Things That I Remember About my Papo and Mamo and Their House in Louisiana

Papo and Mamo are my mother’s parents. They always lived in Louisiana—first in the country, then in town. The only house that I remember them living in was a wooden house painted white with a small porch on the front. It was on a corner lot, and there was a big garden to the right of the house, chickens in the back, and a detached garage next to the chicken house. When Mamo and Papo went into a nursing home, my mother and her sisters and brother rented the house. They eventually sold it after Mamo and Papo passed away. When they broke up the house, I received a feather pillow, a photo of D and me that Mamo and Papo had in their living room, and a print of a girl playing the piano with angels dropping rose petals on her. Later a friend told me that the print was Saint Mary of the Roses. I’m sure that my Baptist grandmother would roll over in her grave if she knew that the girl was a Catholic saint!  Below is a picture of my grandparents as I remember them.  (Click on photo to see them better.)

 

Here is a list of some of the other things that I remember about Mamo and Papo and their house:

- Papo’s big garden on the side of the house.
- Helping Papo pick strawberries, then eating them with vanilla ice cream.
- Mamo cutting the ice cream in slices to put the strawberries on.  (The ice cream was in a rectangle shape, not in a tub.)
- Helping Papo shell peas on the front porch.
- Water that was so soft that it felt slimy.
- The noisy ceiling fan in the hallway that made me cold if I sat on the floor below it.
- Typing on Mamo’s manual typewriter that sat on a roll-top desk in the front bedroom.
- Mamo reading the Bible aloud to everyone before we ate breakfast.
- Going to church on Sunday morning and Sunday evening and singing hymns like “What a Friend we Have in Jesus,” “Standing on the Promises,” and “The Old Rugged Cross.”
- Falling asleep during the sermon with my head on Mamo’s lap.
- Eating from dark green dishes that Mamo got out of boxes of oatmeal.
- Feeding the chickens.
- Swinging in the metal glider that was in the side yard.
- Riding to the Piggly Wiggly grocery store in their black four-door deluxe Chevrolet made in 1940. (The rear doors were called "suicide" doors because they opened from the back.)
- Hearing the wooden floor creak when you walked on it, especially in the living room.
- Banging on their piano that was in the dining room.
- My hair curling because of the humid Louisiana weather.
- Standing in front on the gas heater in the living room in order to get warm. See photo below of a heater that is similar to the one they had.  (Click on photo to enlarge.)