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\u2019m pretty sure) in Alabama and came to Oklahoma when she was very young \u2014 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 \u2014 literally. So to say everyone knew her is an understatement.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Although I always remember her being \u201cold\u201d (she was a grandmother<\/em> 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 \u2014 she just hopped on a bus and went her merry way. Although Maysville wasn\u2019t big, geographically, she always walked to where she was going. She used to walk completely across town to visit the \u201cold folks\u201d in the town\u2019s only nursing home. The fact is, she was probably older than 90 percent of the people she was visiting. I\u2019m 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 \u2014 she\u2019d always wanted to visit the \u201cHoly Land.\u201d\u00a0 So \u2014 she cashed in one of her insurance polices, bought a plane ticket and went to the Holy Land. She didn\u2019t go with anyone (that she knew) \u2014 she had never been on an airplane before and probably as far away from home she\u2019d strayed was a trip to California many years before.<\/p>\n When she went to the Holy Land, people in Maysville panicked \u2014 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, \u201cGee, I thought I told you \u2014 I\u2019m sorry…\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s 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\u2026. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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\u2019m pretty … Continue reading
\nEvery 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.<\/p>\n
\n\u2014 30 \u2014<\/p>\n