I, like everyone I guess, had two grandmothers. And those two grandmothers, like any two people I guess, were very different. My grandmother Williamson lived to just a few weeks short of her 100th birthday. She was born (I’m pretty sure) in Alabama and came to Oklahoma when she was very young — in a covered wagon. I think her maiden name was Horton but she married my granddad and became a Williamson. Her given name was Josephine, but everyone knew her as Josie. Maysville was a very small town and everyone knew everyone — literally. So to say everyone knew her is an understatement.
Josie had lots of energy and interests and was very active in various organizations. She also was her own person, very independent, and pretty much marched to her own drum.
Although I always remember her being “old” (she was a grandmother for crying out loud) she never acted old. She never learned to drive so when she wanted to go somewhere, like Pauls Valley, or Oklahoma City she never asked anyone for a ride — she just hopped on a bus and went her merry way. Although Maysville wasn’t big, geographically, she always walked to where she was going. She used to walk completely across town to visit the “old folks” in the town’s only nursing home. The fact is, she was probably older than 90 percent of the people she was visiting.
Every year she planted a (big!!) garden and grew all sorts of vegetables. Of course there was no way she could eat that much produce, so she walked all over town giving anyone that would take it, some of her garden.
I’m not sure of her age at the time, but she was well into her 90s when she decided to fulfill one of the things on her bucket list — she’d always wanted to visit the “Holy Land.” So — she cashed in one of her insurance polices, bought a plane ticket and went to the Holy Land. She didn’t go with anyone (that she knew) — she had never been on an airplane before and probably as far away from home she’d strayed was a trip to California many years before.
When she went to the Holy Land, people in Maysville panicked — no one knew where she was or what had happened to her. When she returned, everyone was relieved, but started giving her a hard time for not telling anyone what she was doing or where she was going. Her response was, “Gee, I thought I told you — I’m sorry…”
There’s no reason I decided to write about Josie today except maybe some years from now, our kids and grandkids may read this and realize that their great- and great-great- grandmother was kind of cool….
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