Walter Woodrow Palmer
Born January 5th, 1916
Died July 6, 2009
Rest in peace, Pops. I love you.
This song is sticking with me this morning.
Iron & Wine
Sodom, South Georgia
Archive for the ‘Genealogy’ Category
Small as a wish in a well
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009Closer
Sunday, July 5th, 2009Pop’s not doing so well. Got the call that his vitals were all going downhill pretty quickly. Lisa and I both felt like we wanted to be here for mom and Dad, and for Pop. We took separate cars, to accommodate our adult schedules.
Driving down this afternoon was strange. I cried in my car on the highway, driving 80 mph listening to Guns N’ Roses version of “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door,” and coming up on a wall of thunderstorm seen from a distance. I could see curtains of rain coming down from the sky, with light shining through too, in that weird way that happens with storms, all green and grey and silver and purple. Some moments the heavens just seem closer.
Melancholy, Twisted, Beautiful
Friday, June 19th, 2009Just finished writing an obituary for my dying grandfather. It made me feel weepy and it made it seem real that he won’t be with us much longer. Felt the same heaviness when i dropped off a porch swing that he made with his own two hands at a friend’s house last night. It did make me laugh in a bittersweet way that she will be painting it bright pink. Listening to Frightened Rabbit’s “Old Old Fashioned” and reading a story about kids during WWII driving out to a new bridge in Alabama, parking on it, and pulling out an old crank record player and dancing in the moonlight.
Feeling melancholy and weepy, in a life is twisted and beautiful kind of way.
Possibly Not the Domestic Goddess
Friday, June 5th, 2009. . . that I think I am.
I was cooking dinner last night (ahem, mac and cheese) and was boiling the macaroni, when the pot boiled over. (Or, “balled” over, as my Daddy with his Savannah accent would say. He also says “aygs” for eggs, “all” for oil, and “tin fall” for tin foil.) Tiller was in the kitchen with me and as the pot boiled over, she looked at me, shaking her head as if in disgust, and said, “That always happens.”
Night before last, our babysitter Rebecca got to the house, and I was dressed and saying good night to Tiller. She hugged me then pulled back to study my face, as if seeing me for the first time.
“Mama, what’s wrong with your eyes?”
“Um, that’s makeup baby.”
She keeps me honest, that one. No thinking i am a beautiful domestic Goddess with her around.
A Fave
Saturday, May 24th, 2008
I love this picture. That’s me, on the left, not Tiller! Pop is holding me, then Aunt Lessie, and Grandma on the end. Oh, and mess o’ fish.
Aunt Lessie always dressed up, even for fishing. You shoulda seen her getup when she went to the pool with me in Roswell, and went off the diving board. She was in her 70s! Wearing an old-school swimcap with plastic flowers on it. Grandma? She liked to rock the cat’s eye glasses.
Happy Birthday, Pop!
Saturday, January 5th, 2008
My grandfather turns 92 today. That just awes and amazes me. I’ve written about him before, here and here, if you want to read more about him. The picture is him around the time of his graduation from the Martha Berry School, which is now Berry College, in Rome, Georgia. I think that was about 1934.
Annie Tour 2007
Thursday, July 12th, 2007
Get your t-shirts now.
I just got back from visiting brother-in-law, SIL, and CIL (cat-in-law) in Huntsville. We had a great time (three words: “Space Ice Cream.”) I also was able to indulge my guilty history pleasure and take a day trip to beautiful Jackson County, Alabama, where a couple of my dead folks are buried. I was pleasantly surprised at the beauty of the area, and to find that my guy (Archibald) and his wife were early pioneers in the area. Which means, of course, that they took Cherokee land. Sad. They came from Kentucky to northern Alabama by packhorse. Yikes. I can’t imagine how many arguments Todd and I would get into traversing the mountains of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama by packhorse, with two kids, much less 6 or more. There was a wealth of information on the family and the area they settled (Crow Creek Valley). The cemetery where they were buried was remote, just plain beautiful, and a little scary (lots of crows), just like I like’em. My only disappointment was a dearth of snake handlers. (See National Book Award finalist: Salvation on Sand Mountain.) I guess they only do that on Sunday. I don’t know what I expected – People walking around the cornfields carrying rattlers?
I arrived back yesterday afternoon, and now I am off this morning to Hilton Head with the Georgia Hotties. That’s what we call our Mom’s group – It used to be called Georgia Mamas, but one of us thought we were way too hot for that. I agree. I have written about how my brother-in-law snidely calls us “Girls Gone Mild.” He obviously doesn’t understand the hurricane of maternal drunkeness that is about to beset Hilton Head Island.
And I Think I Have it Rough Some Days
Wednesday, April 25th, 2007This is a letter written by my great-grandfather, John Lewis Palmer, to his sister, Lilly Palmer, on Jan 13, 1919. It was about a month after the death of his second wife, Ludie Knowles Palmer. John Lewis and Ludie were Pop‘s parents. At the time, they lived in Broxton, Ga. His sister Lilly lived in Goldston, NC, where John Lewis was from originally.
[On Palmer-Chambliss Hardware Co. Letterhead]
J. L. Palmer and C. F. Chambliss
Palmer-Chambliss Hardware Co.
Dealers in Hardware
Terms Cash – Interest Charged After 30 Days
Oliver Plows, Mowers, Rakes, Binders and American Wire Fencing
Also Exclusive Agents for Famous Roberson CutleryBroxton, Ga., Jan. 13, 1919
Dear Lilly,
We received your letter yesterday and was glad to hear from you. Yes, Ludie died Dec 19th. It was a great shock to us all and it leaves me in a bad fix. Six little children to look after besides Lee and Estelle. The baby has been real sick for a week. We thought Friday it wouldn’t live, but I am glad to say it is so much better this morning, and believe it will soon be well. It has a stomach trouble caused from feeding it. He was nursing and we had to go to feeding him. He vomited everything he ate for 4 days, then his eyes and face began to swell. The Dr. said it was a poison caused from eating.Ludie died I suppose with acute indigestion caused from the condition the Influenza left her stomach in and then ate something that didn’t agree with her. She was first taken on Tuesday morning while cooking breakfast. We got the Dr. and she got easy in about 2 hours and Wednesday worked all day. Wednesday night she had an other spell but got over that about 10 o’clock that night. Thursday morning she did not get up. She said she was so sore, but not in any pain and about Dinner Thursday she was taken again and was nearly dead before we could get the Dr. She died about 4 o’clock Thursday evening.
Our baby liked 10 days of being a year old. Our two little ones names are Hugh and Walter and the baby is name Carl.
Estelle is with me now, but don’t know how long I can keep her as her husband has a job in Douglas, but I will get on some how. I can cook and attend to them my self. Mrs. Knowles is very feeble, not able to do much so she can’t help me; Lena Mae, J.L. and Margarette are in school. All except the baby are doing nice and are as fat as pigs.
I wish you could come to see us and stay a while. When is Charley coming? We have looked for him ever since Christmas. We gave Ludie a nice burial. A solid steel casket and a cement grave, and I hardly ever saw so many pretty flowers. Some came from other towns as far as 25 miles. Ludie was a good wife and mother and we miss her so much. No one but those who have experienced it can know anything about it. I will close. Love to you and Charley. Write again.
Your Bro,
J.L. Palmerp.s. We had just about gotten well when Ludie died. We had nine sick at one time. Lee and I had Pneumonia. I am not real well yet, Can’t get to feeling good. Lee seems to be all right. We certainly had a time, 2 Drs. and a trained Nurse.
J.L.P.
Lee and Estelle are John Lewis Palmer’s eldest children (by his first wife, Lena Cole). The sick baby he refers to is his youngest, Carl Jenkins Palmer. Hugh and Walter are Hugh Knowles Palmer, and Walter Woodrow Palmer (my grandfather). Mrs. Knowles is Ludie’s mother, John’s mother-in-law, Mrs. Sarah Patience Hood Knowles. Lena Mae, J.L, and “Margarette” are his children Lena Mae Palmer, John Lewis Palmer, Jr. and Mary Margaret Palmer. Charley is John Lewis’ brother, Charles Christian Palmer.
A few different things struck me about this letter: First, it is hard to imagine someone dying and me not finding that out until almost a month later, and by mail. It must have been difficult to receive a letter with such sad news and then not be able to pick up a phone and call someone to see how they are or have any questions you have about the death answered. Next, I find it interesting that he is so quick to point out that she died and left him in a bind. People seem so reserved in old letters that you don’t even sense how devastated they must have been; he seems more concerned about how he is going to keep the household running. I found the descriptions of their sicknesses kind of funny: “A poison caused from eating?” “Acute Indigestion?” I also love that he says the other kids are “as fat as pigs.” It is hard to imagine living a life so hand to mouth that you brag about your kids being fat.
Sadly, John Lewis Palmer died later in the same year the letter was written, in August of 1919. At that point, the children were orphaned and split up between family members in GA and NC. My grandfather (Walter), Hugh, and Carl all went to Ludie’s sister, Bettie Knowles Bird, and her family. They lived on a farm about eight miles from Hazelhurst, GA, I think, which is itself absolutely nowhere.