A Picture of My Grandma

Leonard Francis Brooks, (Grandma) Bertha Evelena Brooks, 

William Homer Brooks, Geneva Agnes Brooks ca.1912

A Picture of My Grandma     
words and music © by Eddie Allen Music 2016

That's a picture of my Grandma

When she was just a little girl

Her clothes seem funny to us now

But did you ever see such curls?

And that's your great-great Uncle Leonard

Standin' by her side

No I never met him

He was a young man when he died

The only childhood picture that I have

I think it's nineteen-twelve

A photograph cost money then

They had so little for themselves

It must have been a big occasion

All in their Sunday best

No one's smiling in the picture though

So we can only guess

What their lives were like back in those days

My Grandma used to say

We didn't know how poor we were

We just struggled from day to day

We picked cotton 'til our hands were sore

Our backs and shoulders bent

Daddy'd always say just one row more

When us kids begged to quit

Seven children of this union born 

To her parents Jess and Jane

Nancy Edna died at five weeks old

When Grandma was just eight

And then Leonard in that car crash

When cars and roads were new

Memories filled my Grandma's eyes with tears

There were more than just a few

For death came often in those days

There was danger and disease

Doctors scarce but undertakers

Common as you please

It was her dream to be a teacher

A dream not meant to be

She studied hard and she got good marks

But grinding poverty

Forced her back into the cotton fields

So many mouths to feed

A stream of hoboes at the door

They were all in need

So fifth grade was the end of school

She was needed back at home

Hard work was the only tool

When survival was the goal

She met and married my Granddad

In nineteen twenty-four

Three years she kept house in a tent

With hard earth for their floor

He worked in the oil fields

Kansas Oklahome

Across the Texas plains on horseback

They were savin' for a home

Their work paid off they bought a farm

In Kingman County where

The tiny town of Norwich, Kansas

Lay three miles west of there

In 'twenty-eight and 'thirty

Came my Dad and Uncle Mel

The same time that the Dust Bowl came

And turned their lives to Hell

Neighbors thought the world was ending

Many packed and ran away

Grandma might have been afraid

But she was bound to stay

She shoveled dust out of that house

Each and every day

Wet dishrags 'round the babies' mouths

So they could breathe okay

Tough times don't last forever

Tough people make it through

By the time I came along 

In nineteen fifty-two

In the little house my Granddad built

Here on Denton Street

Is where I first remember Grandma

Where I scampered at her feet

The peace and love within that home

Are now a part of me

And when across this world I've roamed

I've always longed to be

There beside my Grandma

When she's cookin' at the stove

Or sittin' right up close to her

In that De Soto that she drove

Or workin' in her garden

Hoein' in the beans

Or cuttin' rhubarb for a pie

Or patchin' up my jeans

I know that she was only human

But to me she seemed a saint

She often spoke of her hard times

But she spoke without complaint

And now just one more story

It's the last one that she told

Her and Granddad drove to Kansas

After they'd grown old

They came across that dusty field

The cotton was in bloom

She wanted him to take her picture

And to hang it in their room

But when he viewed her through the lens

He shook with love and rage

He said I will not take your photograph

Not with you standin' in this cage

So that's my Grandma in the picture

When she was just a little girl

We gave her name to you

Back when you became our world

Now a little boy who is your own

His life won't be so hard

He'll never know how rich he is 

Because my Grandma won't be far

She'll look down on him and me

When I hold his hand

And I'll tell him her history

As he grows to be a man

That's my Grandma in the picture

When she was just a little girl

Her clothes seem funny to us now

But did you ever see such curls?