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A Gray-Haired Angel

She was a very slender lady.  At her heaviest I doubt she would have broken 100 pounds by much.  She was sweet natured and loving, and always happy.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a better example of a Christian woman.

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She was born Clara Mae Mitchell in Saline County, Illinois, but married Clyde Corn as a teenager and soon became Mom Corn, in the same way he became Pop Corn.  The couple produced 13 children.  The seventh was a little girl named Wanda Lee.

Wanda was my mom.

Granny Corn could cook.  I mean, she COULD COOK!  I don’t know if she invented it or not, but she introduced Chocolate and Biscuits to her family during the depression.  The Chocolate itself was a sweeter version of hot cocoa, except that it wasn’t to be drunk.  Nope, you poured a bowl about half full, added a big dollop of butter and, once the butter melted, you broke up enough biscuits to fill the bowl and soak up all the Chocolate.  You ate it with a spoon.  Healthy it was not, but delicious it certainly was.

If you’ve never tried it you have no idea what you’re missing. 

Besides chocolate, Granny made a macaroni dish using tomato juice that was sweet and disappeared as quickly as she made it.  I never saw any of it served as leftovers.

Another of my favorite dishes was baked beans.  Oh…my…gosh!  I wish I had gotten the recipe from her.  She filled a glass dish that looked like a cake pan with beans and other ingredients (I think brown sugar was one of them.) and laid bacon on top, then baked it before serving it at family gatherings.  This was another of her creations that never lasted long enough to get cool.

Wow, I’m getting hungry.

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Granny Corn was a sweet-natured lady.  She had such a quiet voice.  I don’t think I ever heard her yell.  The closest she ever came to hollering was when she needed me for something and I wasn’t within sight.  She’d project her voice, “Scott-eee!”  It carried pretty well, but it wasn’t yelling.

Like I said, she didn’t yell…even when she was mad.  Come to think of it, I never saw her mad either.  The closest she ever came to getting mad at me was when I was about ten.  Granny and I were visiting with my Uncle Pat, her eldest surviving son, in Castleton, Illinois.  We’d been there about a week and one day I did a stupid little boy thing.  I was sitting backwards in one of the chairs and leaned it up on the two back legs.  I heard a pop and the back of the chair and the legs attached to it broke loose from the seat.

I didn’t do it on purpose, but I knew it was bad.  My aunt and uncle were not rich people.

Still, Granny wasn’t mad…more disappointed.  She said, “Oh, Scotty.”

I was broken hearted.  Through my stupidity, I’d let Granny down.

I did hear that “disappointed Granny” voice a few times, but those other times it was directed at one or more of my cousins, but never again at me…never.

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Every Sunday, Mom, my sister, and I would go pick Granny up to take her to church with us. 

Those of us who were raised in the church understand that most Christians make mistakes with some frequency.  For most, those slip-ups would be followed by prayers for forgiveness.  Sadly, we also became aware that a lot of the adults who claimed to be Christians could have been better described by the old term, “Sunday Christians.”  They are more widely known to the population in general as hypocrites.  You know, the people who can stand before the congregation at church and tell everyone how to behave according to the teachings of Christ, but then, a few days later, you see them slipping quietly along an aisle in the neighborhood store, picking up a fifth of strong alcohol or surreptitiously buying an adult magazine.  Or you could cross paths with them when they are telling a dirty or racist joke.

Hypocrites.

But not Granny Corn.

Granny was quiet in her beliefs, but she wasn’t shy about sharing them with others if the occasion arose.  But you would never, never, never hear a curse word, or even a mean one, slide through her lips.  She didn’t lie, cheat, or steal.  Heck, she never even intentionally hurt anyone’s feelings.

I have never spoken to anyone who has ever mentioned her name associated with any but the highest standards.  In fact, I have never heard anyone ever mention her with anything other than love and reverence.

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I have something in my collection of memorabilia that perfectly illustrates the strength and unfaltering adherence to high morals that was Granny Corn.

Mom was a good person who really did try to live up to her own beliefs, so this is not meant to criticize her or say that she was a hypocrite.  Please don’t take it that way.  But Granny was on a whole other level.

When Mom went back to college in my pre-teen years, she rediscovered art.  She made things, painted pictures, and took any reasonable opportunity to observe classic art.  When I was in high school she started making plaster-of-Paris molded copies of some famous works, like that beautiful piece known as Venus de Milo. 

If you are not familiar with the Venus de Milo, it is a statue of a beautiful woman with her lower body covered in draped cloth but her shapely upper body nude.  Mom was not a believer in women exposing themselves, but her love of art, especially the classic works, allowed her to make exceptions for them.

One Sunday morning Mom carried a just-made copy of her Venus de Milo statue out to the car.  I commented that I just didn’t think Granny Corn would approve of it, with the upper-body nudity.

Mom kind of nodded noncommittally and shrugged.  “I think she’ll like it.

Granny was proud of her daughter and was always overjoyed when Mom gave her one of her creations, or anything for that matter, so I didn’t argue, but I still had to wonder what Granny’s reaction would be.

In her last few months of life, Granny Corn had a stroke that left her partially paralyzed and unable to care for herself.  Mom and her sisters discussed the problem and decided to move Granny out of her home and into the house with Mom and Dad, where the sisters would share the responsibility of caring for her.

Shortly before the move, Mom sat beside the bed where Granny lay.  The two talked about the relocation and what would be done with all the things Granny had accumulated over the years.

Mom looked up on a shelf at some of Granny’s knickknacks.  They rested on one item in particular.

There, standing 12 inches tall, was the little statue of Venus de Milo, the same one Mom had made and given to Granny several years before…only now there was a difference.

Granny Corn had used some ribbon she’d saved from a Christmas gift to carefully hand-craft a top to cover the ancient statue’s lack of modesty.

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Over the years since then, Granny Corn has left us, Mom has left us, and I am the proud owner of the no-longer-topless Venus de Milo.

She’ll stay fully dressed as long as I have anything to do with it.

I miss you Granny.

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