May 28, 2008

• Granny Holt

     Writing fiction is something I’d love to be able to do, but it's never been the kind of writing that comes naturally to me.
     When
  I was about 13, I discovered a kind of fiction I thought maybe I could
  write. Some of you may have read Eugenia Price's historical novels, set
  along the southern Atlantic coast. My favorite of them all was "The
  Beloved Invader," set on St. Simon's Island, Ga.
     I was
  intrigued by Price's method. A student of history, she would find the
  story of an obscure person who intrigued her, then exhaustively
  research their life and use it as the framework for a novel.
     I
  remember thinking even as a young teenager that if I ever wrote a
  novel, that's what I would have to do. I'd have to have a real person's
  life to base it all on — but I'd want to be free to fill in the blanks
  in that life with my imagination, coloring their personality, dreaming
  up the words they said, their thoughts, their hopes, their fears, what
  was really going on inside their hearts.
     A character in
  my own family fascinates me, and if I ever actually sit down to write a
  book, it may have my great-grandmother as its central character — Lena
  Watermeier Holt.
     Lena's father, Frederick Watermeier,
  immigrated to St. Louis from Germany in the mid-1800s. I was always
  told, "Grandpa worked in the Kaiser's gardens back in Germany, and he
  came over to St. Louis to work in the botanical gardens there."
     I
  don't know too much about Lena, my Granny Holt. Family stories said
  that our grandfather Watermeier was very strict — that his family was
  allowed to speak only German in their home, and that the children had
  to line their little leather shoes up in the hallway outside their
  bedroom doors at night so that "Papa" could polish them while they were
  asleep.
  Somehow, city-girl Lena ended up marrying a man
  from tiny Macon, Miss. I know he was a traveling salesman, so I can
  imagine him coming to the big city of St. Louis on a business trip, all
  dressed up, and meeting this young German girl and sweeping her off her
  feet.
     Miss Lena Watermeier and Mr. Henry Clay Holt
  somehow ended up married and living in our little hometown of Macon.
  They had four daughters — Eddie Lee, Ruth, Lucile and Henrietta (my
  “Poppy”) —  and then a baby son, Henry Clay, Jr. — "Buddy."
     But
  when all five children were still little, Henry Clay went off and left
  his wife and children and never came home. Poppy told me her mama had
  to take in sewing and ironing to make ends meet.
     My
  grandmother also told me her daddy never sent their mother money, but
  every once in a while, one of the children would get a package from him
  that contained some kind of extravagant gift — like a fancy beaded
  evening purse — when what they needed was shoes for school, or money
  for groceries.
     My Granny Holt lost her only son — her
  baby — when he was in his early twenties. Poppy told me “her Buddy”
  died suddenly of a ruptured appendix. Whenever she talked about her
  lost brother, tears would shine in her brown eyes, even 40 years later.
  
     It wasn't until after Poppy was gone, when I was
  interviewing an old, old lady for a story in the Macon paper, that I
  learned the truth about Uncle Buddy’s death. Miss Fan had lived next
  door to Granny Holt and her family when she was growing up.
     "Yes,
  honey, that Buddy Holt was the best-looking thing — such a sweet boy,
  so much fun," she told me, looking off into the distance and smiling at
  the memory. "He worked at a little grocery story down by the river
  bridge, and all the young wives in town would go down there to buy
  their groceries, 'cause that Buddy was just so darlin’. It just broke
  everybody's heart when got hold of that bad whiskey that killed him."
     Bad whiskey. Poppy had just edited out that part of her precious brother’s story.
     It was from Miss Fan, too, that I heard the story that intrigued me most.
     We'd been talking about how Granny's young salesman husband had "run off."
     Then
  Miss Fan said, "One day, a young, real pretty woman got off the train
  all by herself, and inquired at the depot about Mr. Henry Clay Holt."
    That
  was my grandfather's name. The grandfather who had left his hometown,
  his parents, his five little children, and his wife, behind. His lonely
  wife, who was struggling to feed those five children, who still wore
  her wedding ring.
     "Mr. Henry Clay Holt?" the station
  master said. "Why, m'am, Henry Clay Holt left this town about five
  years ago and hasn't been seen here since. Is there anything I can do
  for you?"
     "Well, I’m his wife," the beautiful stranger said. "I’ve come looking for my husband."
     Apparently, he’d gone off and left her, too.
     Granny
  died when I was only four, but Mama and Poppy used to talk to us about
  her all the time — about how strong her faith was, how she was always
  smiling, always looking for something to be thankful for. How she
  taught her family that every hard thing you went through just made you
  stronger.
     I'd love to tell Granny Holt's story. I'd love to know how she walked through her fires and kept her faith.
     There's no record of it. I don't have her journal, or any letters she wrote. Almost everybody who knew her well is gone.
     I
  may just have to use what I know about the kind of people her daughters
  and granddaughters were, and make the rest of it up myself.
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------
  By Celia DeWoody
  Copyright 2008 Harrison (Ark.) Daily Times
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

  • 8:58 pm
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