RECOLLECTIONS ABOUT florence mason little
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Sarah Marshall Aldridge (June, 2014):
Florence Mason Little, my grandmother, was quite an accomplished person. I admired her from the time I was young. My mother, Jane Little Marshall, told me grandma had nursed her back from a frightening bout of polio as a child, when they had to be quarantined from the rest of the family. She weathered the storms of life with calm and patience, especially when my grandpa had a stroke and then heart attack in the 1960s. “Jane, we’re having a small problem here,” she said on the phone to my mom, as my grandfather was hemorrhaging on the bathroom floor. Her generation did not complain, shouldering the burdens of life and pressing on. My grandma excelled at many things, from gardening and cooking to sewing and knitting. Sunday nights were special as a child, sitting next to her at the dining room table draped with white table cloth and pewter candleholder with white candles. We oohed and aahed over all the homemade delicacies, from the dinner rolls and salad dressing to candied orange peel and lady fingers or Boston cream pie. My grandma made mother-daughter dresses for us, and when capes were all the rage she made me one that was the envy of my girlfriends at high school. When our ballet director handed out minimal sketches for costumes each year, the other mothers would panic, trying to find a seamstress who could duplicate the design. Not my mom! She knew that grandma would turn out an amazing outfit on her sewing machine in the dining room, even when my dress required a hoop skirt for one of the plays. And I still wonder how she had flowers blooming in vases all year round, including fussy African violets. Or how she found the ingredients for my requested rhubarb pie for my birthday in February. Or how she made slip covers for furniture, hooked rugs and knit all those mittens and gloves for GIs during World War II. I cherish the memories I have of my grandma, including the fact that she was secretly knitting a pink layette when I was pregnant with our first child, who turned out to be a daughter! She was one amazing woman and I was blessed to learn many skills from her. |
Steve Roberts (May, 2013):
Looking at the Owl Creek pictures got me thinking of a story that Florence Mason Little told me once when I was in Chicago, probably at Jane Marshall's house. She was at the Owl Creek ranch visiting her brothers one time, and went horse-back riding. The horse she was riding spooked, and took off running with her in the saddle. Horace jumped on a horse and raced to catch-up. When he did, he grabbed the reins and stopped the run-away horse. She described the scene as just like you would expect to see in a movie western. |