My grandmother, Miz Lena, was born and raised on a farm in Middle Tennessee not too far from Columbia, her and all her brothers and sisters. There was a mess of them. Grand Mom was the oldest.
The custom back then on the farm was that the oldest kids helped their mothers with younger ones. That wasn’t all. They cooked, cleaned and did whatever else needed to be done. Grand Mom grew up being in charge of all of her younger siblings.
Farming families rely on the strong backs of Daddy and his boys to do the heavy lifting. However, country girls were out there in the fields right alongside the men pulling their weight.
They had plenty of time to practice being a lady once the crops were brought in and the cows were stripped. They were all in it together. That’s the true definition of family.
When she got into her teenage years, Miz Lena made a vow to her mother, my great-grandmother, Mama Sue, that she was going to become somebody. Mama Sue answered her like she always did. She’d just say, “Well.” Mama Sue told me that from an early age Grand Mom was headstrong. She said, “Lena put her mind to somethin’ and off she’d go.”