January 18th

This picture is of my Great Grandmother Leota Mays Cash & my Great Granfather Richard Smiley Cash. This picture was always in a frame at my Granny's house and I always thought it was so cool because it was so old! My Great Grandmother "Big Granny" and Great Grandfather lived with my Granny from the time my Mom was a kid. They moved in with my Granny and Babe because my Great Grandfather had been diagnosed with Cancer and was very ill. I never knew him as he died when my Mom was still young. I did, however, know my Big Granny, she lived to be 94 years old, I was in middle school when she died. This picture kind of sums up my Big Granny...she was a very serious person. I rarely ever saw her smile, she was also pretty particular about things and not one to offer any kind of affection. She had really bad asthma from the time she was a child and was always "Sickly" as they called it back when she was young. She was one of 14 living children (2 of her siblings died as infants/toddlers). I have heard stories that because of her health she was pretty pampered as a child. When she married my Great Grandfather he kept up the pampering. She always had "help", meaning a house keeper and a nanny for the kids. She had 3 daughters and 1 son. When her Son was born she had a very difficult delivery and ended up with what we know now was most probably Post Pardum Depression. My Great Uncle lived with another family until he was almost 2 years old! I never remember my Big Granny being sick, other than the normal cold etc. I never remember her seeming to be "sickly", but after all those years of growing up and being treated that way it must have just stuck. People waited on her hand and foot her entire life. She never went anywhere or did anything, she stayed at home and rocked in her rocking chair and watched TV (very loudly), she had "selective hearing" and would be deaf one minute and then next minute she would have heard everything you had been talking about. I loved my Big Granny, but I always wished she would have smiled more. She is so beautiful in this picture, but I imagine how much more beautiful she would have been with a smile!