I remember visiting my grandparents when I was a little girl in Beaufort, SC. We would spend a week to two weeks with them in the summer. I didn't realize then what a small home they had, it was just home. My sister and I would sleep on the pull-out sofa and Mama slept in the guest room (her old bedroom). There was an eat-in kitchen, and Grandmama always had grape juice and ginger snaps for treats. She would give us each a special tiny glass and fill it with, what I thought, the sweetest grape juice ever!
The back yard was filled with wild flowers of every kind, that danced in the breeze. My sister and I would pick bouquets and bring them to her, she would always exclaim over them and get a glass with water to put them in, and place them on top of her kitchen cabinets. I guess I thought it was a place of importance, to keep them safe and to be seen. Now I know that Grandpapa had asthma and high allergies and she was putting them somewhere that wouldn't bother him, but she never turned them down or made us take them away.
We would take at least one trip to the beach, Hunting Island, and gather sea shells and play in the surf. Grandmama always wore her sun hat and worried that we were getting out to deep. She didn't swim so anything past your ankles was too deep. She would hold my hand and we would walk along the wet sand looking for special shells, and watching the shrimp boats in the distance.
When my family takes a trip to Hunting Island now, the minute I can smell the marsh I know we are there. As children, my sister and I were always asking "Are we there yet?". If you have ever been you know the marsh smell is present before you actually are in Beaufort, but to me that's when you are there.
I can hear her voice even now, "Now Edith (my Mama), they are just babies". I knew I was loved and that she would always.
Mamie Catherine Williams Cole (b.1922 d.2003)
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