One is NOT Only

I was having a fleeting moment of organizational inspiration last week and was contemplating whether to keep my turquoise inlaid cowboy boots or not? I have hardly worn them since I moved three years ago. I gave the boots to myself for my 50th birthday. Then I pictured a future granddaughter, or great- granddaughter pulling them out of a box and saying, “These were Gran’s?? She was a wackadoodle,” and then sliding her foot into the boots, walking down the hall and saying, “Hey, tell me more about Great-Gran.”

This type of experience recently happened to me when I received my grandmother’s old Singer sewing machine.

When my cousin, Cheryl, recently asked if anyone wanted our grandmother’s sewing machine I didn’t expect to find a new hero. My cousin, Carol, died in May and she had Mama Bradley’s sewing machine. My grandparents, Elsie and Burley Bradley had lived on an 80-acre farm on McAdoo Holler in Middle Tennessee. I spent time there every summer running wild and free with the 20 first cousins catching minnows in the creek and tying June bugs to a string to make a tiny buzzy kite; yes indeed that part was wrong, please forgive me all June bugs past and future.

My cousin ,Carol, had bought the sewing machine when my grandparents could no longer farm and the family homestead was being sold. I was in college then and didn’t have money to buy anything at the auction. I told Cheryl I would love to have the sewing machine if no one else wanted it. She said I was the only taker and she brought it to my sons for me to pick up in Nashville last summer. I don’t remember ever seeing it as a child or Mama Bradley using it. My main memory of Mama Bradley is as an elderly woman sitting in her chair as she struggled with Parkinson’s disease. She also made incredible biscuits, home canned sausages, peach fried pies and strawberry jam. Sitting at her kitchen table as a small child I didn’t realize I would never have a better breakfast in my life. She always had strawberry jam for breakfast. I loved strawberries and would go out in the patch beside the farm house and eat them warm off the vine. Daddy Bradley once told me, “You know she saves a jar for when you visit because she knows how much you like it.” I didn’t know and was surprised that she noticed me so much. She always sent the grandchildren a brand new one dollar bill at Christmas. I took to saving them and still have my last few crisp Washington’s.

My Aunt Wanda, the youngest of Elsie and Burley’s six children told me how happy she was that I had the sewing machine. I asked her if she knew how old the machine was and she responded that she never remembers a time when Mama Bradley didn’t have the machine. That question was the beginning of my asking questions about her and really to see my grandmother for probably the first time – not as an elderly disabled woman sitting in a chair, but a woman of incredible creativity, strength and resilience. This is her story as told to me through a Singer sewing machine.

Elsie Overbey was born on March 2, 1900. She was the middle of three girls, Bessie – born in 1898, Else -1900, and Emma -1902. They were followed by a beloved younger brother, Dolphia, in 1912. Elsie was an inquisitive child. One Christmas the sisters all got harmonicas as a present. Her father, my great grandfather – Pa Drewey, went out to milk the cows and when he got back Elsie had totally taken hers apart trying to figure out where the noise came from!

Elsie Overbey and Burley Bradley knew each other growing up and went to church and school together. He was a year older having been born in 1899. Growing up people used to say to me (quite rudely I realize now), ” well you sure got your looks from Burley”. As a teenager, I asked Mama and Daddy Bradley once about their courtship. Burley was gruff as grandfathers go and it was unusual for me to ask these kind of questions. He was wearing his usual everyday attire, overalls, work boots and a straw hat. The day’s milking and farm chores done, he took off the hat and scratched his head and began to reminisce. “Well once I decided to write her a letter sharing some of my feelings and as I walked out to the mailbox there she was walking down the road so I just handed her the letter. That was the last time I wrote a letter, waste of time when I could just talk to her.” Burley’s courtship skills were apparently lacking as Elsie chimed in, “I just got so mad at him once I told my friends and him it would be a cold day in July before I ever spoke to Burley Bradley again. And I meant it too! Well, don’t you know that July 4th it was so cold! We had to put our sweaters on. No one could believe it…unheard of in hot humid middle Tennessee. We were married that December.” Burley chuckled, ” Lucky for me! It was just starting to snow. I went and picked her up in the horse and buggy ( I only remember him ever having two mules, Burt and Kate, so maybe it was a mule and buggy) and we drove over to the preacher’s house. The preacher and his wife came out to the end of the walk, married us, and we drove on home. We had a drive through wedding!” They were married December 25, 1918. I thought it was just a quaint and sweet story of a Christmas wedding. It never occurred to me until this Christmas of 2020 that they got married right in the middle of the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918. I don’t know if that is why they had the drive through wedding, if people were not gathering in groups, or if they just couldn’t afford more. Aunt Wanda said she doesn’t remember them ever mentioning the pandemic and that maybe in the backwoods of middle Tennessee they may not have known much about it. Burley apparently had been spared going to war. He had one year of college and taught history and sold tobacco. He had reservations if a Christian should be involved in the tobacco business and started farming. Elsie and Burley quickly had three boys, Ralph in 1920, my father, Durward, in 1922 and Thelbert followed in 1924.

The depression hit middle Tennessee hard as it did the whole country. One business that continued to thrive during those years was moonshining. The local moonshiner, who my uncle John explained to me was local only in the sense that he lived up the holler from Burley and Elsie, because he ran routes all the way to Chicago and was not a man to be toyed with. He offered to rent Burley’s farm and land during the late 20’s. Elsie, Burly and their growing family moved in with his brothers family just up the holler. The only time I saw Burly out of overalls was on Sunday when he led singing at New Antioch Church of Christ. Faith was the foundation of Burley and Elsie’s family so I imagine it was not without some contemplation that Burley accepted this alliance with the moonshine runner by renting out his farm. Local church folk didn’t bother to hide their opinion that Burley was walking a crooked line and that he could be sure that his farm was being used for illicit purposes. Apparently, they were not mistaken, because when Burley, Elsie and now 5 children, including daughters Sue born in 1919 and Shirley in 1934, moved back in to the house the living room floor was torn out and a still was sitting in the middle of the room on hard packed dirt. But renting the farm out allowed Burley to keep his land and have a home to return to after the depression started to ease. This alliance with the moonshiner would turn out to have a lasting impact on our family.

Elsie gave birth to all her children at home. I have said more than once if I had been a pioneer woman I would have been a pile of bleached bones beside the wagon trail. I had very rough pregnancies with both my daughter and twins sons requiring extended periods of hospitalization. This experience has helped me understand how strong Mama Bradley was.

When the sixth and last child was coming things did not go smoothly. I don’t know exactly what the problem was but it became clear that both Mama Bradley and the baby might not survive the labor. Daddy Bradley sent my sixteen year old father to get help. Even today the farm is isolated and down several dirt roads and you go through (as in no bridges) about six creeks to get to it. The closest neighbor was the moonshiner who had rented the farm a few years before and he was also the only one in the vicinity that had a car. Moonshining had been profitable. Without hesitation he bundled my father into the car and drove several miles into town to fetch a doctor. My father came back out alone saying the doctor said he could not come then. The moonshiner deduced the problem was the doctor doubted a poor farmer would be good for payment. He walked my father back in and took money out of his pocket and said, “This should cover all your expenses – now get your things and go with this boy and take care of his mother. You make sure Mrs. Bradley has everything she needs.” When the doctor saw who my father was with he quickly got his doctoring bag and did get to my grandmother, Elsie, in time to help save her and safely deliver a baby girl, my Aunt Wanda, in June of 1939.

Just a two short years after she survived the traumatic birth of her youngest child Elsie faced having her three sons called to duty in World War II. She told Wanda years later that worry is such a waste of time. You have to depend on your faith to see you through. Mama Bradley said you worry about all the wrong things because you don’t know where the real perils lie. She said she spent all the war years so distressed about her boys but they all came home safely. In 1943 her beloved younger brother, Dolphia, was killed right at home by a lightning strike while tending the farm. I remember his picture, a strong very handsome man in farm clothes, always being on the mantle in that same living room where years earlier a moonshine still had sat.

I have wondered how Mama Bradley coped with all these stresses. Mother fears are a constant companion. She didn’t yet know that she would lose her beloved middle daughter, Shirley, to a drunk driver. Our family has never recovered from that tragedy. When I had the task of going to the nursing home to tell her that my father had died at age 65 from a brain tumor, she looked at me and said, ” He was always such a good boy.” Still and always her boy.

As I quarantine in relative comfort, I am in awe at what Mama Bradley faced as just the normal everyday way of dealing with life. They had an out house until I was about seven years old. It was a two seater! I guess this did help keep the peace for a family of 8. I was terrified of the spider life lurking just beneath me when trying all means to avoid a visit until nature insisted I hover my tiny rump over what seemed a dank abyss. I disliked the chamber pots in our bed room just as much but for different reasons.

Burley was famous for fainting in situations that probably needed a doctor. My father split his toe open with an ax as young teenager and as Elsie was seeing to the wound, Burley came rushing up to help and promptly fainted and bumped his head leaving Elsie with two patients. My daughter, Lindsay, is a cardiac nurse and has inherited Elsie’s calm manner and cool head in a crisis.

The sewing machine that started this story is about the only “convenience” Elsie had and that enabled her to make clothes for all the family. Aunt Wanda said she would have her point out the dresses she liked in a catalog. Then Mama Bradley would make a pattern for it and sew a dress even prettier than what was in the catalog. I had no idea she had this incredible talent. I remember as a teenager trying to pass time down on the farm going up in the attic and exploring. The boys had slept there growing up, but now it was used for storage. I found some beautiful fancy party dresses and now realize these are some of the dresses Mama Bradley made her daughters. I have gone back to look at old pictures of Elsie and Burley with their children and this farm wife and mother of six is always dressed smartly in a tailored dress with covered belt and piping usually wearing a hat. Outfits she made her self. I am mystified where she found the time! When Wanda was getting ready to graduate from high school, Mama Bradley made her a dress for the occasion. They had gone to Dickson for some shopping and Aunt Wanda saw some shoes that she just loved that would match her dress. She said they were definitely out of the family budget and she just put it out of her mine. When she was getting dressed for graduation, Mama Bradley came in with a box and there were the shoes she had wanted so bad. Over 60 years later she says she still doesn’t know how Mama Bradley paid for them, ” I guess she saved up money from selling eggs.”

Elsie and Burley. People almost always referred to them as a single unit, “Elsie and Burley”. They were married for over sixty years. A beautiful old sewing machine caused me to look at my grandmother through different eyes and I think really know her for the first time. I have a new hero, Elsie Overby Bradley, and I for one am glad for that cold July day in 1918 that led to a Christmas day wedding.