Tribute to a Spunky Lady, Your Great Grandma
To my grandkids with love
October, 2008
October 29, 1900 was the date that my mother was born. Since the 29th of October, 2008 has just passed, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back and see her from my perspective after all these years. If I were writing to you when I was younger my remarks might have been different. Now I see her with more respect and appreciation than before. She didn’t change but I have.
I choose to tell you about the good things that I remember and leave the negatives alone. That is probably what I would prefer someone to do for me! Is there any perfect family? No, and there isn’t any normal family either. Admittedly, there was a lot of tension, especially between my parents but hearing others family experiences I think we, the Miller kids didn’t rate too badly.
Here are some of the things I learned through the years about mom that I didn’t think about when I was younger.
I didn’t realize until Mom was in her late 80’s just the extent of her hurt at having lost her eight month old baby, Dale. He was the third child. The order was like this: Lois, Vara, Dale, Rita, Ed, Ila, and Neal. If Dale had been born in our generation his stomach problems probably would not have been fatal.
It wasn’t until a few years before mom died that she tearfully shared with me the story. She told of how heavy her heart was when after the funeral,family and friends were sitting in her home, supposedly to comfort. They were talking and laughing. She was crying inside. She couldn’t understand how they could be doing that when she was hurting so badly.
Then she told me that some months after when she knew she was to have another child she prayed for a brown eyed girl and God lovingly and graciously answered that prayer. I think I am the only one in the family who has brown eyes!
Caring for home and family on the farm required a lot of energy. Washing the family clothes took a full day for there was no running water. It had to be pumped from the cistern outside and placed in large tubs. The water for the Maytag wash machine (wringer type) had to be heated on the kitchen stove and carried to the porch where the machine was. After about seven or eight loads were washed,they would be carried to the clotheslines to be hung and dried. If the weather was bad in the winter, wet clothes would be dried a little at a time around our pot bellied stove in the dining room. Without electricity every task took much physical energy.
Besides a large family, we often had one or two extra’s. This happened more in the summer. Cousins liked to come to the farm even though cousin Jim said that Aunt Nellie scared the devil out of him!. He always came back for more so it must not have been too scary!
There were often hired men or neighbors at the table. Both of my grandparents lived near and were in and out of the house. My grandpa and grandma Nesmith lived a fourth of a mile from us. My grandma Miller lived in a little house built for her in our yard.
They all loved mom’s cooking. Nothing fancy, just plain old down on the farm cookin‘. Such as fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and in season vegetables. Or it could be freshly butchered pork or beef roast with rich brown gravy. We almost always had meat of some kind. Pies, whipped cream cake or raisin cake was saved more for Sundays. Mom made most of her bread and churned butter from cream from our cows.
The Nebraska winters were cruel, very cold and windy, blizzardy weather. A memory that stands out in my mind is when I would hear mom climb the stairs in the middle of the night to check on us to be sure we were covered and to get us up to the pot before we accidentally wet the bed. Sometimes she would give us a hot water bottle or a jug with hot water in it to warm our beds. Remember there was no heat up there.
Another vivid memory is her consistent “family altar” time. Before we left for school we would go in the living room and she would read from the Bible and a devotional book called “The Upper Room”.
Then we would get on our knees and have prayer time. This and her faithful attendance at church and Wednesday night prayer meetings were things that had a profound affect on my life in later years.
Mom was an excellent seamstress. She had an old treadle Singer sewing machine. Her greatest delight was the challenge of taking an old coat or dress that someone gave her and turning it into a fine looking garment for one of the family. After all of her kids were raised and she and daddy lived in Denver she took a job making drapes.
Fast forward now to the last years:
After daddy was gone and several years before mom’s death, she went to live with Ila in California. It was while there that she got to know Ila’s pastor. He was such a great friend to mom. The following is a part of the eulogy that he gave at her funeral. He only knew her for a short time, but he told her story in such a unique way that I want to include it here. As you will see Greg is a very gifted writer.
At the funeral before Greg gave the eulogy, here is what he said. “I remember when I first met Nellie. She was angry as a wet hen because I had taken her daughter from her. Ila was chairing the worship committee at the time and we had just spent a couple hours in a meeting. I’d heard about grandma Miller who’d come to live with the Gilberts and as I dropped Ila off I asked if I could go in the house and meet her.
I expected a frail and tiny 90 year old on her death bed. I was surprised to meet a tall spunky lady who still had corn on the cob teeth of her own not to mention a mind of her own. After I challenged her grouchy greeting and told her what a pretty mother Ila had, we became fast friends. She was not your typical 90 year old grandma.”
EULOGY FOR NELLIE MAUDE NESMITH MILLER
There was an old woman who lived (here’s a clue)
She had so many children she didn’t know what to do.
This little old lady doesn’t live in a shoe, she lives now in heaven.
And in terms of her children….well she only had seven!
One of those youngins was waiting in glory.
But before I say more let me tell Nellie’s story.
Let me take you back to the windblown prairies of western Nebraska to a sod house owned by a farmer named Cyrus Arthur Nesmith (better known as Art). It was late October, the 29th to be exact. The year was 1900. Pumpkins and corn stalks could be seen everywhere and all around everyone was talking about election day a week away. Would William McKinley and his young upstart running mate Theodore Roosevelt win re-election against the democratic ticket of Bryant and Stevenson.
But election day was not the most important thing on farmer Nesmith’s mind. If you listen hard enough perhaps you can hear that newborn cry. You see, Art’s wife Maude had just delivered their second born child. A girl. They called her Nellie. As she grew, her four siblings and her parents recognized that Nellie was a unique girl. She was a smart girl even though she never finished high school. Her education was confined to that one room little school house on the prairie where her own kids would one day study.
Did I say she was a smart alec? Well that too! She had a good heart and great sense of humor. She received the Lord Jesus as her personal Savior at a tender age. And it took. She rode to church every week with her brother in a horse and buggy. Once the buggy ran over her and boy was she hurt. Feelings mostly. She liked to tell that story and others.
She had an incredible memory for some things. She tended to remember the hardships that anchored at her dock. But her love of God was bigger than her tendency to gripe. Even though she learned to trust the Lord as a little girl, her faith carried her a lifetime.
She also learned to sew at a very young age and that too never left her. She made and remade dresses for all her children and crocheted blankets up until a couple days before she died.
I guess she had a desire to learn about life ever since she was little. Even though she never graduated from high school she did attend a business school in Lincoln for a year to try and better herself. But the only thing she succeeded in was returning home with sore feet from having to walk all over Lincoln Nebraska in second hand shoes too small for her lengthy feet.
About the time she moved home a new family named Miller moved to town. They heard that Maude Nesmith was the best homemade bread baker around and they stopped by Nellie’s folks place to buy a couple of loaves. The Miller family had a son, Ralph who came along. Well, Ralph eyed Nellie and Nellie eyed him and before long they eyed the preacher saying “I do”. As Ila and Rita remember their dad’s version of the story, they “took a notion to get married“. That’s more true than not. Apparently, Ralph’s sister dropped by and said she and her beau were headed to Hastings to tie the knot. Stella invited Ralph and Nellie to go along. They did and decided to be more than witnesses. They had a double wedding.
Ralph and Nellie worked the family farm. They raised wheat and corn and in -between harvests, they raised seven children. One little boy died before he reached his first birthday. Life was hard in the days of the dust bowl and the depression.. But Nellie was a pioneer spirit. She compensated for the lean years with sumptuous home cooked meals. Life in those days stunk, but the smells that came from her kitchen covered a multitude of regrets. She was a great cook! She was able to obtain the ingredients she needed for her famous recipes by trading cream and eggs in lieu of money.
Music was another thing that helped soften their hard life on the prairie. Nellie and Ralph sacrificed to allow their kids the privilege of music lessons, not to mention college education.
In 1953 when all the kids but one were grown and gone, Nellie, Ralph, and Neal moved just north of Joplin, Missouri where they lived until Ralph died in 1987, They survived 67 years together. I say survived because, like most marriages I know, their’s wasn’t perfect. Rather, filled with challenges and change they hung in there in the happy times and the less than happy times, determined to stick together. It’s a disappearing quality in our culture. I think it’s pronounced commitment.
As Nellie grew older her love for her children and their children occupied her time. She was always surrounded by photos and momentos of her offspring. In October 1990 the family put on the dog and celebrated Nellie’s 90th birthday in style. She was pleased. But she was beginning to slow down and could no longer live on her own. She moved out to California in January of 1991 to live with her daughter, Ila and son-in-law, Don. Within a year it was obvious that Nellie needed specialized care and she went to live at Casa San Miguel in Concord. She made her room more than a room. She took pride in belongings, books, and her bulletin board.
Nellie taught adult Sunday School and led Bible studies She loved to study God’s word and gather in worship with His people. Even in the last two years of her life she never missed a Sunday worship service at the nursing home. Her Bible was right next to her bed. When I would visit with her in her room we always would conclude our time together having prayer, and singing a couple of the old gospel hymns she loved. She sang with me. Nellie is in the presence of Jesus having given us an example of a life well lived.
By Greg Asimakoupoulos
History info from Ila Gilbert
