I am not the mother of daughters, nor do I feel like a granddaughter. Of course, technically, genetically, I have to be. But, I have no memories of grandparents. They were all dead many years before I was born. My mother, Mary's, stories of her mother, brought Grandma Annie to life for me.
Mom often lamented that she should have kept more of her mother's things after she died. At 25, mom lacked the forethought about having relics of her childhood to cherish as she neared her own golden years. Mom did keep one magical piece of jewelry that had belonged to Grandma. It was a round clear pendant on a short thick brass chain. The spherical pendant was about the size of a child's marble. A thin brass band encircled the orb to which the chain attached. Encased inside the clear material was a small yellow mustard seed.
Mother told me the story of the mustard seed from the book of Matthew in the Bible. I remember how fascinating the seed looked floating in the glass ball. The parable of the mustard seed is the first Bible passage I remember hearing. If you have the smallest of faith, faith the size of a mustard seed, mountains will move. A child's mind can grasp the fact that if they believe in God, nothing will be impossible. It's only now in mid-life, that I truly understand the kind of faith my grandmother must have possessed.
In the early 1900's, setting broken hips was difficult, especially in rambunctious little girls. The doctor prescribed that Anna Crowe stay in the barn's horse sling to help her hip bones set. But, she didn't mind the doctor very well. Annie's mother was too busy tending the other 10 kids to keep diligent watch over her. So, her left leg was always shorter than the other. For the rest of Annie's life, she wore a built up shoe to compensate for the fives inches the leg lacked. It was God's blessing she could walk at all.
Annie's father died in 1917, leaving a farm near Bowling Green, Kentucky, to tend. With the prosperity of the 1920's, all of the older Crowe children were lured by the promise of plentiful work with good wages to Indianapolis. Eventually, the farm in Kentucky was sold and Annie's mother and youngest brother also moved to Indianapolis.
It was in Indiana that Annie met her sweetheart, Robert Wall. They laughed together and made the ordinary delicious. Robert was a few years older and was a war veteran. They married and children were forthcoming. Robert was troubled by a vaccine he had while in the army. It was in the days of shared needles. He had been the last of a long line of men to receive vaccinations. But, he persevered.
Annie survived six childbirths, with five boys and a girl to show for it. Unfortunately, the youngest, a sweet brown-eyed cherub named Eugene Dale, contracted meningitis at 2 years of age and passed away. The laughter in the house subsided for a while.
The infection from the bad vaccination had settled in Robert's heart. Little Mary was puzzled the day her father, Robert, passed away in their home. She was five and gave him a good-bye hug while the warmth of life still lingered. When the police and coroner arrived, she saw the police with their guns enter his bedroom. She asked, "Why are they going to shoot dad? He's already dead."
Somehow Annie and her brood of five stayed just this side of hungry through the depression. There were many kindnesses from the ladies of their church. The children received dental care in days when that was rare. Annie's brother-in-law happened to be a dentist with a soft heart. Annie took in laundry and mending. She also made quilts to sell. She worked at the canning factory until it was just too hard for her to stand for long periods of time. Annie's siblings were loving and generous. Surprisingly, of her 10 brothers and sisters, only she and another sister had children.
Then a wonderful and horrible period began. World War II. The depression melted away. Money was easily earned once again. People from the rural areas were swarming to Indianapolis to help with the war effort and make good wages. This swarm would need beds. Entrepreneurial Annie set up a boarding house. She put a roof over ten paying residents.
The war also called her own, a brother and her sons. Her brother, Thomas, and two sons, Wayne and Willie, immediately signed into service. But, the oldest son, James, was exempt as Annie's sole support. When the youngest child, Mary, turned 18, this freed the oldest son. He then joined the merchant marines. Mary became Annie's sole support. In spite of their absence and the ever present possiblity of loss, there was laughter once again in Annie's house. There were games played, jokes told, and gentle teasing. Annie would invite soldiers who visited their church to come to dinner. She hoped a mother somewhere on the other side of the globe was doing the same for hers. There were days of crying and always ceaseless prayer.
Annie was blessed once again. All her loved ones returned unscathed from war. One extraordinary coincidence placed her brother, Thomas, and her son, Wayne, in the same town in France for a short while. As more time passed, she saw her boys and daughter married and grandbabies born. Mary married her long time sweetheart days after he returned from a submarine in the South Pacific.
In her last years, Annie was still cheerful and serving. She took in her son-in-law's orphaned sisters to raise. There was warm refuge in Annie's house. There was laughter.
Annie didn't like doctors much. Wasn't that obvious from disregarding the horse sling in her youth? When she was 56, she went home to the Lord. Untreated cancer took its toll.
I look at this pendant, that belonged to Annie, my grandmother, and I am amazed. She had faith to persevere through her handicap, widowhood, motherhood, depression and war. A woman of lesser faith and lesser stuff may have bemoaned her situation and become bitter. But, it was having the joy of the Lord that kept laughter in her home. I am the fruit of her faith.
Addendum:
Comments from our cousin, Pat Wall Ringer regarding Grandma Anna & family:
As I lived with Grandma Anna Lucy Crowe from age 5 to 6 years of age I can remember that she never locked her doors. She said she did not have that much and she always had her house and heart open to everyone. I think everyone that stayed with her called her Mom. She was always making dollies and working on quilts as I played under the quilting racks in the dining room. I know I had to have manners. I had to ask to be excused from the table when finished eating. Of course, she said children were to be seen, not heard and to speak when spoken to. She was very active in her church Ladies’ Group and can remember them singing In The Garden at her funeral through tears and crying. Anna would always buy me something if she went shopping never spending much, maybe just a game of jacks, but I thought it was great.
I know Nina lived with her and Uncle Tom, Uncle Jimmy and Uncle Willie stayed there some also she had an apartment above and rented it out. She also had an awesome grape arbor in the back yard. I can remember Dad saying she didn't allow card playing, but the boys would play poker in the garage, played a silly poker game called nosey poker and if you won you hit the loser across their nose with the cards. Only the Wall gang would play a game like that. Dad said his brothers with get in a fight with someone and he would be the one to do the fights. He said he was not tall but height did not make a man. I think you had be tough in those days to survive, I do know the boys guit school in order to help support their Mom and told Aunt Mary they wanted her to finish school. I also remember Great Grandma Florence, I used to thread her needle as she had a hard seeing, can't believe I did that at that age and I remember calling her Grandma Great. Uncle Willie and Uncle Tom used to tease me all the time calling me a Hoosier and I would get so angry as I was a Ridgerunner not a Hoosier as I had moved to Ind. from Knoxville, Tn. I have a newspaper photo of me in Tn. putting flowers on an unknown soldier grave I was about 3 or 4.
Lucy Anna Wall circa 1910 Indianapolis,
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