My mom's story continues, this is one of my favorite stories of my Me-maw lighting her brother on fire, The memoirs began here, last installment here.
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when Janie was born, so was her chore list
The relationship between my
grandmother and her mother had a very
profound impact on her interactions with her daughters. My grandmother’s birth was seen as the birth
of household help for Lizzie. That is
not to say that she did not love her daughter, but in the early part of the
1900s, gender roles were very strictly defined.
If Lizzie had had only sons, she would have had many beds to make and
meals to cook. Sons would not have been
seen as a help for their mother unless it was doing physical labor such as
bringing in wood, or carrying heavy burdens.
They would not cook and they would not have made beds, washed clothes,
or ironed. It just was not done. But when Janie was born, so was her chore
list.
She would seethe with anger
She often told of cooking when she
had to stand on a stool to do so. That
act of standing on the stool at the stove was seen differently by me and my
grandmother. She saw it as a child being
forced to do something before she had the maturity to do it. She often told of making beds. And it was NOT the bed making we know today
of slipping on a fitted sheet, then snapping open a flat sheet so it could
float down to cover the bed. It was
anything but a happy activity. The
mattresses were made of feathers and any depression upon the bed meant that the
making of it had to be restarted. Janie
would complain about fighting to make the beds in the time frame her mother
expected – no, demanded. The only
problem with this time frame was that it occurred when her brothers, or “the
boys” as she called them, were out hunting.
They would then come home from the hunt, or from their morning masculine
chores, and do what came naturally – they flopped down on their beds. The feather beds. The beds that their slim sister had fought to
make perfect enough to avoid her mother’s wrath. She would seethe with anger.
blazingly clear
This went on for a few years until the time
came when the man courting her, my future grandfather, heard her complaints
about bed making. He merely thought of a
way to possibly change the behavior of
her brothers, by suggesting she take a cigarette paper, slipping it between a
brother’s toes, and setting fire to it.
Sounds good in theory and would probably even work in practice. If the brother in question, Audrey, weren’t
such a sound sleeper. So my
grandmother, being a young 15 year old who had never been out of 20 mile
radius, and in the absence of her suitor, made a decision without thinking it
through to its inevitable consequences.
She took newspapers, wrapped them around her brother’s foot, tied them
on, and then set the match to her innovation.
Yes, it woke him up. His screams
also woke the other brothers up. While
it made for a funny story years later, he ended up in a hospital, which was
indicative of a serious injury in the 1920s.
Later, I chose to believe that it wasn’t as serious as it was described
because as is the case in most stories passed down through the generations, the
acts become bigger, the results more astounding, and the aftereffects more unsettling. But there were no permanent injuries that I
am aware of and yes, my grandmother’s true feelings about bedmaking became
blazingly clear!
