by Shirley Love

Created on: March 03, 2010   Last Updated: March 10, 2010

My grandmother was of the old school of thought.  "Ladies do not wear trousers!" she declared.  She was dignified and she was opinionated; but she was also determined and inventive.  She would grab the hem of her long skirt at the back, bring it forward and upward between her legs, and tuck it into the front waistband.  Her dignity was preserved and her modesty protected as she tackled the daily tasks of maintaining her garden.

Her gardens were like one of her children.  She tended them with love and devotion, and in return they produced a bounty of tasty rewards for her.

It was the 1940s and the WW11 was foremost in everybody's minds.  Our fathers, husbands, brothers, and cousins were somewhere in Europe or in the Pacific and only God knew what they were facing day by day.  Grandma had two sons who were serving their country, and she was constantly asking God to keep them safe.  She talked to Him each morning while we were busy gardening, and she prayed aloud to Him in the afternoon as we cleaned and prepared the vegetables we had gathered earlier.

The government had suggested that the patriotic American citizens should plant their own vegetable gardens, aka Victory Gardens.  Canned food was rationed and much of it was shipped out to the armed forces, so nearly every adult in our town had their own personal garden.  Grandma had marked off a portion of her garden plot for me, and had helped me plant and nurture my own special garden.  For an eight-year-old girl, that was quite an accomplishment, I thought, and I took great pride in furnishing vegetables for the table of my parents and siblings.

Grandma was a very gentle loving person, but when it came to invaders in her garden, she would suddenly develop a Jekyl-Hyde attitude.  Woe to any worm found on her tomatoes or any insect trying to establish a residence on her potatoes.  There were no insecticides, and I know she would never have used them if they had existed.  She had what she referred to as her "killing stones."  Now I personally found the method distasteful, and I shudder even today when I think of it; but I did as grandma instructed me.

One very large flat stone was the execution altar, and another was the anvil of death!  We annihilated those pests by placing them on the altar and smashing them with the anvil...sometimes singularly and sometimes a few at a time.  It didn't take long for the stones to become a smeared

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