When I was a little girl in Albany, Georgia, I loved looking in my grandmother's purse. "Mom Mom" had a big black purse with all kinds of special treasures. I still remember when I would get too wiggly during church, she would let me explore her purse to keep me occupied and quiet.
In her purse, she kept a sewing kit, a coin purse full of buttons, a plastic rain cap and an extra hairnet. She kept a folding comb and hairbrush, a lace hanky and a tiny little bottle of perfume - the kind they used to give out as samples at the cosmetic counter in Rich's Dept. Store. she carried medicated cough drops, Juicy Fruit Chewing Gum, her fountain pen and a pad of paper on which she wrote lists. She always kept lists. She had a jar of safety pins, straight pins, bobby pins, and rubber bands. Of course, she kept an emery board handy. She kept a tin of Vick's Vapor Rub and another tin of Anacin. She had one of those little teeny glass vials covered with cloth that held ammonia spirits in case somebody felt faint. There was a little photgraph book, the old kind with black pages and the pictures glued on the paper. I loved to look at all the pictures. She had one with my mama as a baby. I remember being amazed that my mama had actually been a baby one time. Sometimes, there would be an apple or peach wrapped up in wax paper in case somebody got hungry. There was a little black book with names and addresses. She always kept a little bitty envelope with postage stamps.
For some reason, she had a separate black coin purse that held only silver dollars. She saved silver dollars for each grandchild. There were 9 of us and when she died I had 12 silver dollars. Her other coin purse held regular coins and sometimes when I was "helping" in our family furniture store, she would give me 7 cents to go next door to Mr. Wright's Feed Store. He had a big glass jar full of 2-cent coconut cookies. Sometimes Mr. Wright would give me two cookies for the price of one. He had a big chest cooler with RC Colas and NeHi's. I'd always get the RC CoCola. I'd bring it back over to our store and share the cookie and RC with Mom Mom. She'd pour just a little bit into a jelly glass and let me drink out of the bottle.
Sometimes I still think about my Grandmother's big black purse.... |
