charlotte,
her friend Allison, and I had lunch and shared stories. She said
Della idolized her big sister, Charlie. Gigi would be excited to hear
my news. Her dying wish would be granted!
When
I returned home, I couldn’t wait to see Gigi to tell her about
my travels and her sister Della. I arrived and she was sleeping. I
stood and began really taking in her room. I pictured Gigi as a
little girl in that cabin wishing for a room like this. An aide came
to the door and motioned for me. She told me that Gigi had developed
a respiratory infection and had problems breathing. She had become
delusional and combative. Her doctor had been there and given her a
sedative. He asked my aunt
about bringing in oxygen for her. Then I learned that Gigi told Aunt
Dottie weeks ago that if she got sick, she wanted them to let God
take her. I went in and gave Gigi some sugar and a neck hug.
Looking
at her, I could not hold back my tears. I couldn’t imagine not
having Gigi here anymore. She slowly opened her eyes and smiled. I
sat down on the bed next to her. She spoke in a whisper.
“Bless
yer
heart, Rosebud, don’t cha cry. I be headin’ up yonder. I
been ‘round da sun a lot a times. It ain’t far up yonder.
One day ya can come ta visit.” She pointed toward heaven. “Did
ya find my Dolly?” I shook my head yes and began to tell her
everything and watched her smile and her eyes twinkle. I laid my head
down on the pillow next to hers.
“Ah,
now. Ya done good by me, Rosebud. ‘N ya got ta see my Dolly. I
can feel I’m goin’, but I can fine Dolly up yonder one
day. Now give me more a dat sugar.”
I
kissed her somehow knowing it would be the last time. It was a
blessing to me that in her last moments I got to tell her about
Dolly, and she was lucid and remembered me, not as Flora, but that I
was her ‘Rosebud.’
Gigi
died the next morning. She was almost 97.
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