Mam-ma's Southern Family

I thought this week I would show photos of my grandparents celebrating Christmas. This might have been set up as a Christmas card but I'm not sure. Mam-ma is on the left and Tom-Tom on the right, with Thunder in the center. They had a very small tree. And look at that crazy pattern on their drapes. Clearly this is the 50s. My grandparents always came to our house for Christmas and Thanksgiving because it was easier since we had the large family of six kids. My mother did most of the cooking but Mam-ma brought some dishes to share. Tom-Tom's sister, Beryl, always brought pies: pumpkin, pecan, and mincemeat. My dad and I loved the mincemeat. Here is one from 1975 with my whole family and Tom's sister, Beryl is seated on the left. We had lost Tom-Tom two years previously. Merry Christmas! Copyright © 2021 by Lisa S. Gorrell, Mam-ma's Southern Family, All rights reserved.

My grandmother, Pansy Louise Lancaster Johnston, the one we all called Mam-ma, was very crafty. She was a very talented seamstress and made many of her own clothes. She even worked for clothing stores taking in alterations. Here is an example of a dress she made. Here is another, showing my mother, Lela and her with matching dresses. Later in life, when she stopped sewing, she would crochet and made many blankets. You can see an example on the chair to the right of Mam-ma. When she moved to the assisted living place, she liked to sit and embroider. She bought T-shirts and embroidered flowers, crosses, and other symbols on them in a decorative way. It sure kept her busy and she enjoyed giving the shirts to people she cared about. Here is an example of one she made for herself. I think as she got older and it was easier wearing sweat clothes, she wanted to decorate them up. This is my fourth year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week