Happy 113th Birthday, Grandmama!

L-R Claude Russell Robison, Sally Beason Robison Watson, and
Jessielee Robison Watson Nance (my grandmother: 1901-1992)
early 1900s

"She looks for wool and flax and works with her hands... She girds herself with strength and makes her arms strong. She senses that gain is good; her lamp does not go out at night." 

(Prov. 31:13,17-18)

              Because jobs were scarce in Alabama in the 1920s, my grandfather Watson took his young family to Akron to find work in the automobile factories. He died of pneumonia that cold, Ohio winter - leaving a young bride, one preschool son (my daddy), and a baby on the way.
             Grandmama traveled by train back to Collinsville, Alabama, moved in with her parents, Frank and Viola Robison, and earned a college degree in education to support her children and herself. Several years later, she married my step-granddad, Floyd Cleveland Nance and would continue to teach well into her 80s on Lookout Mountain at Fischer Elementary School until the school board eventually forced her retirement. 
             I remember her gnarled hands - not from arthritis, mind you, but from several broken fingers - her softball badge of courage. G-Nance was the children's pitcher.
             The last words I heard her utter before Jesus ushered her into heaven were "I love you" to me and "How long, Jesus, how long?" to her Savior. She was ready and eager to walk through those pearly gates into forevermore.

              Thank you, Grandmama, for teaching us hard-work ethics and the hope of heaven - eternal life through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ!

What are we teaching our children and grandchildren?