October 22, 2001
Oral History Paper
Memaw
My grandma, (“memaw”) has always been
some kind of mystery to me. The
harder I try,
and the more I learn about her, and the more I communicate with
her, one would
think that I just might finally figure her out, but I never do.
In fact, the
more I learn about her and listen to her feelings and insights
regarding life
and being a woman, the more I dislike her.
Now that might be a
horrible thing
to say, I don’t know, but my grandma, Evadene Reynolds, is
absolutely
impossible.
I used to look at her with admiring
eyes, and even though I didn’t know
much about her
she always seemed brutally strong. She
had been through so much
in her life, and
she still managed to love and laugh and enjoy her family. She
grew up in an
extremely poor family, was married before she graduated from high
school, never
went to college, suffered through a disastrous divorce, and now
lives with a man
she isn’t even married to, and whom I don’t think she even
cares for. She is a woman and she has never been able
to stand alone.
“My life was shaped as it was because
that was the way that I chose it
to be. When I grew up girls were expected to be
girls and to marry, have
children, and be
the caregiver for her husband and for her children. I believe
that I gave it
my very best.”
This was how my grandma answered my
first question, and since I had to
do my interviews
via e-mail I couldn’t hear emotion in her voice, but from what
she said I don’t
think that she has an inkling or a clue about how much her
life has been
shaped by the fact that she is a woman.
She chose to drop out of
high school, get
married, and have children? I find it hard to believe that she
would compromise
college for what she got. In fact she
even says that she has
many regrets.
“I did marry entirely too early in
life and do have some regrets, but I
tried to make
the most of it.”
Tried to make the most of her life? Of
course, we are all trying to
make the most of
our lives, but because she was a woman, and she needed to
marry and have
children, and because it was what was “expected” of girls back
then, she never
got the chance to make the most of her life.
She never really
acquired the
opportunity to see what she is capable of.
The entire time I was conducting my
interviews with my “memaw,” I
couldn’t help
but feel distant, and like I wasn’t really getting everything out
of her, and in
some ways I felt like she was holding back from telling me
everything. Her answers were always short and abrupt,
and in some ways
bitter. I wanted to become closer with her by doing
this, and I really do not
feel like I have
gotten too far. I guess now maybe I
know what my mom meant
when she used to
say, “memaw” is “not easy to talk to.”
“I grew up in western Oklahoma as the
next to the youngest of nine
children. My father and mother had an eighty acre farm
that they tried very
hard to make a
living from. We had very little.”
This is all my grandma would say about
her childhood, and when I asked
her about any
one experience from her childhood that she often thinks about,
she talks about
how much she worked on the farm growing up, and what was
expected of her.
“Go to school, study, do the best that
I could, come home and help with
the housework,
help in the cotton fields, hoeing cotton in the summer and
pulling cotton
in the fall. This was our only means of
having any money of our
own. We had to earn enough in the fall to buy our
school books, and clothes.”
She has had to work all of her life,
even as a child, and I think in
some ways she
resents that. I think she resents the
way that children live
today.
“Most young children have entirely too
much freedom and too much money
to spend that
they have not had a part in earning.”
I also think that because my “memaw”
was a girl, she did have specific
expectations
from her family growing up. She learned
to cook at a young age,
and she was
expected to help her mother cook dinner every evening for her dad
and
brothers. She says that she doesn’t
think that she was raised differently
from the boys,
she says growing up in a big family was a great experience, and
she said the
boys often looked after her.
“I do remember when I was very small
and a pretty bad storm was coming
our way and one
of my brothers, I can’t remember which one, grabbed me and took
off to the
cellar along with all the rest of the family.
I believe that my
other two
sisters were also being carried by a brother; it was very comforting
to know that
they were looking out for us.”
I like that story a lot, and I think
in a lot of ways it characterizes
the way that my
“memaw” has always handled the men in her life, as her carriers.
My “memaw” went through a very rough
divorce, and I have often wondered
exactly what
went wrong with her and my grandpa, but I was too afraid to ask
her. So I gathered up the courage to ask my mom
about it, and although she
didn’t really
want to talk about it, she told me. “He
just left one day. Said
he had been
seeing another woman for a couple of years now, and wanted to be
with her.” Since then, my “memaw” has had a horrible
outlook on marriage, and
to me she is
walking wounded, and broken hearted, still.
“Our courts have made divorce so easy
and it has made a wreck out of
lives for so
many.”
What gets me is that she isn’t angry
with him, and he is the one that
left, and
cheated on her. In her eyes everything
would have been fine, had the
affair been
concealed, and they continued to be married.
She needed him …
financially.
As far as raising my mom and aunt, I
think that was the happiest time
of my grandma’s
life.
“Unpaid work, I guess includes raising Joan and Kathy, but
don’t get me
wrong, this was
something that I wanted to do; those were the very best days of
my life.”
My mom always says that “memaw” was a
great mother, and she couldn’t
have asked for a
better mom. I think maybe having two
daughters to take care
of and love was
a way for my grandma to escape an unhappy marriage, and it was
her greatest
success, considering she never got the chance to go to college and
make a career
for herself. Indeed, I would say that
it was a great success for
her. She raised two amazing women, who today are
raising four girls, who I am
sure that they
want the same things for, as “memaw” wanted for them.
“I wanted them to become responsible
and respected adults who could
make their own
decisions as to what they would want for their lives.”
The only two jobs that my “memaw” has
ever had were at National Car
Rental and
Texaco. She worked at both of these
places for only short periods
of time, and as
soon as she met E.O. and they began living together, she no
longer needed a
job; she had a man. I think that she
regrets not being able to
make a good
living on her own.
“I just hope that they (young women
today) will get as much education
as they
can. They just don’t realize how
important this will be in the future,
but I can look
back and see for myself what I missed out on.
I am sure that if
I had been
capable of earning more as a single person I probably would have
remained single,
at least the second time around.”
If I have only learned one thing from
my “memaw,” and from being around
E.O., I
definitely know that I do not want to end up dependent on a man.
“I am doing my best to grow old
gracefully, but it is very trying at
times. There are times when I am very afraid of
being by myself, but millions
of others are in
the same predicament, so I will just hang in there.”
My “memaw” is 63, but she acts like
she is 98. I have always hated
that about
her. She is just so tired, and worn
out. It makes me sad, and it
makes me wonder
how bad getting older could possibly be.
I guess what I wanted
her to say when
I asked her about any one experience that makes her think about
what it is to be
a woman growing older, was that she has been through so much
in her life, and
through it all she has remained true to herself as a woman,
and is growing
older, and at the same time wiser, and is happy. However, as
might be
expected by now, that isn’t what she said at all. So, what is the one
experience that
makes her think about what it is to be growing older?
“Oh the aches and pains that I have
now. When I was younger, I just
didn’t have them
like I do now. But we must all remain
optimistic of life and
always make the
most of it.”
I wish I could have heard her say
that. I know exactly what kind of
exasperated sigh
she would let out, and I know exactly the type of expression
that her
crooked, wrinkled face would project.
It is so depressing to me to
think that the
one experience that she thinks of when she thinks about getting
older is the
aches and pains. It almost makes me
angry. Why can’t it be, that
her life has
been full of happiness and wonderful memories, of family, love,
and travel? Maybe it actually is because she is a
woman. She started with
nothing, born to
a poverty-stricken family, not having the opportunity to
finish school
and get a good job, and then always needing a man to carry her
through
life. Perhaps the detrimental effects
of having less of everything,
including
opportunity, throughout her life, has made it impossible for her to
see or feel
anything else when she thinks about what it means to be growing
older.
Today my “memaw” is very religious. Never had she attended church back
when my mom and
aunt were children growing up, but now she spends a lot of time
at church. In fact the one word of advice that she
would give to a woman would
be to have an
intense faith in god.
“Believe in the Lord God Almighty and
make him the focal point of your
life. And you will be blessed to the fullest
throughout your life.”
Maybe she feels bad for not making god
a priority in her life before
now, and she is
trying to make up for it. Maybe she is
scared of dying without
making peace
with god. Maybe she just needs
something to do, or maybe she
really is trying
to find some kind of enlightenment, in a world where she says
no one is ever
privileged whether they know it or not.
Whatever her reason,
religion has
become a very important aspect of her life as she has gotten
older.
I will probably never be able to get
close to my “memaw.” She is very
hard to talk to,
and almost unapproachable at times. She
and I are somewhat
opposite from
each other, and I am glad, and maybe she knows that when she says
she just wants
girls today to realize what they can have if they just keep
focused, and
don’t lose sight of what it is that they want.
Maybe she says
that indirectly
to me like that so that I will realize that I don’t want to end
up in her
situation. And maybe she just doesn’t
want to admit that her life
has been
affected in ways that she didn’t particularly choose because she is a
woman.