Grandmother’s House

My Grandmother caught on fire early one morning in 1929.  As she headed to the small barn where dairy cows fed behind her very small Fort Worth home on Broadway Street, she heard an explosion.  Her twenty-nine year old small frame immediately turned and ran back to the house to search for and rescue her first-born son Raymond who was six years old at that time.  Flames soared from inside the barely six hundred square foot home as she entered into the kitchen, and then immediately fell as the flames overtook her.  It was believed that the explosion was caused by a gas stove in the tiny kitchen.  Raymond Darryl had already escaped through his bedroom window.  Verna Young, managing to find her way to the back small bedroom, reached for the iron bed post to pull herself up.  The smoldering bedpost was a fiery rod and her hands quickly became seared to the post. After breaking through the small bedroom window she managed to jump for her life escaping the burning wooden structure being hoisted by a painted red concrete foundation. She landed in the backyard hidden amongst tall weeds and grass.  She was a mere four feet and eleven inches tall, and weighed less than a hundred pounds – there wasn’t much to burn. It took a while for her small motionless body to be spotted amongst the tall grass laying in the brush.

She was burned from the top of her head to right above her ankles, oddly enough.  Roughly seventy percent of her skin had been severely burned and procedures to suture and sow her skin back together spanned over several years and well over twenty surgeries. Her face had been grafted with skin salvaged from other parts of her body, or pieced together with what was left.  Her beautiful sky-blue eyes remained in tact and piercing.  Her hands turned into soft nubs, as doctors had affixed four mangled fingers on one hand, and  three fingers on the other hand, which would later be used to sew clothes, and hand-stitch many homemade quilts.  I was told that the doctors at the hospital had recommended to my grandfather to hang a blanket over the dresser mirror so she would not see her herself.  He did not, and stood by her until his death in his late seventies.  The pair had three more children together: Mickey, Randall (my father,) and Monte — who was born with Down’s Syndrome.  My Grandmother, physically compromised by her injuries, was prodded by the community to give Monte to a state home, but she would not hear of it and Monty lived well into his 50’s.

I only knew my grandmother as a very petite woman with light peach-colored patches of skin that shaped her tiny face.  Her nose was flat and pinned to her face shaped by an outline of stitches where one shade of skin met another. Her eyes were very small and blue and constantly watered.  She was spunky with a searing sense of humor.  As she spoke her tiny blue eyes would look up to meet yours as she focused on the subject. Her small frame did not beg for mercy, but instead loomed over any room she stepped into.  Her skin was translucent and soft.  Her frail human body refused to succumb to her circumstances as soft and pretty silver hair gave growth and shape to the top of her head.

We would visit grandmother’s house usually once a month after church on Sundays.  The drive from Garland to Ft. Worth was about an hour, and usually news of a trip to Broadway Street in Fort Worth would not be met with enthusiasm from my older three siblings, as church was long and draining and begged a nap afterwards.  But the food at grandma’s house made the trip worthwhile.  A pot roast surrounded by snap green beans from her garden would simmer with bacon in a pot all morning long.  Potato pancakes and homemade yeast rolls were a culinary food coup.  For dessert, we’d open up a can of peaches floating in syrup and then pile heaping spoonfuls of the sugary fruit and homemade whipped cream on top of angel food cake.  Monte had a different set of taste buds as he would heap spoonfuls of vanilla ice cream on top of Hormel canned mini sausage links.  I believe Monte enjoyed watching us become squeamish as he created his masterpiece at the two chair kitchen table in the tiny salvaged kitchen.

We would all have our fill at the dinner table, and then head to the big, shady back yard after lunch.  The parents and grandparents either napped or watched Roger Staubach throw touchdowns for the Dallas Cowboys.  In between two large pecan trees near the back of the property, granddaddy had hung an old, rusty oil barrel sideways, secured by two very large spring coils on each end of the barrel.  It hung midair about four feet off the ground suspended between the two large trees and their metal coils.   Your imagination could take you far away while riding on top of the steel barrel horse.  If I played my cards right, sometimes I could recruit a sibling to man the large spring coils and the ride would last much longer.  I remember bouncing up and down on the barrel, as if I were riding on a thoroughbred horse charging for the finish line.  

Further down a small road from my Grandmother’s property line was Vera’s house.   A mysterious home with a glass inclosed front porch patio which was also lined with glass shelves where many figurines, tiny glass bottles, and rocks sat collecting dust.  In one room used as a sewing room, history would be recorded as we would all be measured for height, one by one, standing straight and tall against a small closet door frame.  There, we documented our advancement in the human race.  

An unattached, very small storm shelter was built to the right of Vera’s home.  It was glaringly creepy and odd to me as the shelter was half above ground, and half below— it appeared to be a very tiny home which had sunken into the earth.  There was a standing dare during every walk to Vera’s house for one of us to walk into that shelter and down the dimly lit steps.  I was quite certain that death awaited any takers to the challenge.

On some of those trips we would visit the Ft. Worth zoo and then ride the small mini-train.  Those were the best trips. The train was so exciting and seemed to last forever, but most likely it was less than fifteen to twenty minutes.  I remember crossing over what I believed to be a very steep gorge miles below the tiny train track hoisted above the valley.  Most likely it was a storm drain thirty to forty feet below, probably less.  I would wonder just how safe we were sitting in the tiny wooden train cars that rocked gingerly back and forth with zero safety elements on either side of the open carriages.

After the trip to the zoo, and if time permitted, we would visit a nearby large hill for some more adolescent thrills.   No need for frozen, snowdrift landscapes.  Like many things that become larger than life in my childhood memories, the hill was gigantic.  We would drive in the back of nearby shopping centers and slowly stalk the alley and dumpsters for the perfect cardboard vessel which would yield us the longest ride down the treacherous and dangerous slope.  The search for the perfect cardboard box was almost as thrilling as the rides down the grassy slope. 

If everything had gone well and feelings were still in tact between my mom and dad, we would be treated by Granddaddies’ pocket cash and finish the day with a stop at a local snow cone trailer off the highway. It was always tricky with four kids and four snow cones in a back seat, but the begging and pleading for thinly shaved ice covered with coconut flavored blue dye almost always won. Once we were passed Birdville Stadium, I knew home was only a car-ride nap away.