Great Grandma: Great and Grand

Tuesday my beautiful grandmother, JoLee Taylor, turned 99 years old. She was born August 23rd, 1912, in Marshall County, Kentucky, and turned 7 years old before the 19th amendment was ratified and women won the right to vote. Only someone as flexible and even-tempered as she could have accepted all the changes those years have brought.

Marshall County still exists of course, but really it doesn’t either, at least not as it was in the early 20th century. Tobacco barns, mules, horse-drawn carriages, family farms…one of my favorite daydreams was that I could go back in time and grow up there like my grandma did, surrounded by cousins and other relatives, attending a one-room schoolhouse, playing in fields planted with corn, sweet potatoes, and sorghum that flourish in the rich bottomlands of western Kentucky. She lived there until she was a young teenager, when her parents moved the family to Detroit.

My grandma has called me sentimental, and she is right about that; I could never say goodbye to my grandparents without tears, and I’m still sentimental today, so I can’t always trust my judgment when it comes to the people I hold most dear. But, I’m sure of this: some people do make the world better just by being in it, and my grandma is one of those people.

She has always had a gentle, old-timey kind of humor that is quick and witty, but never at anyone’s expense. In fact I don’t think she’s ever zinged anyone. It’s an inclusive kind of funny, and she has many lifelong friendships to show for it. Although now in the late stages of dementia, there are still moments where that humor surfaces and we know something essential of the person is still there: she once admired a picture of baby Jolee and remarked that she was a beautiful baby. Someone pointed out that she’s named for her, and my grandma quipped “Well, she should be beautiful”. We asked her this past July if she knew how old she would be on her next birthday and without hesitation she told us she knew she was “old enough not to have to tell you”.

Keepsakes of my grandma’s have hand-scrawled names, dates, places and other important information on scraps of paper tucked inside; for our first anniversary she gave Lloyd and me an ornate glass sugar bowl and top. In her handwriting on a yellowing piece of paper inside: “To my parents from my Great Grandparents Karnes, around 1908”. In the event of a fire, it is one of the few physical possessions I would risk going back for once kids and cats are safe.

As long as I have known her my grandma has had an unwavering way of seeing the good, both in people and in situations. I wondered once if it was maybe naiveté? Or a remainder of a country upbringing? Lack of sophistication? But I don’t think so; it’s often a lot harder to be positive than it is to be negative. I think she has always deliberately dwelt on the positive in life, with a quiet but strong faith as a guide. And what a gift to have someone model that. If namesakes can magically confer personal characteristics, I do hope our Jolee can embody a little bit of her great grandma’s optimistic philosophy on life.

So happy 99th birthday grandma—that’s a lot of candles on one cake! We are all so blessed to have you with us. I love you.