Granny Phelps and her family lived in a big square brick house
which her husband had built. It had a big front porch and a big
lawn. They had two daughters and a son who lived with them. Both
daughters in later years worked for the first local TV station and
the son was on disability from an injury he got while on duty in
the navy. But oh, could he ever play the drums! Marguerite was also
a wonderful artist and illustrated childrens books. Anna, one of
the daughters, was engaged but her one true love was killed at
Pearl Harbor. Sometimes another daughter and her two children
Charlene and Dickie would come and stay for a while. Granny often
sat on the big porch in the swing working on her crocheted bedspreads
or tablecloths in the summertime. She was no bigger than a minute,
with long white hair which was braided and coiled at the back. She
was partially deaf and when she would go to visit a neighbor, she
always had her "ear trumpet" with her so she would not miss out on
anything being said. In later years Granny became blind but it did
not stop her from crossing the front yards to visit and it never
stopped her from doing her crochet work. When a neighbor went to
visit her, she knew who it was as soon as he/she crossed the
porch - she knew each one's footstep!

I never had a bicycle as a kid but when I started high school,
Buddy, the drummer, took care of that. As adults both of his
sisters had bought bicycles but were never able to learn to ride
them. I was walking home from school one day when Buddy came along
on one of the bicycles and stopped to tell me that he knew how I
loved bike riding and that he would carry my books and I could ride
the bike home. When he arrived at the house, he told me that any
time I wanted to ride to just come get the key to the garage from
the pantry and get one of the bikes. Anna and Marguerite said that
I was welcome to use them but asked only that I ride the blue one
one day and the red one the next.

Granny Phelps was always a joy to visit. She had the most beautiful
flower gardens with creeping phlox, snow-on-the-mountain, marigolds,
zinnias, daffodils, tulips, a beautiful yellow climbing rose
that reached to the top of the second story of the house, a huge
holly tree that made wonderful Christmas decorations, a big trumpet
vine that provided wonderful "witches fingers" when we were small,
etc. Her truly interesting garden though was a big square plot at
the back of the garage. This was where she had placed stepping
stones in a cross shape and each quarter section contained wild
flowers from the hills of her North Carolina home in Gastonia and
from Virginia. There were Jack-in-the-Pulpit, Asters, Bloodroot,
Chicory, Goldenrod, Blue Flag Iris, Trillium, Butterfly Weed,
Geraniums, Lady Slippers, Queen Anne's Lace, Violets, and the one
that delighted all children - Chinese Lanterns. She was always
willing to share her flowers and her knowledge of gardening. After
all these years, I still have violets that Granny gave me when I
was a little girl.