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My
maternal Czech grandmother, for whom I was named, was a warm, sweet
presence in my childhood, and I always felt her unconditional love
and approval. She was born Franska (Frances-no middle name) Jakubik
in 1884 to Moravian immigrant parents from what was then the Austro-Hungarian
Empire, and she embodied the open, generous, social nature of the
Czechs. Eventually she married my grandfather, Frantisek (Frank)
Emil Nedbalek, and they reared four children while engaging in farming
in the Central
Texas region of Burleson
County. She was known to many as “Fanny” or Ms. Fanny.
One of my fondest recollections of her is her habit of wearing an
apron every day. She had a seemingly endless supply of these homemade,
long, waist to knee, tied at the waist dress protectors. Most of
them she sewed from unbleached domestic cotton fabric and adorned
with pockets and a border around the hem made from colorful scraps
of material. Unless she was going out she wore one daily to protect
her everyday house dresses.
For reasons I don't recall, or probably never knew, Granny always
kept exactly $5 in “little silver dimes” tied in one lower corner
of her aprons which always got transferred to the next day's clean
apron. Was it a form of security since she lived virtually her entire
adult life with very little money? Probably so, but I'll never know
now.
During visits to Caldwell
I saw Granny put those aprons to many uses, wiping wet or floury
hands, using the skirt part to carry firewood in for the wood cook
stove or vegetables from her garden, carefully cradling the fresh
eggs gathered daily from her chickens, bunching it up to use as
a makeshift potholder and using it to hold the hulls of shelled
beans and peas which she later tossed to her chickens. No doubt
she wiped my grimy face and that of my brother countless times,
too.
Granny always hurried to put on a clean apron if visitors appeared,
and I saw her take a swipe at a table to give it a hasty dusting
on the way through the living room a time or two. Only on trips
to town on Saturdays to buy groceries and visit with her friends
was she without an apron. Someone, her second cousin, at her funeral
remarked that Ms. Fanny didn't look like herself, and they finally
concluded it was because she didn't have an apron on and that she
had her “false teeth” in. As much as Granny loved her aprons she
detested those dentures and kept them in a mason jar high atop the
pie safe in the kitchen unless she was, again, going to town or
dressing up for some occasion.
I miss my grandmother and would give just about anything to see
her one more time. To hear her greet us with “See-see” and “Boo-chee”
would warm my heart as it did more than a half century ago. Spanem
Boehm, Granny.
© Frances Giles
"True Confessions and Mild Obsessions"
February 7, 2013 Column
Related Topics: Mothers
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