Nannie was the oldest of the kids from Emma Bell Renfro's marriage to William Hickle Graves. She was called Nannie as a child, by her husband and by her children as well as grandchildren and everyone who knew her.
She was hard working and devoted to her church. She kept quilts in a drawer in her bedroom that she said belonged to an Indian woman whose husband would sell them to get money for alcohol. When the woman needed to sell them for things for the family she would get them from Nannie.
She played canasta and bingo and still took the time and effort to make her own butter with a hand held churn. It took all day to turn that paddle and convert the milk into fresh butter.
I spent every 3 month summer vacation with her until I was in high school.There was one elderly couple who converted an old ice cream store into a comic book store. I have fond memories of her taking me to that place.
Every summer she kept me supplied with homemade from scratch lemon meringue pies,chocolate pies, fried chicken, fresh from the stalk corn on the cob, homemade butter and biscuits and fresh from the garden watermelon. She married at 16 almost 17 and had her first baby, Clyde Madeline, the first year.
When I was young she would take me to shop for flour. The flour sacks were made of burlap with colored patterns. I picked the next 50 lb bag of flour. When that sack was empty she made me a dress from the sack material. I remember the awful colors. There was a turquoise and purple one with a lighting zigzag pattern and a black and orange one with squares and rectangles. I can only describe those patterns (in the 1940s) as "modern art" that would suit 2010. I did not like "modern art" then nor do I now. I shudder to think of them. I 'm sure I hated everyone of them.
She washed clothes with a scrub board in a tub on the porch, wrung the sheets through a roller and hung them out to dry. Then they had to be ironed. She also had a real "ice box". It stood on 4 legs and had a top shelf and a bottom shelf. The iceman came around once a week and put a big block of ice in the top shelf. Milk, butter and other perishables went in the bottom half. I so wish I had that ice box and the jug and paddle she used to make butter. When she sewed she simply looked at you, cut out the item, without a pattern, sewed it up and it fit.
When she lived with my mother she had a stroke. I took my children, then 2 1/2 and 6 months to Dallas to see her. The first time she spoke, or tried to, after that stroke was to tell the nurse they were her great grandchildren. She was so proud of them. Now she has 3 great great grandchildren. I know she is beaming lots of love down from Heaven. If I am half as good a grandmother as she was then I am a resounding success.I miss you so much my special Nannie.
Morning Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
HOUSMON, MRS. NANNIE C.
Died at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, 1978, at Dixon Memorial Hospital, Denham Springs. She was 85, a native of Copeville, Texas, and a resident of Baton Rouge. Graveside services Monday in Memorial Park Cemetery, Oklahoma City, Okla. Survived by two daughters, Mrs. Clyde McKittrick and Mrs. Bonnie Dixon, both of Baron Rouge; two sisters, Mrs. W. L. Dent, Granbury, Texas, and Miss Ruth Graves, Dallas, Texas; one granddaughter, Mrs. Stephen Murray, Baton Rouge; one grandson, J. C. McKittrick, Houston; four great-grandchildren.
PLEASE DO NOT USE ANY FAMILY PHOTOS WITHOUT PERMISSION. THANK YOU.
She was hard working and devoted to her church. She kept quilts in a drawer in her bedroom that she said belonged to an Indian woman whose husband would sell them to get money for alcohol. When the woman needed to sell them for things for the family she would get them from Nannie.
She played canasta and bingo and still took the time and effort to make her own butter with a hand held churn. It took all day to turn that paddle and convert the milk into fresh butter.
I spent every 3 month summer vacation with her until I was in high school.There was one elderly couple who converted an old ice cream store into a comic book store. I have fond memories of her taking me to that place.
Every summer she kept me supplied with homemade from scratch lemon meringue pies,chocolate pies, fried chicken, fresh from the stalk corn on the cob, homemade butter and biscuits and fresh from the garden watermelon. She married at 16 almost 17 and had her first baby, Clyde Madeline, the first year.
When I was young she would take me to shop for flour. The flour sacks were made of burlap with colored patterns. I picked the next 50 lb bag of flour. When that sack was empty she made me a dress from the sack material. I remember the awful colors. There was a turquoise and purple one with a lighting zigzag pattern and a black and orange one with squares and rectangles. I can only describe those patterns (in the 1940s) as "modern art" that would suit 2010. I did not like "modern art" then nor do I now. I shudder to think of them. I 'm sure I hated everyone of them.
She washed clothes with a scrub board in a tub on the porch, wrung the sheets through a roller and hung them out to dry. Then they had to be ironed. She also had a real "ice box". It stood on 4 legs and had a top shelf and a bottom shelf. The iceman came around once a week and put a big block of ice in the top shelf. Milk, butter and other perishables went in the bottom half. I so wish I had that ice box and the jug and paddle she used to make butter. When she sewed she simply looked at you, cut out the item, without a pattern, sewed it up and it fit.
When she lived with my mother she had a stroke. I took my children, then 2 1/2 and 6 months to Dallas to see her. The first time she spoke, or tried to, after that stroke was to tell the nurse they were her great grandchildren. She was so proud of them. Now she has 3 great great grandchildren. I know she is beaming lots of love down from Heaven. If I am half as good a grandmother as she was then I am a resounding success.I miss you so much my special Nannie.
Morning Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
HOUSMON, MRS. NANNIE C.
Died at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, 1978, at Dixon Memorial Hospital, Denham Springs. She was 85, a native of Copeville, Texas, and a resident of Baton Rouge. Graveside services Monday in Memorial Park Cemetery, Oklahoma City, Okla. Survived by two daughters, Mrs. Clyde McKittrick and Mrs. Bonnie Dixon, both of Baron Rouge; two sisters, Mrs. W. L. Dent, Granbury, Texas, and Miss Ruth Graves, Dallas, Texas; one granddaughter, Mrs. Stephen Murray, Baton Rouge; one grandson, J. C. McKittrick, Houston; four great-grandchildren.
PLEASE DO NOT USE ANY FAMILY PHOTOS WITHOUT PERMISSION. THANK YOU.
Nannie was the oldest of the kids from Emma Bell Renfro's marriage to William Hickle Graves. She was called Nannie as a child, by her husband and by her children as well as grandchildren and everyone who knew her.
She was hard working and devoted to her church. She kept quilts in a drawer in her bedroom that she said belonged to an Indian woman whose husband would sell them to get money for alcohol. When the woman needed to sell them for things for the family she would get them from Nannie.
She played canasta and bingo and still took the time and effort to make her own butter with a hand held churn. It took all day to turn that paddle and convert the milk into fresh butter.
I spent every 3 month summer vacation with her until I was in high school.There was one elderly couple who converted an old ice cream store into a comic book store. I have fond memories of her taking me to that place.
Every summer she kept me supplied with homemade from scratch lemon meringue pies,chocolate pies, fried chicken, fresh from the stalk corn on the cob, homemade butter and biscuits and fresh from the garden watermelon. She married at 16 almost 17 and had her first baby, Clyde Madeline, the first year.
When I was young she would take me to shop for flour. The flour sacks were made of burlap with colored patterns. I picked the next 50 lb bag of flour. When that sack was empty she made me a dress from the sack material. I remember the awful colors. There was a turquoise and purple one with a lighting zigzag pattern and a black and orange one with squares and rectangles. I can only describe those patterns (in the 1940s) as "modern art" that would suit 2010. I did not like "modern art" then nor do I now. I shudder to think of them. I 'm sure I hated everyone of them.
She washed clothes with a scrub board in a tub on the porch, wrung the sheets through a roller and hung them out to dry. Then they had to be ironed. She also had a real "ice box". It stood on 4 legs and had a top shelf and a bottom shelf. The iceman came around once a week and put a big block of ice in the top shelf. Milk, butter and other perishables went in the bottom half. I so wish I had that ice box and the jug and paddle she used to make butter. When she sewed she simply looked at you, cut out the item, without a pattern, sewed it up and it fit.
When she lived with my mother she had a stroke. I took my children, then 2 1/2 and 6 months to Dallas to see her. The first time she spoke, or tried to, after that stroke was to tell the nurse they were her great grandchildren. She was so proud of them. Now she has 3 great great grandchildren. I know she is beaming lots of love down from Heaven. If I am half as good a grandmother as she was then I am a resounding success.I miss you so much my special Nannie.
Morning Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
HOUSMON, MRS. NANNIE C.
Died at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, 1978, at Dixon Memorial Hospital, Denham Springs. She was 85, a native of Copeville, Texas, and a resident of Baton Rouge. Graveside services Monday in Memorial Park Cemetery, Oklahoma City, Okla. Survived by two daughters, Mrs. Clyde McKittrick and Mrs. Bonnie Dixon, both of Baron Rouge; two sisters, Mrs. W. L. Dent, Granbury, Texas, and Miss Ruth Graves, Dallas, Texas; one granddaughter, Mrs. Stephen Murray, Baton Rouge; one grandson, J. C. McKittrick, Houston; four great-grandchildren.
PLEASE DO NOT USE ANY FAMILY PHOTOS WITHOUT PERMISSION. THANK YOU.
She was hard working and devoted to her church. She kept quilts in a drawer in her bedroom that she said belonged to an Indian woman whose husband would sell them to get money for alcohol. When the woman needed to sell them for things for the family she would get them from Nannie.
She played canasta and bingo and still took the time and effort to make her own butter with a hand held churn. It took all day to turn that paddle and convert the milk into fresh butter.
I spent every 3 month summer vacation with her until I was in high school.There was one elderly couple who converted an old ice cream store into a comic book store. I have fond memories of her taking me to that place.
Every summer she kept me supplied with homemade from scratch lemon meringue pies,chocolate pies, fried chicken, fresh from the stalk corn on the cob, homemade butter and biscuits and fresh from the garden watermelon. She married at 16 almost 17 and had her first baby, Clyde Madeline, the first year.
When I was young she would take me to shop for flour. The flour sacks were made of burlap with colored patterns. I picked the next 50 lb bag of flour. When that sack was empty she made me a dress from the sack material. I remember the awful colors. There was a turquoise and purple one with a lighting zigzag pattern and a black and orange one with squares and rectangles. I can only describe those patterns (in the 1940s) as "modern art" that would suit 2010. I did not like "modern art" then nor do I now. I shudder to think of them. I 'm sure I hated everyone of them.
She washed clothes with a scrub board in a tub on the porch, wrung the sheets through a roller and hung them out to dry. Then they had to be ironed. She also had a real "ice box". It stood on 4 legs and had a top shelf and a bottom shelf. The iceman came around once a week and put a big block of ice in the top shelf. Milk, butter and other perishables went in the bottom half. I so wish I had that ice box and the jug and paddle she used to make butter. When she sewed she simply looked at you, cut out the item, without a pattern, sewed it up and it fit.
When she lived with my mother she had a stroke. I took my children, then 2 1/2 and 6 months to Dallas to see her. The first time she spoke, or tried to, after that stroke was to tell the nurse they were her great grandchildren. She was so proud of them. Now she has 3 great great grandchildren. I know she is beaming lots of love down from Heaven. If I am half as good a grandmother as she was then I am a resounding success.I miss you so much my special Nannie.
Morning Advocate, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
HOUSMON, MRS. NANNIE C.
Died at 7 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 2, 1978, at Dixon Memorial Hospital, Denham Springs. She was 85, a native of Copeville, Texas, and a resident of Baton Rouge. Graveside services Monday in Memorial Park Cemetery, Oklahoma City, Okla. Survived by two daughters, Mrs. Clyde McKittrick and Mrs. Bonnie Dixon, both of Baron Rouge; two sisters, Mrs. W. L. Dent, Granbury, Texas, and Miss Ruth Graves, Dallas, Texas; one granddaughter, Mrs. Stephen Murray, Baton Rouge; one grandson, J. C. McKittrick, Houston; four great-grandchildren.
PLEASE DO NOT USE ANY FAMILY PHOTOS WITHOUT PERMISSION. THANK YOU.
