Pap and Granny in Wilson Holler at his parents’ home
This week when I stayed with Granny she was in a talking mood. I sat on the couch and let her ramble about days that are long gone. She jumped from one subject to another only stopping to answer questions when I asked them.
Some of the stories she told I’ve heard so often they make up the very fabric of my life. Others I’d never heard before.
When Granny and Pap married they’d only dated a short three months. Of course in those days that length of courtship was more common than it is today. Even though I’ve heard the story about how Pap talked her into getting married when they were supposed to only be getting the marriage license a million times, hearing it still makes me smile.
Granny surprised me by talking about the first time she ever came to Wilson Holler to visit Pap’s parents after they were married.
I said “You mean you never even met Papaw and Mamaw before you married daddy?” She said she might have met Mamaw and Uncle Henry, Pap’s youngest brother, at church, but she wasn’t sure if that was right before they married or right after.
I knew Mamaw and Papaw’s house would have been the only one in the holler at that time, but I didn’t know that you still had to ford the creek to get to their house.
One Sunday at our pickin and grinnin session Pap told us a story of a girl he met in California.
We’d been tryin to learn the song “Brand New Tennessee Waltz.” The song was written by Jesse Winchester. I was most familiar with The Nashville Bluegrass Band’s version. Although the Nashville Grass is among my all time favorite artists I didn’t like the song. I wasn’t excited about learning it and once I realized it had a funny beat I was even less excited.
After a few weeks of practicing the song we were getting the hang of it. One Sunday afternoon Paul and Pap got the harmony perfect and in the excitement of us actually liking how the song sounded, Pap said “You know that song reminds me of this girl I knew when I was living in California.” One of us said why? Pap said “Well there was this girl that I liked. She lived with another girl and when I’d get off work of an evening I’d stop by their house on my way home. Well one day when I stopped she told me she’d had enough of California she was going back to Tennessee. I was young and hot tempered and her leaving made me mad. I didn’t want her to go.”
It’s always been hard for me to imagine Granny and Pap as anything other than my parents. Hard to picture them before they had Steve, Paul, and me. Pap leaving all he knew to work in California and a young Granny having to face her mother after she eloped and then meeting her new in-laws she’d never met is difficult for me to mesh with the image I have of them in my mind. I can just see Granny’s face as Pap drove them through the creek and up the other side.
Several months back Chatter and Paul started playing around with the song “Brand New Tennessee Waltz.” I think it sounds pretty good.
I hope you enjoyed the song!
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It’s been awhile but I first heard and fell in love with this song in a video with Paul singing and “Pap” accompanying. So pretty……Thanks for the reminder, it’s still available on YouTube!
THis happens so regularly, we just don’t think about it. I didn’t know my dad was engaged before my mom & he had also dated my mom’s sister before he met my mom. I found that out in my 30s. My grampa was engaged to another woman, after breaking off with my grandma. somehow, my grandmother’s brother got them back together & married for over 50 yrs. We tried to ask my great uncle what he said (as both grandparents were dead by then & couldn’t answer) and by then his memory was gone & he didn’t remember any of it. My hubby’s grandpa was married before he was married to his grandma. She left him & took everything – the only thing he was left with was a bracelet she had bought him when they were married. My hubby didn’t even know this, I had to tell him after his mom told me the story. He was shocked. My maternal grandparents got married after only 10 DAYS! He was home on leave w/her brothers during WWII & she met him and wanted to go with him. They were married for about 40 yrs. & 16 babies, until she died of cancer @ 53. As my grandad would say, “Love’ll go where it’s sent, even if its up a hog’s *ss”. Never heard anyone else ever say this, but we say it often and bust out laughing every time!
My Pa was a bit of a rounder. I learned that from one of his running buddies one night in a pool room. He left the orphanage at 16, lived as a bachelor for almost another 16, and didn’t marry until he was 30. He ‘saw’ quite a few girls before then, I was told and was seriously courting a doctor’s daughter named Siobhan. She made the mistake of pressuring him to marry and he moved along to my mother. They were married a couple of years later – 100 years ago now. My mother was 8 years younger. They raised 9 young ‘uns and none ever went to prison or divorced their wives or husbands. All but one of the couples were married over 50 years. Wonder if that is possible in today’s world.
Funny thing is, Miss Siobhan lived in our neighborhood in the oldest part of Raleigh. I knew her as Miss X for years and years not knowing about her past with my Pa. She was always extremely nice to me, giving me treats and such. I didn’t know until I was grown that she and my Pa had been sweethearts. Funny thing is she and my mother became friends – not backdoor buddies but friends nonetheless. I guess Miss Siobhan eventually got over any pique she felt against my mother. My mother said that Miss Siobhan probably looked at me and thought that, had things been a little different, I might have been her son.
I was in the Navy, stationed in Yokohama, Japan, where I married a young Japanese girl in 1965. She met my family in 1970 when I transferred to San Diego, and we drove to N.C. during the transfer,
BTW, we will celebrate our 57th Anniversary on August 31.
Randy, I am so sorry about the loss you have endured this past year. Your heart has truly been robbed of her presence here on earth too soon. I am so very glad that you both know Jesus personally, and you know that the separation you are suffering from your wife currently will one day end, and you will spend eternity in Heaven never apart again. Yours’ was the love story us girls dream about. What a treasure you both have been to each other. Thank you for your comment to me, and sharing your beautiful first look, and subsequent marriage. You give me hope that someday God will bless me with the kind of love you two shared. You are richly blessed to not only have had your wife, but her family, too. Please know that you have been in my prayers this past year, and continue to be. God is so very good, always, even in our sadness and fears – He is always good. I know He holds you. And I know you know that beyond a doubt.
The Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. Grace be with you. Amen.
2 Timothy 4:22.
Donna. : )
Thank you, Donna. You know the Bible says when a man and woman marry they become one but I don’t know of anything it says about what happens to the half that is left when half of that one dies. If it was like a tree the half left will soon die or no longer be any good. I have recently read this, there was only one time when God said it was not good when he was creating the world. That was after he created man and saw he was alone, then he created a woman for him to have as a companion. Please take this sentence for the joke I mean it to be, nothing is said after He created a woman about God nor man resting anymore!
You’re the spittin’ image of your mom: beautiful. God bless you all.
What a sweet story! My parents also eloped at a very young age and to honor them after they passed, I wrote a small book about their Depression era love story as told by my mother. It was not your typical love story, but a sweet one from the Depression era, and I treasure it. I’m a hopeless romantic, what can I say! 🙂
Beautiful song! The story about your parents is so sweet. Even sweeter is that Granny is still here to tell you all of these stories. You are so lucky to have her and be able to enjoy this time with her. Thanks for sharing!
My wife didn’t get to meet my parents until she died. That sounds a little shocking but that’s reality. Now she’s with them without me. It makes me sad sometimes but mostly I’m happy about it. It wasn’t supposed to be that way but who am to decide how things are supposed to be.
I think it’s always a little shocking to learn our parents actually had feelings for someone other than the spouse we know as our parents. I was a young adult before I learned that my dad was engaged to another woman a year before he met my mom. I was shocked! Dad never talked about it, we learned it from an aunt. My aunt said all she knew was he broke it off and nobody knew why. My mom knew he had been engaged but didn’t know anything else because dad never told her anything either. It was so strange because I could never picture my parents having a different life other than what we had grown up knowing, so I understand how you feel Tipper.
The song is very pretty. I’ve never heard it until now. They did beautifully!
Others have mentioned it here today, but it is interesting to think about the various identities people have in a lifetime. I tease new Dad’s that they have just gotten a new identity as __________’s Dad and to some of their child’s friends that is the only way they will ever be known. To us, our parents are “Mom” and “Dad” and they can’t have any other identity as far as we are concerned. So the first realization they might have met and married someone else is a shock. We realize we might never have been. And as parents, we think about “If I had married _______ my children would never have been” and we can’t imagine that.
You surely do favor your mother! Me, too – she’s been gone for 16 years but every time I unexpectedly catch a glimpse of my own face in a mirror there is my mother looking back at me. My grown daughters saw the resemblance long before I did. It’s funny – if I am looking at a mirror with a purpose, like fixing my hair, I see “me,” but if I pass a mirror in a store and happen to see my reflection, there she is.
It’s hard to pick just one of Jesse Winchester’s songs they are all worth playing again…
Thanks
I know you had a great time listening to new information about your parents. Finding out more things about your parents is a wonderful thing. Dennis Morgan
Sweet story about your parents. Thank you for the music . I enjoyed it !
Such a memory, as usual. My Parents met and married after a few short month as well. Love this song and those two do a terrific job of harmonizing. Thanks for sharing all of your memories.
My wife’s parents also eloped or as it was called backed then “ran off” too. Each one’s parents would have been tickled to death for them to marry. They were next door neighbors and good friends. I think she was about 17 and he was 19 years. They were married over 60 years before my father in law died. When my mother in law was told she didn’t have much longer to live her first words were “Good, I will soon be with Curtis (her husband) again”. It was pretty common to elope back then, now a days they just shack up. I also enjoy Pap and the others music.
Best version I’ve ever heard!!
Love the memories of your parents. I lost my momma in December and wrote “I am from” which was encouraged by you, anyway, looking through Momma’s pictures we found a picture of her and Daddy newly married that none of us had seen. It’s the best picture ever!! They are so full of that brand new love and it shines through! Thank you for sharing as it always brings me to my own memories as well!
That song is downright pretty! I haven’t heard it before. Paul’s professional playing shows and Chatter’s voice is beautiful! Your entire family is very musically inclined. Families harmonies are the best I think. I enjoyed your story about Granny and Pap. Granny talks a lot cause she gets lonely is my guess. If it wasn’t for you making time for her, she would be very lonesome and grow sad. You’ll have no regrets one day looking back. The photo of granny and Pap is very nice and they were a fetching couple indeed!!! The Wilsons are a handsome bunch and it’s easy to see where you get your good looks! And the stories Granny shares are priceless memoirs…
I enjoyed this post. I have thought a lot lately about how we only know people as they were when we knew them. In fact, I wrote a song…not for public consumption…around my father and grandfather and wishing I had known them as young men and if we would have been friends. I wonder about their dreams and how many they gave up for their families. I was not aware of this song.
What a great song! I love the story too. I can’t get over how much you look like Granny
That was supposed to say my Dad broke it off with the other girl after two years before seriously pursuing my Mom . Not perusing!! I needed to proofread better before posting! Sorry Mom!
Donna. : )
peruse – examine carefully or at length
pursue – follow (someone or something) in order to catch or attack
Maybe peruse is a better choice of words after all.
I can relate to what you are saying about how hard it is to imagine your Mom and Dad dating anyone else before they were married. The saying “you have to kiss a lot of frogs before you meet your prince” (or something like that) applies to everyone, not just ourselves. But we still think our parents somehow only came to life the day they said “I do”! Do the girls think their Dad (Matt) sat on a shelf waiting for you to come along to take him off that shelve? I do the same thing with my parents. I have heard the stories about others my parents dated before they met, but it still doesn’t register in my brain that these former flames were real people, real times, and real events in my parents lives. My Dad dated several girls he was crazy over and thought about marrying until he met my Mom. He was dating one of those girls when he met my Mom. But my Dad lived in Washington state, and my Mom in Pennsylvania. They met at a family reunion when my Mom was 16 and my Dad was 22 (my Mom was the foster child of my Dad’s aunt). My Mom kept playing on my Dad’s mind off and on for a year or two, until he finally broke it off with the other girl he had been seeing for a couple of years, and seriously began perusing my Mom instead. I enjoy hearing Paul and Corie sing this song. They did very well. They always do. It is a good song about meeting someone briefly in your life, and moving on. The last verse always makes me wonder if he is running from the law (“they’ll always find you if you did (leave)”), some girls’ dad and his shotgun, being trapped by a girl chasing after him desperate for a marriage, or afraid of falling in love with the right or even the wrong girl. I love imagining the girl coming down the Victorian staircase in her ballgown. Thank you for this wonderful post!
Donna. : )
Donna, I did not kiss any frogs before finding my princess. One Sunday night at church while sitting in the back of the church checking out the girls instead of listening to the sermon my eyes locked on her and never left. She was 16 and I was 17. We went together for 2 1/2 years before being married for 46 1/2 years. On April 15, 2021 she left me to go be with God. Even though I can now only see her in my mind, she will be in my heart until I take my last breath and get to be with her again. They will never ever be anyone else. I would tease her and tell her God sure punished me for not listening to the preacher that night. She would grin at me when I did this. She and her family were true blessings for me. Nothing I enjoyed better than sitting with my father in law and listening to him talk about things he had done before I became part of the family. Maybe it should be look for slippers instead of kiss frogs for the ladies.
Donna, when I was dating my husband, he gave me a poster with this huge frog on it and it said–You have to kiss a lot of frongs before you find your prince. The frog was wearing a crown. We’ve been married 42 years!
Great job ! I enjoy all of yall music ☺
I miss Pap, he was such a sweet spirit on this earth! Good job on the Tennessee Waltz!
I really liked it.Good job.I love all of your stuff
I love the story about your parents. My parents eloped as well. My dad was in the Air Force and stationed at Hunter Air Force Base, Savannah, Georgia. He met my mother, they married in South Carolina, I believe. Our parents were once passionate young people, too, even though it’s difficult for us to picture!LOL I love the song, thank you for sharing it with us!