My heart gratefully attests to the truth of this scripture with a hearty AMEN. Ever since I wrote "What's So Grand about Grandparents" last week, I have found my thoughts returning often to my Grandmother Tucker and what she meant to my life. "Blessing" almost doesn't sound like a strong enough word. But a blessing she surely WAS! And not just to me.
I came across this photo yesterday and was just bowled over by what a precious child she was. This photograph was taken in 1896. Yes, I said 1896!!
Seated in the chair is my grandmother, Mary Elberta Stitt (Tucker) when she was three years old. Beside her is her sister, Edna, who was four years old at the time. Can you just imagine what a blessing these two little girls were to their parents? I'm wondering if their mother made their little matching dresses . . . or, perhaps, if their grandmother might have.
It's logical for me to wonder that because, you see, needlework skills have a way of being taught by one generation to the next. And if there is anything anyone will tell you about my Grandmother Tucker, it's bound to involve what a wonderful seamstress she was. There was very little in the realm of needlework that my grandmother could not do. She sewed to perfection. She knitted. She crocheted. She embroidered. She even tatted her own lace! I still own a couple of spools of it. Great-great grandchildren that she never even met have worn dresses that Grandmother Tucker made. Dresses that have her hand tatted lace on the sleeves and collars! Talk about a blessing!
This snapshot pictures the Grandmother I most frequently see in my memory. She rarely sat down that she did not have some needlework project in her hands. Like the Proverbs woman in the Old Testament, she never ate "of the bread of idleness."My church has been having a stewardship emphasis for the last month or so in an effort to "Set the Future Free" by becoming debt free within the next three years. I couldn't help but think about my grandmother. Many years ago her church had a financial campaign (a building program). Below is a newspaper article that tells how this little widow used her needlework talents to bless her church financially. She made crewel embroidered pillows (like the one in this snapshot) and sold them, mostly to tourists, in her camera shop on old St. George Street, in St. Augustine, FL. By utilizing her time and talents she was able to give a substantial amount each month to her church's building program.
Yes, my Grandmother Tucker was a blessing to me. She was a blessing to our whole family. But, even more, she was a blessing to the body of Christ.
1 comment:
I emailed my cousin, Lois, a copy of the photo of our grandmother and her sister. Here's what she wrote me back:
I was talking to Mom when the picture came. She said that most likely her mother made the dresses and taught Grandma to sew. She said that she remembered Grandma telling that she cut out dresses for her mother when she was eight years old. She said that people would come to the house and say, “You’re not going to let her cut that out, are you?” She said that Grandma would go stay at homes with other families for a week or two at a time, when she was a teen, sewing for the whole family.
Lois
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