They Call Her Babe

I’m sure to get a warm welcome every time I visit. The small bedroom where my grandma lives is cozy. The fragrance of berries perfumes the air. In the background, I hear the hum of her oxygen machine. When I sit on her bed, it feels like home. She sits in the maroon rocker I gave her several years before, laughing and telling stories of the past. Miss Kitty, the only cat ever allowed inside her house, jumps up beside me butting my hand for a rub. 

I can still see her in my mind, years before, sitting at the kitchen table, a book in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Her glasses so thick, they resemble pop bottles. Her dark brown hair was always short and curly. Turning gray wasn’t a problem until she was in her early seventies. The hearing aid that rested behind her ear had been a permanent fixture for as long as I can remember.

She’s loved and respected by all. I can think of many adjectives to describe Babe. She is truthful to the point of telling people exactly what’s on her mind. When she doesn’t agree, you may as well give up, there’s no winning the argument. She is quite opinionated, and whether you wish to hear it or not, she gives it. Sometimes, it is favorable, sometimes disapproving. 

She loves her family whole-heartedly, never turning her back on any. She’s been a mom as well as a grandma for most of her grandkids. She’s one of the hardest workers I’ve ever known. She’s true to her faith in God, warning us when we get out of line. Wisdom is her middle name. There’s not much she hasn’t experienced. She’s always loyal to a cause she believes in. She is full of stubborn pride and it often drives her family to distraction. 

Babe and I have a bond that no one else shares. She had visual impairments and I had no sight at all. Although we lost our sight for different reasons, it didn’t matter. We knew how one another felt. 

We also shared the love of reading. Going blind for me was hard but losing the ability to read devastated me. I began listening to books on tape. I was thrilled to be able to read once again. 

Years later, Babe’s vision grew worse from glaucoma and macular degeneration.  When she couldn’t see to read, I shared my beloved books-on-tape with her, and they became one of her passions. The books filled her long, lonely days with exciting adventure, dazzling romance and moving stories of courage. But I think her own personal story of courage was better than any I’ve ever read.

Babe, my maternal grandmother, was born in the head of a hollow called Riffle Run on June 29, 1917. Riffle Run was three miles from Burnsville, Braxton County, in the heart of West Virginia. French and Rachel Conrad named their second child, and first daughter Gay.  But her two-year-old brother decided she was Babe. The name stuck.

Babe is the head of her family. She’s been a mom to her brothers and sister, her own kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids. From time to time, she’s taken in anyone who needs a meal or a place to sleep. 

Babe is an amazingly strong woman who faced much in her life. When she should’ve been enjoying life as a teenager, she was raising her siblings. But she didn’t let the hard work and hard times taint her. Instead, it molded her into someone special.

I enjoy listening to her tell about growing up during the depression. As she talks, her fingers busily work whatever she has in her hand. She’ll twist a paper towel or tissue into a thousand pieces while she’s in the memories of the past.

Life was hard growing up in West Virginia in the twenties and thirties. With no transportation, Babe’s family traveled little. The Conrads left Riffle Run only once a year for Memorial Day. The family walked to visit Babe’s grandparents, who lived miles across the mountain. She told me, “Decoration Day, we would visit Grandma and Grandpap Blake. It was a long walk and took half the day to get there. But we didn’t care, it was a treat just to go someplace.”

The Conrad farm was located in the head of the hollow, nestled among the hills and woods. It being the last house, there was a sense of isolation. Riffle Run boasted several families. Those neighbors were Babe’s world. Visitors from other hollows dropped by, but the Riffle Run residents were like family. They helped one another with the farm work, butchering, and even birthing babies.

Babe’s mother was sickly, often unable to take care of the family. Babe’s responsibilities were many, being the oldest girl of seven children. Too much of the work rested on her young shoulders. She helped raise her brothers and baby sister. Her chores endless, she would rise before the rooster’s first crow and would be the last to bed. She did the cooking, washing, and much of the outside work. 

“We never seen a doctor. Granny just used herbs and home remedies to take care of anything.” She said as she remembered, her brother Pop’s grave illness. “Pop was going to die. He’d got typhoid from the spring and nothing we done helped.  The doctor came and said he’d surely die. We had his funeral close laid out; when a family friend asked the doc if he could give Pop a drink of moonshine. The doc said it couldn’t hurt.  And you know what?  Pop got better.” 

The family farm was vast and that meant lots of work. Before breakfast, Babe would let the chickens out of their coop and gather the eggs. After milking the cow, her early morning chores were done. She’d go back to the house and make a huge breakfast on the wood cook stove. 

Work on the Conrad farm was never ending. From season to season chores were plentiful.  The spring brought the lambing. There were several gardens to plant.  In the summer, hay had to be shocked, the sheep sheared, gardens weeded and hoed. Apples, peaches, pears, cherries and berries were gathered along with plenty of vegetables to be dried or canned. 

Babe loved to garden, the weedless cornfields and bean patches were her pride and joy. Her skin a deep brown from the sun’s summer rays, she enjoyed being outside, one with the earth. 

Growing the garden was one thing, the canning and drying another. Lots of hot water had to be carried and then boiled on the stove for scalding the jars. Beans had to be strung, corn shucked and cut off the cob. Tomatoes were canned whole but more often juiced. Cutting the hot peppers was tricky. If one wasn’t careful, the end result would be blistered hands. Often beans were laid in the sun to dry, making Babe’s favorite delicacies, fodder beans. In the dead of winter, the fodder beans tasted just like fresh out of the garden.

Autumn was busy finishing up with the harvested food. Making apple butter was an all day job. It took a lot of time to peel and slice the apples. It was made outside in a huge copper kettle simmering over an open fire. It had to be stirred with a long wooden ladle, to escape the bubbling, popping mixture. It had to be cooked slowly until it became a perfect texture.

In the late fall through early winter, the butchering was done. The whole family, along with a few neighbors, joined in this huge task. The meat would be salted for storage and the rest canned.  It was a long tiresome job. Babe learned to sew on a pedal sewing machine. “I was probably no more than six or seven when Granny taught me to sew. We couldn’t afford to buy material so we made all our clothes out of cotton feed sacks.”

With no running water or indoor plumbing, everything was twice as hard. Water had to be carried from a spring. Laundry was done with a washtub and washboard, the only detergent being the harsh lye soap that was made from lard.

In the winter, Babe said her hands would crack from a combination of the harsh lye soap and the bone-numbing cold. “Many a time, my fingers freeze to the clothesline.  Boy that hurt.”

Years later, when she had running water and a washing machine, she still preferred to hang clothes out to dry. Sniffing the shirts, fresh off the line, she would say, “Nothing smells like clothes that’s been hung out.”

Because of her mother’s many ailments, Babe was caring for five brothers and a newborn baby sister when she was only sixteen. They all looked to her as their mom. It wasn’t an easy task reining in five ornery country boys, but she says her sister Pauline was the wild child.

Continue to: They Call Her Babe Page 2

Back to: Author's Spotlight