Mamma's Proverbs

 

                                                 Victoria May Rosser Paul

 

Some of you may wonder why I haven't published more of my mother's stories, Wenonah's stories, in this blog. I've been feeling guilty about that, and so I may as well come clean. It's because they're in the book. When I started writing this blog, it seemed like I was almost finished with the book, but writing a book takes a long time, at least it has for me, so I'm still just teasing you with stories about peripheral events and background history. 

Now it does seem like the end is in sight. That's the reason I've been neglecting the blog lately. I've been spending most of my time editing my manuscript to get it ready to send to the publisher.  

Dividing my time between writing the book and the blog has given me an appreciation for the values of both. On the one hand, in the book I can show how the events in the lives of my mother's family fit together, how they combined to make them the people they were. It's only by knowing in detail the joys, the obstacles, and the tragedies they faced, that you could ever hope to understand them.  

I've always enjoyed listening and telling stories, but a short story only gives you a snap shot of a person. Now that I've worked so hard to tell my mother's story, I appreciate more the importance of putting stories into context. It's helped me to understand my mother better - her whole family for that matter, and I want to leave that understanding, limited as it still is, to my children, to the rest of our family, and to whoever else wants to read about us.  

Now for the advantages of a blog. The most painful struggle I've had in writing this book is having to leave things out. To me every story, every little fact about our family is interesting. I have boxes of pictures, documents, letters. I have hundreds of hours of taped interviews with my mother, and I've read dozens of books to learn about the historical, political, and social background for our story, but I just can't put all that into the book. As interesting as it all is, putting it in would destroy the continuity, the drama, but I can put it into the blog, and now that I know what's going to be included in the book, perhaps I won't be so stingy about sharing facts that are peripheral to the main story.  

Also once you get to know Uncle Haskell, or Uncle Tom, or Grandmother by reading the book, it should be more interesting to learn more about them.  

The most important person in my mother Wenonah's life was her mother, Victoria. I knew Grandmother only in her later years, and although I spent a lot of time with her, I never saw her as the inspiration, and the tower of strength that she was to my mother. Grandmother taught her children with proverbs, and I've tried to collect some of them, both proverbs and also some colloquialisms, as my mother, Wenonah told them to me.  

          Beggars can't be choosers.

          Willful waste makes woeful want. Mamma said that when Roosevelt put dye in potatoes and paid farmers to destroy hogs.

          Still waters run deep.  Refers to people who are wise but speak little.

          I did very well by my supper. Mamma would say after a hearty meal.

          When you pour, pour!  Mamma said when she was teaching me to pour.

          (My mother quoted this to me when she was trying to get me to get to the point when I was telling a story.)

          Mamma never did whine. In spite of what she had to go through. She was always trying to figure out how to get along. And she didn't let us whine. This was her phrase:  I'll give you something to whine about.  That's one of her phrases that's glued to my memory. And we weren't allowed to tattle either. Me and Bob would tattle on each other and then we'd both get a whipping

          The Rooshuns. That's how Mamma pronounced Russians. Also she pronounced her a's as er's, and er's as a's, so my sister Oteka was "Teker," and her sister Ada was "Ader." Her brother Luther was "Lutha," and vinegar was "vinega."

          Mamma's toast was: Up to my mouth and down to my toes where many quarts and gallons go.

          A giggling girl and a cackling hen never can come to a good end.

          He=s a fool for the want of sense. (My mother made this comment about a cousin of mine who pretended to be smarter than everyone else.)

          A fool and his money are soon parted.   

          A house divided against itself cannot stand.  Mamma would say this when we=d fight with each other.

          So and so is more to be pitied than censored

          You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

          Pretty is as pretty does.

          If you don't act like a lady people won't treat you like one.

          When two or three are gathered together I will grant their requests.

          The sins of the fathers are visited on the sons.

          If you lay down with dogs you're going to get fleas.

          Blood is thicker than water

          Oh, for pity's sake.

          Birds of a feather flock together.

          A watched pot never boils.          

          I wouldn't have given a plugged nickel forC

          Mamma would also say AI don=t love ...@ instead of saying she didn't like

something.

          If Mamma called someone "old" it meant that she was mad at them, or didn't like them. She called her sister "Old Sis" when she opposed her marriage to Pappa.

          It's a long lane that knows no turnings. Is a quotation from Robert Browning's poem, The Flight of the Duchess. Mamma used it to mean that people get their just deserts.  

          Wheels within wheels. Mamma used to refer to complicated political or social situations.

          Leave well enough alone

          A friend in need is a friend indeed.

          Mamma used the expression Plotting against the British in reference to my brother Haskell checking on us to see if we were talking about him. It refers back to the revolutionary war when the colonists had to be careful what they said around the British. 

 

          Your damned old Daddy. The only curse word that Mamma ever used.

 

The Furniture Catalogue, 3

Sorry I haven't posted a blog for a while. Our families have been visiting us so we've been busy rediscovering Colorado. That's what you do when company comes. You take them to see things that you think will impress them. Sometimes that's good and sometimes it's not. Anyway we took our son to see the Royal Gorge and found out that he is still afraid of heights, and I took my granddaughters mountain climbing and it gave them altitude sickness. I hope that doesn't mean no one will ever come to see us again. 

I miss the kids but it is good to get back to writing about my grandmother's scrap book, The Furniture Catalogue. A little more about my Grandmother, Victoria May Rosser Paul. She was born on March 31, 1877, and named after the Queen of England at that time, Queen Victoria. Her father had left Georgia after the Civil War and was headed west to join his brother Ed in Texas. Grandmother was born along the way near the town of Pittsboro, in "Calhoun County, Mississippi, three miles from the yellow bushy swamp" - that's the way she said it. Grandmother's family never made it to Texas, but settled instead in Indian Territory.  

Grandmother came from a wealthy family, and she was very beautiful as a young woman. As a child I never thought of Grandmother as pretty or as fashion conscious, but she was. Here is the youngest picture I have of her:  

                                          Victoria May Rosser Paul

My mother said that Grandmother had some very fancy dresses in her armoire which she never wore. They were poor by that time so she had no place to wear her dresses, but she could still put pictures of pretty clothes in her scrapbook:

Here are three other clippings that illustrate Grandmother's interest in fashion. They concern a Parisian fashion designer named Jean Philippe Worth who owned an exclusive store in Paris. Here is a picture of him: 

                                             Jean Philippe Worth

and another of his wife:

                                              Mrs. Jean Philippe Worth

There is also a clipping with a picture of the Marquise de Manzanedo, who, according to the caption under the picture, wore only muslin dresses during the War of 1870, because Worth's was closed. From his picture, it looks like Jean Philippe was called into military service.

                                         Marquise de Manzanedo

The "War of 1870" was the Franco-Prussian war. At that time France was ruled by Napoleon III, a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte. He was first elected president and then made himself Emperor. He was the last monarch to rule France. The Germans won the war, and thereafter became united under the King of Prussia, Wilhelm I. It gives me a strange feeling to realized that although the Franco-Prussian War seems like ancient history to us now, it was a relatively recent event to my Grandmother.

Grandmother's family was French, and she was interested in all things French. My mother said that Grandmother taught her about French history as a child.

While most of the clippings in the scrap book are just pictures and poetry, there are a few concerning "current events." Here is an excerpt from a poem about the brutality of the Germans during WWI. Grandmother was partial to poetry:

The German Soldier's Prayer:

The German soldier fell upon his knees

And prayed; and as he prayed, his words were these:

"Oh God, our unconditional ally, Ruler and Kamerad, who from on high

Viewest with delight the progress of our arms,

The ruined villages and wasted farms.

The starving people we have taught to hate,

Children we murder, girls we violate,

Bless this poor instrument of thy great will;

Oh Heavenly Kaiser, teach me how to kill!

Now when WWII has grown dim in our memories, it's hard to imagine how strong was the hatred of Germany during the first world war. My mother told me that when she was little there was a violinist from Belgium who lived in Pauls Valley named Professor Bruin. He gave lessons to her older brother Willie. She said "he was a Asweet old man, and everyone respected him,@ but he was investigated by the government during WWI for possible ties to Germany. I don't know what harm he could have done in Pauls Valley regardless of his sympathies.

Grandmother was a volunteer with the Red Cross during WWI and there was apparently anti-Red Cross propaganda spread by the Kaiser. Here is a poem about that:

Who Knows?

Under this caption the Sangamon County (Illinois) Chapter has printed and circulated the following satirical reply to the German propaganda stories against the Red Cross:

"Absolute knowledge I have none.

But my aunt's washerwoman's sister's son

Heard a policeman on his beat

Say to a laborer on the street

That he had a letter just last week

Written in the finest Greek
From a Chinese coolie in Timbuctoo
Who said the Indians in Cuba knew
Who got it straight from a circus clown
That a man in the Klondike heard the news
From a gang of South American Jews
About somebody in Borneo
Who heard a man who claimed to know
Of a swell female society rake
Whose mother-in-law will undertake
To prove that her seventh husband's sister's niece
Has stated in a printed piece
That she has a son who knows a Zulu chief
Who knows that Red Cross funds are not used for relief."

Finally there's a newspaper clipping about the creator of Sherlock Holmes, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who was a contemporary of my grandmother. He was apparently quite an outdoorsman. The article is from Canada:

Conan Doyle on Hunting Trip

Edmonton, Alta., June 17. (It doesn't give the year) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of the "Sherlock Holmes" adventures, who is accompanied by Lady Doyle, is camping in the Yellowhead Pass of the Canadian Rockies, west of here, the guest of Colonel S. Maynard Rogers, superintendant of the new national park, will attempt to scale Mt. Robson, 17576 feet above sea level, before returning to England, early in July.

He will also join Colonel Rogers and party on a big game expedition outside the reserve, making part of the trip in a canoe.

Although the author of the article got the elevation wrong - Mt. Robson is actually 12,972 ft. above sea level - climbing it is an impressive feat. You have to use special equipment to scale the cliffs, and even now, only about 10% of attempts are successful. Conan Doyle must have been quite athletic.   

                                                    Mt. Robson

The news recently carried the story that Conan Doyle was present at the first Olympic games held in England in 1908, when the current distance for the marathon was set. The winner of the race that day, Dorando Pietri, was so exhausted at the end that he fell five times during the last 350 meters and was helped back onto his feet by spectators. For that he was disqualified, and the medal was given to an American, Johnny Hayes. Conan Doyle, who was there as a reporter - he accepted the assignment because it would give him a better seat - helped raise money to help Pietri start a bakery in his native Italy, and Queen Alexandra presented him with a gilded silver cup to compensate for his Herculean effort. Doyle wrote:

"The Italian's great performance can never be effaced from our record of sport, be the decision of the judges what it may."