#mywriting #family #traditions

Grandmother Epsie
I can only speak of what I know of some Southern US traditions. In the rural areas it was the mother who did a lot of the teaching of her
large number of children. The schools were at a distance from where the farming families lived. Teaching materials and books were limited. It was mostly the Holy Bible that was used to teach reading, and writing.

When I was a young girl I occasionally lived with my Grandmother Epsie in a small, one room apartment in Pensacola, Florida. (Grandmother was out of the rural Alabama woods. All of her children were grown.) In the room there was her bed, a night table, a stove and a round wooden dining table in the center of the room with several chairs. She also had an old Singer Sewing Machine.
It was at the table in the center of the room where I would sit in a chair, and my Grandmother would sit beside me with a Bible. She was teaching me how to read and write, just as she had done with her children, including my mother, who was the youngest of her eleven children. I was about five years old, and due to start 1st Grade when I was six. She was a serious woman, and serious about her teaching. She smiled, but I never remembered her laughing. That is one reason the event that took place during one of our reading lessons was so memorable.
She read.
Jeremiah 1:17
17 Thou therefore gird up thy loins, and arise, and speak unto them all that I command thee: be not dismayed at their faces, lest I confound thee before them.
Then Grandmother pointed to the same verse I was to read.
I read: “Thou therefore grind up thy lions, and arise…”

Suddenly, a shocked look spread across her face, and then she started laughing…uncontrollable, joyous laughter, almost howling. I was stunned. I wondered what I had said to cause such laughter. She finally calmed down, and wiped laughing tears from her eyes with a little handkerchief. She could hardly stop smiling at me, and assured me that I had done nothing wrong. We read the verse together. “Grid up thy loins.” I had no idea what loins could be. She knew I didn’t know, and she wasn’t about to explain what loins were. The subject wasn’t about sex, but it was too close to that general area.