Summertime Nostalgia

Baba on the left, probably sometime in the late 1920s.
Baba dressed up sometime in the 1930s
Baba in the summer (1976) with all the grandkids (at the time), from L to R, my brother Foy, cousin Ferree, me (in Baba's arms), by brother Clay, cousin Beth.

So I'm starting to understand why people become nostalgic. . . with the state of the economy and some aspects of society, I am feeling it.  Nostalgia.  The longing for a simpler, earlier time. .. 

I was on a walk the other night feeling the heat of summer and hearing the locusts, and all I could think about was the long summer afternoons spent with my grandmother, Melba West Foy. . . known to all her grandchildren as "Baba".  

Things seemed so sweet and simple, atleast to us kids.  There were grass, plants, trees, sidewalks to skate on, and Baba there with her calm involvement in everything we did.  We learned from everything when we were with her, although it didn't ever seem like school.  It was a wonderful thing to grow up with the coolest grandmother right around the corner who always backed you up, but expected the world from you.  Seems simple and perfect to me now, and maybe it wasn't to her or anyone else, but boy I sometimes long for those days.

Baba deserves a little more explanation than her love and devotion to her grandchildren.  Baba grew up the daughter of a merchant and civil servant in the small town of Merkel TX.  She was born in 1907, went to Trinity University in the 1920s (can you imagine?!?) and came home from school to teach elementary school.  She was a progressive woman before the term was coined.

She met my grandfather, Sidney Foy, they married in the early 30s and made their life in Baird TX where he was from and where I grew up.  After losing two babies, she had my uncle and my mother at the age of 40--again unheard of at the time, but Baba never seemed bound by normal expectations.  She went back to school for her Masters degree while she had children at home and full time job.  She taught elementary school for over 30 years, and when she stopped teaching there, she opened a Foy Preschool which she ran until she was 80 years old.  

My Baba was the same age as my Great Grandparents on my father's side of the family.  She was atleast 10 years older than any of my friends grandmothers.  The funny thing is I never ever thought she was old.  Yes, she had wrinkles on her face and some gray hair--but nobody noticed.  Age was another barrier she wasn't bound by, and boy does that lesson remain with me.  She had spunk.  She had a zest for life that was contagious, and nothing seemed to matter.  She survived the deaths of children, siblings and her husband, and although I know she carried deep wounds she taught us to live and learn and break molds every chance we get.

I hope I can use my nostalgia for another time as a positive tool to teach my children, and not just a melancholy feeling for the past.  I hope I can share my experience  with my grandmother and remind my children, just as my mother has taught me, that I come from a long line of strong, willful, spicey West Texas women that deserve to be remembered.   My mom will have many lessons to teach as "Dinks" to my kids.  She has her own story and strength to share in a new way as a grandmother and with the example that her mother set, she knows just what to do. . .  they no doubt will have these same longing feelings for her one day, too.