Gramma Austin, Chapter 4

Gramma loved practical jokes and silly stuff. The Austins told and retold stories about the family and the funny things that happened to them. Some people have a knack for turning a setback into a funny story, and Gramma and Grampa Austin did just that.   The time the car broke down . . . the time it rained the whole time they were moving . . . the time the car got stuck in the mud and had to hire a team of horses to pull them out.  The time that Forrest had to serve time in the city jail for "excessive noise", driving his car around the Winterset streets.  The time that Mary locked Nancy in the closet under the stairs or the time Mary locked herself in the bathroom and they had to boost Nancy up (age 6?) up the ladder, in through the bathroom window and a hop down to the floor to turn the deadbolt lock and release Mary.

Sisters

Stella, Mattie and Laura

Stella Wilson Stradley, Mattie Wilson Austin and Laura Wilson Webb

My guess is that Gramma Mattie is expecting. 

And maybe Stella too, because of the dropped waists.

So they told about the time that Aunt Annie was accidently shot by the "boys" playing with a gun. She was shot in the buttock but the women wore so many petticoats then and Aunt Annie's skirt was bunched up behind her on the wagon seat that the bullet went through 26 layers of material before entering the cheek. The wagon train layed up for a couple of days and as that buried bullet didn't bother Aunt Annie and it didn't get infected, the doctor left it right where it landed and turned them loose to travel on.

Austins traveled across 3 states to visit brothers or father or cousins.  Here are at least 3 generations visiting near Tingley, I think it was.  My Great Grampa RB Austin is on the right. 


Nothing suited the Austin's more than to gather a bunch of grownups together into a room and start off telling stories. They'd laugh and guffaw and slap their knees.   They'd drag out every old story they could think of it retell them. 

Some nights, if there was a guitar player in the group or a fiddle player, they'd take to singing old-time cowboy songs.

The photograph above is mainly Wilson's but Mattie married Rob Austin so there's one Austin family in this picture.  It illustrates that even back then, the folks found time and made efforts to get all together for visits and reunions. 

When evening fell and the kids wore out, the folks would have gathered on the porch or in the house and talked into the wee hours . . . hating to give up and go home.  Young children sat on the floor, in the corner or lay on the bed in the next room and listened and felt warm and safe and content . . . until they couldn't stay awake another minute.    And would secretly hope they'd be carried to the car. 

This photo has Austin and Coe cousins all scooped up together for a family photo op. 

This would have been about 1954 or so.  Nana, age 5, I imagine.   2nd from Left, with hand up.