She was a 4 feet, ll inch dynamo with jet black hair and Elizabeth Taylor blue eyes. I remember her saying that those
eyes only occurred once in a generation. My sister got them
and I did not.

Her name was Missouri Trammel Thorne. She grew up before
the Civil War in Texas. She learned all the lady like arts
and could make a dress in one day with tiny little stitches.
She tatted and made her own lace. The men in her family were
a hot blooded, hell raising, horse racing bunch and their
notoriety is still on record in Gonzales, Texas.

She married Great Grandpapa and had a hard life after the
war. She had ten children, four of whom died in infancy.
They homesteaded in Oklahoma where he taught school and farmed. We have his letters that he wrote home on his journey
to homestead. He died in his early sixties so I was not
fortunate enough to know him.

She religiously saved her minuscule Civil War widows pension
until she had enough money to buy a duplex. She rented one
side and with her pension had enough money to live independently of her children.

I remember her because she stayed with my grandmother for
several weeks once a year. She wore long lavender or gray
dainty print dresses and high topped shoes. I slept with
her when I stayed overnight and she could remove all her
clothes underneath her night gown without showing an inch
of skin. It was her boast that Grandpapa had never seen
her naked. What a feat to have remained modest after ten
children...and why bother?

I have their wedding picture and her dress was beautiful.
She made it of course.

I remember sitting at her feet and getting bits of wisdom
and advice. She recommended never going out in the sun
without slathering your face with sweet cream and wearing a
sun bonnet. She also told me that if you rinsed your hair
in sage tea, you would never go gray. It worked for her.
Her hair was black and remained that way. Her maxim that
a ladies hands were never idle fell on deaf ears because
needlework is not my thing.

I am much richer for having been privileged to know her and
to learn what life was like in an earlier time from someone
who had lived it. The hardships are almost unimaginable
when you contrast the pre-Civil War era with the deprivation
of post Civil War Texas. There are so many questions that
did not occur to me at the age of eight. I would like to
have known about hostile Indians and her family's role in
the Texas Revolution.

My grandmother died at the age of 92 so my children were
grown when she passed away and have had the privilege of
knowing her. I am thankful for that.