She was born in 1897 and when her mother died in 1915 she became the head of her family, as was the custom among us, our kind of Christians.
She was nearly six feet tall, and could take a black snake whip and kill flies with it.
I am her literary executor, and every little bit another college kid studying the Ozarks finds me and they always want to know if in real life, was she the shuffling old shoeless ignorant hillbilly woman in a bonnet that Irene Ryan played to perfection on the television series.
I’ll refer them to Deportees, another song she had all us grandkids memorize, and be able to explain every line.
She was a suffragette. An absolute Prohibitionist. She despised war, all wars, she loved peace. She followed the Master, and she truly loved the least among us, which she taught us was all the same.
But in real life, she always looked like Emmylou Harris, or Joan Baez.
I’d take my girlfriends to visit her, and no boy ever had a better wingman.
She was nearly six feet tall, and could take a black snake whip and kill flies with it.
I am her literary executor, and every little bit another college kid studying the Ozarks finds me and they always want to know if in real life, was she the shuffling old shoeless ignorant hillbilly woman in a bonnet that Irene Ryan played to perfection on the television series.
I’ll refer them to Deportees, another song she had all us grandkids memorize, and be able to explain every line.
She was a suffragette. An absolute Prohibitionist. She despised war, all wars, she loved peace. She followed the Master, and she truly loved the least among us, which she taught us was all the same.
But in real life, she always looked like Emmylou Harris, or Joan Baez.
I’d take my girlfriends to visit her, and no boy ever had a better wingman.
