As I have mentioned so often, I love to rock. The old rocking chair is one of my favorite friends. I guess I will be pretend traveling again some day, but meanwhile I am enjoying precious memories as I rock in the old rocking chair.
Ben and I both come from families who loved music and loved to sing. His family came from western Kentucky on the Ohio River. Mine came from a rural community near Ripley, Tn. called Flippin. But from all I have heard our families loved much of the same music.
I have precious memories of sitting on the steps of the front porch of my special Langley cousins who were very musical. Dot was several years older than me and a fine singer. OB was one year older, and Wayne was one year younger. We were all of grammar school age. Most of those precious memories involve our harmonizing together as OB played the guitar as a beginner.
Later the boys became accomplished on the electric guitar and electric bass and even toured with a gospel quartet. But that isn't this memory. We sang our hearts out...old hymns, mostly. We loved this one. WHEN THE ROLL IN CALLED UP YONDER.
I remember Aunt Altie and Uncle Oscoe would treat us to light bread and "bolony" sandwiches, because they were so used to country cooking that they didn't think it was special.And sandwiches WERE special!! Of course that is what we wanted the, county cooking!!!
I'LL FLY AWAY was popular with both of our families. Dot, OB, Wayne and I sang with gusto hitting that high note...I'LL... (3 beats) with all the volume we could.
My cousins were sort of shy when conversing; but they really let go when singing. OB has died and Wayne is no longer in good health. But my precious memory of them and our times together singing remain forever strong!
One song I especially remember. We thought it was a fun song because the harmony part was especially good.
After Aunt Altie's funeral many years later, the cousins and I were talking outside the chapel and agreed that the song wasn't fun anymore. My own mother had died a few years before Altie; now every word of the hymn was so moving and true to what we felt.
IF I COULD HEAR MY MOTHER PRAY AGAIN.
So it is time to get out of the rocking chair and pretend to do a little work around here.
My precious Ben died on Good Friday at 9:10 am. How I miss him! He encouraged me in all my little blog pretend travel stories and actually "starred" in the stories about Poland and Geneva. Here is a delightful true story he wrote in 2010 about his grandmother's wedding ring: Lost & Found!! It is sweet and charming. Love, annie
(similar)
As
grandfather Rankin guided the flatboats down the Ohio and Missippi to New
Orleans where he sold his barrel staves along with his homemade flatboat, he looked forward to marrying sweet Ellen
Bush Wathen back in Kentucky. (facsimile)
At length
the day grew near, and due to the lack of jewelry stores around his bluff top
farm, Ben went north to Evansville, Indiana, and bought a fine wide gold
wedding band for Ellen.
The couple were married in Caven Rock, Illinois, on
March 9, 1881, in the room that was destined to have a unique history, was
placed on Ellen’s finger.
That story began “right after” the wedding, but exactly just how right after, perhaps varies with the story teller. Certainly the closer the right after, the better story, but the
truth seems to be that Ellen’s losing her ring occurred a few days or no more
than a couple of weeks after the newly weds’ settling into the Rankin
farmhouse. (facsimile)
Anticipating
visitors, Ellen was one day busily stuffing pillows and mattresses at the straw
pile between the house and the “near barn.” There was a another, somewhat larger barn a bit distant from the house, known as the "far barn."facimiles
At some point Ellen
realized to her horror that her wedding ring was no longer on her finger. A bit
large and heavy, perhaps even a bit large for her slender finger, the ring had
obviously been taken from her finger, while her act of grasping, twisting, and
pushing of the straw into the ticking.
Frantically she emptied these and
searched to no avail and we can be sure that she then searched the entire ten
to twelve foot straw pile area. Searches the next day and many days thereafter,
all proved frustratingly futile. She had looked, her husband had looked, and
surely visitors and relatives had looked, all as unsuccessful as Ellen in
finding the mysteriously lost ring. Inevitably a time eventually came when the
ring was given up as lost forever. (Whether Grandmother had a replacement,
Ihave never heard, but and old photo
shows her left hand not wearing one.
Years passed
and life went on, children were born, and the mystery ring was a sometimes
topic of conversation. We may conjecture as to whether the Rankin children ever
glanced down in their play in hope as being the one to find the glimmer of the
gold ring. The area where the straw pile
was by then had become a side yard “trimmed” by grazing livestock whose hooves
must have trampled the gold ring down into the soil.
The youngest of Ben and Ellen's children was Joanna and her first born was my sister, Dorothy, born in April 1921. One day when the weather was nice, Joanna (JODY) sat on the side porch holding her not yet walking, Dorothy.
Grandmother
was occupied with some today unknown activity in the side yard, and was
chatting with Jody on the porch.
Suddenly Jody heard Grandmother talking to Sammy , the Rankin’s small
mixed-breed dog. Her excited voice got Jody’s attention as her mother shouted,
Sammy has found my wedding ring!!
Whether Sammy dutifully held the ring in his
teeth or pitched it playfully in the air or (most likely) happened to uncover
it with a scratching in the earth, all this is once again as to the teller of
the story, but the important truth is that Sammy had somehow found what had
eluded searchers for forty years of autumn
leaves, snow and ice, spring thaws and flowers, trampling by shoe soles, bare
feet and animal hooves.
Presumably
Grandmother then wore the ring until her death in 1936. This means that she wore it at the onset and throughout her tragic Alzheimer’s
syndrome years during which among other unfortunate things she once nearly blinded one eye of Ben with
her fingernail he was lovingly trying to trim for her. Other times her insistent wandering from the
farm forced him to go searching for her far and wide across forests and
farmland. (I have always been told that
from my birth until Grandmother’s death in 1936 described me as a cute little
henhouse,)
When she
died, the wedding ring passed on to Jody’s sister, my aunt Mildred Posey, in
New Mexico. I do not believe Aunt Mil wore the ring herself but kept it with
other keepsakes in a top drawer in her bedroom. She died in the early 1980s and
the executor of the will, my sister Dorothy, unknowingly “witnessed” Sammy’s
discovery of the ring from the porch in 1921, brought it to Mother Jody in
Memphis. She then also kept it in a drawer as Mildred had done. With Jody’s
death, my sister Betty (“Beets” to me) followed suit and I (as I write) do the
same.
Occasionally
Annie wears Grandmother’s ring along with her own, but always behind lest it
slip from her slender finger as it had just so long ago done from newly-wed
Ellen up there on the bluff at the straw pile.
Finally, it may
be of interest to note that when Annie does where the ring for awhile, she
wears one band engraved WBB and another engraved WBR. This is because her own
band was also lost years ago and we had my own reduced in size for
her.Thus one of her wedding bands is
engraved WBB (for me) and the other is engraved WBR (William Benjamin Rankin
for whom I was named.)
This was compiled by WB Brewer, 2010
Ben always edited my pretend trips for me. But I am not going to change a thing from this rough copy I found among his papers. Such a lovely story compiled by a marvelous man who was my husband for 55 years..
A Scholar, Professor, Linguist, Artist and there was
No better son, brother, father, grandfather, great grandfather, and friend.
Maybe I'll write another Rocking Chair Annie trip again on the blog, but not likely, not likely.
Best wishes to everyone. annie in memphis **********************************************************************************
Rocking chairs have always been important in my life. I only started my pretend traveling via rocking chair in October, 2011. But I guess I have rocked a little almost every day of my life when I would mostly be thinking. But now I find I am mostly remembering. I will share a little with you today about what I remember about my childhood in segregated Memphis, Tennessee.
facsimile Louise Beavers whom Ironer favored. The first black person I ever knew was a maid hired because Mother was very sick and had to stay in bed. I was around 3 years old. (1936) "Ironer" only helped us a few weeks, but was very sweet to me. When her work day was over, we often played dolls before she went home; I was very lonely. As I sit in my rocking chair remembering that time, I see a dark screened- in back porch and a kitchen; in my mind the memory is surrounded by blue and gray...a hard time made easier by "Ironer." Never saw her again...but she made a real impression on me as to how important kindness and thoughtfulness are.
My next black friends were people I only heard on the radio. In Memphis we had a station that played mostly black music.
As I continue to rock and remember, I see Mother ironing in the back bedroom of our house. I am sitting on the floor leaning against the bed; I am listening to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, Albertina Walker, James Cleveland and other greats! The first black gospel song I ever heard was "YES, GOD IS REAL."
I am guessing that about that time Elvis was listening somewhere to the same kind of music. With this recording Elvis showed he was not only comfortable with black gospel, but had a passion for it!!
At our church we didn't have that kind of music at all; we sang traditional hymns in a traditional way. I loved our music, but I was crazy about black gospel then and still love it today.
It may be hard for younger people to realize what living in a segregated city meant. Half our population was black. Yet, we knew virtually none at all. By 1944 I had two younger brothers. When Mother got sick again, Helen came into our lives for a few weeks. facsimile...Helen favored Ethel Waters She was entirely different from "Ironer." For one thing she was old. But she was loving to our family and knew how to give hugs. I have heard that some people, who had black servants, had special dishes for them to eat out of, because they were afraid of germs. What?! Nonsense! When we sat down to eat, Helen sat at the table with us as part of our family.
So in my youth I only KNEW 2 black people: both women, both maids, both were my friends. "Ironer" & Helen are still remembered and of course I'll never forget my black radio friends. I still hear them on You tube!
I guess I should get up out of the rocking chair and cook supper now...just thought I'd share a little about living in Memphis during segregation. I am closing with what some people consider to be the FIRST rock and roll song... sung by my radio friend, Sister Rosseta Tharpe annie in memphis
Just as Geneva had been a bust, so was Lausanne. We only saw what could be seen from inside the car. And in a few minutes we would be leaving again.
Soon it was dark outside. The desk clerk/agent walked up to us and whispered our ride had arrived. He opened the front door for us.
Outside a small unimpressive Renault was sitting there.
We couldn't believe our eyes. Larry (Mr. CIA, himself) was in the driver's seat.
He said warmly and rather loudly, "Well, Cousin Tommy, I see you finally made it to Switzerland to visit me...this must be Charlotte, your lovely wife, I've heard so much about."
Ben got in the front seat by Larry and I sat in the back. Actually about then Larry was looking good to us...somebody from home.
No one else was in the car, so we talked freely. We asked him where in the world we were going? Larry responded, "In just a few hours we will be in Zurich. In the morning you will catch a plane for home!!" "For home?! " Ben and I said almost at the same moment.
"We were trying to have a fun trip for just the two of us, Larry." Ben complained. "Now it is all ruined!"
Larry said, " Ben, you are alive, aren't you? A hit man was caught lurking around the l'Arabesque restaurant...he was so confused by the Elvis impersonators that he dropped his gun and was arrested right in front of our Humes friends. They are thrilled by all of it and are in the middle of celebrating all over Geneva...a delight to folks who see them. "Well, dudn't that beat all?" I murmered!! "We didn't even see that." I whined.
In two hours we arrived in Zurich and checked in to the Baur au Lac Hotel. Our room
Larry's room
Many people knew Larry at this hotel and came to our table to say hello. We were in such a good mood, the three of us decided to stay an entire day in Zurich like real tourists. breakfast
v
afternoon lunch back at the hotel looking out over the water
In parting Larry told us Geneva newspaper photographers had made pictures of the Elvis impersonator friends. Larry gave the reporters a picture of us telling about our unusual wedding. It also would be in the Memphis Commercial Appeal, and even a blurb on Fox news. This should set to rest any likeness to a drug lord.
Who knows? Maybe Ben and I will try another trip just by ourselves...but right now I am not counting on it. And not putting it on the blog, if we do. haha.
Then to Zurich airport and next stop Memphis, Tennessee
Some of you traveled with us... "YOU ARE ALWAYS ON MY MIND" Best wishes always, ben and annie back in memphis
PS. below
Here is Ben in his Elvis costume and wig. Larry retrieved them and also our luggage from Hotel Wilson. Now if Ben will just take it off!!
THAT'S ALL RIGHT, Sweet Ben, any way you do! William Benjamin Brewer: 1933-2012 ******************************************
You tube removed this ELVIS video of THAT'S ALL RIGHT
(facsimile)
(facsimile)
facsimile Louise Beavers whom Ironer favored. 
a hard time made easier by "Ironer." Never saw her again...but she made a real impression on me as to how important kindness and thoughtfulness are.
I am sitting on the floor leaning against the bed; I am listening to Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mahalia Jackson, Albertina Walker, James Cleveland and other greats! The first black gospel song I ever heard was "YES, GOD IS REAL." 
facsimile...Helen favored Ethel Waters
breakfast
afternoon lunch back at the hotel looking out over the water