Directly across the street and about a mile away and also on the very peak of an even higher hill lived Aunt’s mother, my great grand mother (Gran Mumma, I think is what we called her). I remembered very little about her and it's only recently that I re-connected the lineage and realized that she was my Great Grand Mother. She was pretty old, frail and very much inside most of the time so I did not see much of her. She must have been pretty old by time I was born and I saw so little of her so nothing significant stands out and now I can't put a picture of her back in my brain as much as I would like to.
The house I remembered though. In the back, that was the side facing the road, we played cricket, with bats made out of coconut bough and a ball from anything you can device. On the other side of the house was the front door. Next to it was a great big wooden barrel or steel drum for catching the run-off rain water from the roof. One time this drum got infected with mosquitoes laying their eggs so a thin layer of kerosene oil was poured on the surface of the water to kill the mosquitoes (it prevents them from breathing). So in order to get to the water below the this film of Kerosene oil you were suppose to dip your container below the surface and full it before bringing it back to the surface. That way you would not get the kerosene oil on the surface in your container. Try as I might, I could never do it right so every drink I took I would get the taste of kerosene oil. That taste have stayed with me all these years and that is what stands out now in my memory when I think of my Great Grand Mother.
You see, at Lucky Hill water was a precious commodity. For everyone in the district, my grand mother and great grand mother included, water had to be carried from a river on your head. So you treasured it. To get water from the river you would take a container (one that would be fitting for your age and size) and you would go down to this river (it must have been more than a mile away) and you would fill it up and get it on your head and trudge all the way back. Heaven help you if you spilled it for you had go all the way back and do it all over again. I remember a particular part of the trail where the soil was a very red clay (much like my now beloved North Carolina soil) which became very slippery when wet. Invariably, someone would loose a load and that made it slippery and before you know you had a domino effect. It was especially treaterous when it rained for then it was not unusual then for several of us kids to loose two or more loads before successfully negotiating all the way home. That was just some of the hardships of Lucky Hill but I have to come back to that later as I am sort of getting ahead of myself.
Monday, January 21, 2008
My Great Grand Mother
Nemiah Taylor (Daddy)
Aunt was married to Nemiah Taylor (my grand father). We all called him Daddy. He had two other children before the marriage (their names I do not remember) but my mother was the only child from the marriage. He was always a quiet man, in the background but hardly ever heard. He was a carpenter by trade in his early years but became more of a cultivator with Aunt later on. I do not know if he built the original house (two rooms) in Lucky Hill but I knew he did all the additions.
The house sits on the very top of this steep hill about a quarter of a mile from the road (the main road running from Jeffery Town to Gayle). The hill was so steep that not even my father who prided himself on his driving expertise with a Land Rover, could ever get a vehicle up there. To get up there you had to negotiate this very curvy and narrow trail that was filled with rocks and roots and stumps and sheer drop-offs that was just plain scary. But as kids we made it up in the middle of the darkest night without a lamp, and in the days you would come flying down at break-neck speed with only a few skinned knees now and again.
The unusual thing about Daddy was how homely and quiet he was. He was not a Jehovah Witness but he never got drunk, never swear, never stayed out late and I never hear him raise his voice, better still, I do not think he ever ventured beyond the parish of St. Mary. As a carpenter he hired people so in the mornings there would be several people waiting on him and they would go to the job site, him carrying a wooden tool box. They would be back before night fall but he would stay home and did not go out until next morning. That was Daddy, quiet and homely. That sounds very much like me today! That is scary!
Amy Davis Taylor (Aunt).
Aunt was not my real aunt, she was my grandmother, my mother’s mother; but everyone called her as Aunt, even non relatives. How she got the title I do not know, for she was an only child so she could never be a real aunt to anyone. I guess the title was a Jamaican form of showing respect and at the same time showing appreciation or gratuity. But it was in no way a sign of familiarity for Aunt did not allow familiarity from anyone. She was a strict, bible quoting, no nonsense of a woman.
I have no dates on Aunt but I remember her being old from I was a kid. She never seemed to have aged more as I grew older; only her hair, it got a little whiter. She was a strapping woman, big bosomed and round, with strong hands and ample girth, but not fat; she was all muscle I think. She would work from sun-up to sun-down in back breaking man’s work of cultivating and clearing bush and caring for cows and donkeys, and still come home and cook. Although there was never a contest I am sure she could out-work most men. Aunt was a woman, but she was also a farmer, cultivator, ’higgler’and a mother to varying number of children. She was a special woman. She would plant and cut bananas; dig yam, coco and dasheen; and husked, grate and cook coconut into coconut oil; and she could keep going all day. Then on Saturday it was off to market behind a donkey to sell her wares and on Sunday it was to Kingdom Hall. Those were some of my most poignant memories about her. But the most memorable part was her attire.
For the most part she dressed like the typical Jamaican women from thr 'country parts' of her day, cotton dress, often with a apron around the waist or hanging from the neck and a cotton scarf tied around her hair which was always neatly plaited beneath the scarf; a typical attire But on her feet would be a pair of men’s black leather working boots! I all my years I do not remember ever seeing Aunt in a pair of ladies shoes or even slippers, the boots were a constant. If she was going to the fields she would wear the boots but if she was going to Kingdom Hall or to market she would still wear the boots, but then they would be highly polished. At home she would wear the older ones and without laces, that were her slippers. The truth is though; men’s boots never looked out of place on her!