Grandma used to take me to the Fair in Tampa every year. We used to walk all day and see everything and stay for the main show. We saw people shot out of cannons, people walking over the high wire and other fabulous things. Grandma liked that show best. Then we would catch a cab home. Grandma had bunions on her toes, and by the time we got home her feet were in agony. She would heat water and put it in a small tub, and I would bathe them until she was ready for bed. She enjoyed having her feet bathed anytime.

When Grandma worked for Mr. Phillips upholstery in Hyde Park she had an apartment upstairs over the shop. Some man came to the shop looking for work. He told Grandma he hadn't had anything to eat, and Grandma gave him a dollar. You have to understand Grandma had a heart, and she could not stand to see someone in need. She always tried to help. I remember her giving a man and his daughter a place to stay in Valrico until he made enough money to go North. I remember Daddy (Dolphus) taking us out there to make sure he left and didn't hurt Grandma.

Back to the story about the down and out man at Mr. Phillips. The man came back the next day and asked for another dollar. Grandma told him she didn't have any money, but he could come upstairs in the evening and have supper with her. He did and left after the meal. A few days later he came upstairs and knocked on the door. When she opened the door he grabbed her and knocked her down and grabbed her purse and stole her money. A few days later it was time to go to the fair.

Grandma was so afraid of being robbed again she kept a little money in her purse and a little in her bra. She said, "Now I've got to find somewhere to hide our cab fare." She finally decided to put a $10 bill in her shoe. We ate and walked and all the things you do at the fair. She bought supper with the rest of her money and told me we wouldn't go to the show as her money was in her shoe and was all she had left, and someone might try to take it if she changed it. She decided we should go home. She went to the gate where a policeman was, sat down and took her shoe off. After walking all day the bill was torn in two. She was so upset she almost cried. She grabbed me and hugged me and said, "What are we going to do?" The policeman came over, and she told him the story. He stopped a cab and asked him if he could take a couple of ladies home with a torn $10 bill. The cab driver said yes. Grandma told the driver about the man robbing her and why she had put the money in her shoe. When we got to the apartment he gave Grandma her change and told her he would sit in front until she went upstairs and turned the light on. After he left she said, "Thank you, Lord, there are saints in this world."

STORIES OF GRANDMA

by Lois Smith Miller

About Nellie, my grandma – It probably is not important, but one of the reasons Grandpa and Grandma Burdett decided to go to Florida was because a bunch of rich people had gone there and were developing the south part of the state; Edison and Ford were some of them. It had caused a boom in Florida, and people were moving down there to try to get rich too. Right after Grandpa and Grandma got there the hurricane about wiped them out. Then the United States went into a depression.. Need I say more? This was what Aunt Viola told me.

Grandma (Nellie Burdett) bought me a piano. Cecelia, Janet and I took piano lessons from Mrs. Clements on Church Street between Hillsborough Avenue and Sligh near where my mama and daddy lived on Idlewild.

Grandma and Isabelle (Mama) told me Grandma didn’t want her girls to run around everywhere with their boyfriends, so she planned things at home. She had a Victrola (a record player). On Saturday nights she would toll the rug back and play records and let the girls and their friends have a party with dancing.

Mama told me that when the children would get rowdy Grandma would sit on the floor and play with them. This was something she loved to do. She would teach them to cut out paper dolls and then cut out dresses to fit the paper dolls. She taught them to draw, paint and sew, would tell them stories or make up poems, anything to learn and be achieving. This was good teaching as all of her children have some kind of talent; art, writing, music. All the boys seen to be mechanically inclined. It also caused her children to love her so much. If there was a problem in one of the families she was always there to help however she could.

Grandma took her money and invested it in property. If someone needed a home she always had a way to make a place for them. If she found better property she would trade and buy. I don’t remember where all the property she bought is, but she bought property at Valrico, Temple Terrace (an orange grove), some on Rome Avenue. She bought some on North Orleans and on Broad. (Tampa). The lot on the southeast corner had a small block house, and she lived in it until she sold it. There was a piano there. I don’t know if it was Aunt Alta’s or Aunt Viola’s. I know Aunt Viola taught me to play the Missouri Waltz and Star of the East..

Nellie & WILLIAM & THE PUDDING

One of the aunts once told me about the time that Grandma Nellie made a great big bowl of pudding. She was spooning up individual portions for the family when Grandpa William, unhappy over something, suddenly threw his little bowl of pudding against the wall. Grandma, without saying a word or seeming to react in any way, picked up the great big bowl from the middle of the table and (you guessed it) threw that against the wall. Then she calmly continued to conduct the family meal. No record of what William did after that…VIRGINIA ISABELLE

WILLIAM A. BURDETT

BY BARBARA BURDETT SLAUGHTERBECK

We don't all look alike, (except for the girls inheritance from Grandma
Nellie) but we think alike, talk alike, (except for the regional
differences), have that great sense of humor, (that comes from the Bryants,)
all enjoy the joking, the teasing, the camaraderie and we all have strong
family ties. Although we were scattered hither and yon, when we get together
the ties are readily recognized. We got a lot from Nellie, but we also got
some things from William, (even though he was a scoundrel). Our love for family
and nature and our love for animals, all the down-to-earth things, all came
from Nellie. BUT the artistic side came from William. He was a man who
could do most anything he took a notion to. He could build anything, fix
anything and he could also paint.

A little known fact about William is that he invented the over-head valve engine. He built it from scratch. It sat, mounted between saw-horses in his auto garage in Moral, OH. Word got around that he had this new invention in his garage. Uncle John Bryant told him he'd better get a patent on it or hide it. He paid no attention. One day a man stopped at his garage to ask directions. He seemed very interested in the engine and started asking questions. William was very accommodating and answered all his questions. Even showed him the diagrams of his project that were in his desk drawer. The man asked him to look at something on his car that he thought was not right. William went out to check. The man stayed in the garage. Soon he emerged, paid William for whatever it was he did and
drove off. The next time William opened the desk drawer, all the drawings were gone. The man had stolen them. It was shortly after that, that the Ford Motor Co. was granted a patent on an over-head valve engine. Uncle John always thought that the man was sent there by Ford when they heard through the grapevine about his invention.

Story as related to me by Uncle John Bryant just a few years before his death.

A DIFFERENT VIEW OF GRANDMA

The last time Grandma was to our house in Ohio, was I think, the summer or 1946. She came with Aunt Billie, Norman and Judy. We had just moved into the new house, and the hot water tank was not hooked up yet because Dad couldn't get the copper pipe he needed because of the war. So.....we were heating water on the cook stove and taking spit baths in the kitchen sink. It was bath day for Grandma so she stripped down to her cotton, home-made slip, then slipped off the shoulder straps and stood there naked from the waist up. Well as you know, Grandma was very well endowed, and she was not the least bit affected by an audience. I was horrified. I never saw anything like that in my life. She noticed my astonishment, just laughed, lifted one of them up over her shoulder where it stayed by itself, and gave herself a bath. Then she said to me, " Well, if you ever have as many young-uns a hangin on you as I've had hangin on me, you'll hang past your belly button too." I was never so embarrassed in my life. My Mom made me leave the room...BARBARA BURDETT SLAUGHTERBECK

MY GRANDMA

BY Lois Smith Miller

I loved my grandma with all my heart. I was in Okinawa when she died. Before I left she came to Mama’s, and I got to spend time with her. When I got back I went all over looking for her, trying to sense her presence and remember her. I couldn’t believe she was gone.

About four or five years after she died I dreamed about her. She was a baby, and I was holding her. She started growing, and she was as big as I was. She said she needed to go to the hospital. We went, and we got to the hospital elevator. The door opened, and there was a light coming from inside the elevator that blinded me. Grandma walked in, and I heard a voice that said, "This is the life." I woke up while the light was still shining. I knew she was in heaven, and after that I don’t remember dreaming about her again.

GRANDMA

Grandma was fantastic at upholstery. She could do a job and have just a few scraps of material left over. I remember not having a shirt to wear to school. She sat down to the machine and had me a shirt made before school. She was very industrious. Grandma had a world of grandkids. I’m sure she had her favorites, but she didn’t show it. She treated all of them good.

James E. Johns ("Jim")

GRANDMA BURDETT

We were always excited when Mom told us Grandma Burdett was coming to see us. Grandma would entertain us with stories and games. A lot of the games were well disguised hard work. Once we needed a new garbage hole. Grandma took a wringer from an old washing machine and attached a rope and bucket. I started filling up the bucket with dirt and Janet and Ivan would empty it. Soon we had a nice deep hold and a lot of fun digging it.

Grandma would crochet baby booties and make doll clothes for us. Janet has a pair of mittens Grandma crocheted for her. Janet and I have doll blankets that we embroidered with Sunbonnet Sue and Grandma quilted for us.

Grandma always had to leave too soon because she still had a whole lot of things lined up for us to do that we hadn’t done yet.

Grandma Burdett took a laxative one night. The next day she had to go downtown. Well, she got a sudden call and stopped at a filling station. The women’s rest room was in back and had a tall wooden fence around the door. There was no toilet paper so Grandma wiped with a newspaper she had with her (probably want ads). She didn’t want to throw it in the toilet or on the floor (no trash can) so she threw it over the fence. Well, a man was coming by from the men’s rest room and she hit him in the face with it.

_contributed by Cecelia Greene Wofford ("Corky")

Nellie

by Dorothy Louise Burdett Fuerst

When she was eighteen, she had gone to a party in Marion, Ohio, where she lived. A good looking boy from the next county of Forrest, Ohio, was at the party. As soon as William saw her, he said, "That’s the girl I’m going to marry." He got himself introduced and stayed close all evening. After that he came to see her every chance he got. One night he proposed and the next day she told her mother about William’s proposal. (A big mistake). Nellie’s mother approved of William because his parents were well-to-do farmers. William had a twin brother named Simon. William was considered the catch of the town and any girl was lucky to get him.

.

Nellie’s mother began preparing for the wedding. Nellie had no choice, but knew that Willie Wolf was lost to her forever. There were 800 people at the wedding. A huge number for a small town like Marion. William adored her and did everything to protect her.

Nellie was six months pregnant when she was out in the barn milking a cow named Clarabell. William was near by pitching hay. Clarabelle kept kicking. William got peeved at the cow’s unruly behavior and impulsively jabbed the pitchfork into the cow’s rump. The cow kicked Nellie, she fell flat and passed out. Horrified, William grabbed her up and took her to her father, the Doctor.

The injury caused the baby to be born. The little girl weighed a mere one and one-half pounds. Her father stayed with the baby day and night trying to keep her alive. Nellie and her father took turns holding her near the open fire in the fireplace, making sure it didn’t get too warm or cold. She slept in a shoe box on the oven door. This was April 6, 1902. The weather is quite chilly in Ohio this time of year. They named the baby Viola Cecelia. A year after her birth, Nellie’s baby doctor was still saying that Nellie’s new baby wasn’t going to live long.

Less that two years later, Nellie had another little girl, born January 2, 1904. They had moved from Morral, Ohio, to Kenton, Ohio. This baby was named Alta Ruth.

In less than two years, Nellie was pregnant again. Austin Robert Burdett was born June 19, 1905. Gerald George Burdett was born October 6, 1906. Mildred Regina Burdett was born April 1, 1908. Isabelle Pearl Burdett was born May 12, 1910. Reatha Effie was born November 15, 1911. Edna Maxine Burdett was born February 15, 1913. Dorothy Louise Burdett was born April 8, 1914. Dorothy was born premature and only weighed three pounds at birth. Nellie had tried nine different foods before she found one that agreed with her and that was malt. She couldn’t keep food down, so was very thin. Thelma Avenell Burdett was born October 30, 1915. Wilna Augusta was born June 2, 1918. Arthur Bryant Burdett was born August 4, 1920. Nellie had two more babies, but both died at birth.

After seven girls in a row, they wanted a boy, so Alta began calling Wilna, Billie, and it stuck throughout her life. Arthur was called Bud and that too stuck throughout his life.

Dorothy was very ill and the doctor said she would never make it through another winter in Ohio. In 1921, when she was seven years old, Nellie and William decided to go to a warmer climate. They told the doctor they knew some people in St. Petersburg, Florida and he said that would be perfect.

They landed in St. Petersburg in October 1921, but the campground was small, near the center of town, and expensive. Someone told William that there was a campground in Tampa that was especially for tourist and that it was large and free. That sounded perfect. They landed in Tampa with $8.00 and eight children.

In less than two weeks, the 1921 hurricane hit. The tent was less than 50 feet from Tampa Bay. The whole family slept on one mattress in the back of the tent. Nellie was lying on that mattress as the wind became stronger and stronger. The water from the bay was moving closer to the tent opening. "Nellie, We’ve got to get out of here!" William kept saying. Nellie wouldn’t move. When the water reached almost to the door of the tent, she moved.

The children had gone to a pavilion not far from the tent. As soon as Nellie got to the pavilion (William had tied the tent to a tree) the tent was flapping in the wind like a flag.

As the day progressed, the wind and rain became worse. Soon the water was climbing up the four foot wall of the pavilion. William came after the children and took them to a school house. By nightfall, they came after the children and took them to a bungalett. The family slept upstairs. Edna and Dorothy slept on a kitchen table. The water in the kitchen was about two feet high. By morning the rain and wind had stopped. Nellie had told the children, "This is someone’s home and they will be back when the storm is over, so don’t take anything or mess anything up."

William built a four foot wall and put the tent on top of it so we could stand up in the tent. It was on a lot next to a grocery store, but not to far from the bay. The owners of the store were Mr. and Mrs. Alderman.

When they came to Florida, Austin and Gerald stayed with Nellie’s brother, Uncle John. Viola was married and Alta was in college. When the Alderman’s left to go to Tennessee, Nellie had them take Isabelle with them and leave her with Viola who was living in Tennessee at the time.

There were some Spanish people that lived across the street. A thirty year old man wanted to marry Mildred who was only 13, so to get her away from him, Nellie sent her back to Ohio to live with her sister, Mable.

The pavilion in the park had a stage. The tourist gave lectures, plays, etc. Nellie decided to put on the play called, "THE TOM THUMB WEDDING". Bud was a cute little blond, curly- headed one-year-old. Nellie decided he was to be Tom Thumb. She made him a little suit with coat tails. Edna, Dorothy and Thelma were the old maids.

Reatha took care of Bud. She fed him, slept with him, bathed him, etc. He couldn’t say Reatha, so called her Eyow. If anyone lit a match, he just had to blow it out. So the plan for the play was that Nellie would hold him on one side of the stage and Reatha would stand at the other end. When Reatha would strike a match, Nellie would let Bud to so he could run across the stage and blow out the match. This would show him off to the audience.

When the play was over Nellie held Bud at the left end of the stage. Reatha, at the right end of the stage, struck a match so Nellie let go of Bud. He ran across the stage yelling E E E E E E E OWE OWE OWE. It seems that most people didn’t remember what the play was about, but they all remembered that one-year-old, curly headed boy running across the stage yelling E E E OWE.

Frank’s family came from Pennsylvania and they were in the same campground that Nellie and her family were in. He remembered Bud running across that stage. Nellie and her family moved to West Tampa. Frank’s family moved to West Tampa. (I was seven and Frank was nine, so you see he has been following me around since I was seven. Dorothy).

After the family moved to West Tampa, it seems that Bud was determined to get himself killed. Nellie was using gasoline to kill some bugs. She had put some gasoline in a glass and sat it on the table and for a second had turned around. Bud must have thought it was water and took a big swig. Nellie turned around in time to see what happened. She tried to get him to vomit it up, but was unsuccessful, so she poured olive oil and raw egg down him. This worked and he got all right.

A week later, Nellie was using some blue viteral tablets, which is a strong poison. Still trying to kill those darn bugs. Bud grabs up one of the tablets and puts it into his mouth. Nellie cleaned his mouth out. Fearful that he may have swallowed some, she poured strong coffee down him, then put her hand down his throat, trying to make him vomit. Some woman hollered, "Call a Doctor!" Nellie said, "Call a doctor yourself, I don’t have time."

Any time Bud became angry, he would run away. "I’m leaving," he’d say, "I’m not coming back." One day he ran into the road, two boys in a wagon deliberately ran over him. The horse stepped over him, but the wagon wheels ran over him. He didn’t get hurt as the soft sand pushed him into it.

I remember......

I remember once, when Grandma was staying with us, she made me a little settee for my doll. She built it out of scraps of wood and upholstered it with red material and brass tacks. She had already fixed the high chair by taking off the broken arms and upholstering the seat and back. She also told us kids to rake the yard, and she would give us money to go to the picture show. While we were raking she sewed us each a little purse and put the money in it.

_Janet Simpson Smith

LIVING WITH GRANDMA

I was ten years old, and I lived that school year with Grandma Burdett on her farm in Darby. It was 1950, and she was having frequent spells with her heart, so my parents had me live with her to help her and watch out for her.

When Grandma first looked at the farm with the idea of buying it Aunt Isabelle and Uncle Dolphus had taken her out to Darby. They saw a Brahma bull out in the pasture with his whanger hanging down, and Uncle Dolphus was pretty embarrassed. Grandma didn’t miss a beat, and she said, "Looks like there are some pretty happy cows out in that pasture."

Grandma never had a clock. She always knew what time it was though.

One time she walked up to the church to see Brother Myers, the Fundamentalist preacher. On the way back Mrs. Sessums offered her ten pounds of candied pineapple that her son had given her. Grandma was at that time having one of her heart spells, but she was so considerate of others’ feelings that she took the pineapple anyway. I heard her way up the road yelling, "Martha Nell!" and I ran up to see what she wanted. She asked, "Can you carry this?" I carried the pineapple while she put one hand on my shoulder as we walked along to lean on me. That was a very long walk for a ten-year-old and a lady with heart pains. She lay down once we got to the farmhouse until her heart quit bothering her.

One time during that year Aunt Billie was living with us too. I heard Grandma yelling from the side of the yard where the hand dug well was, "Martha Nell, bring me the pitchfork!" She had a chicken pen out there, and a great big fat possum had gotten inside it. Grandma beat that possum to death, wham! Wham! I remember that somehow pieces of broken plate got mixed up in the beating, and shards of white pottery flew all over the place. Afterward she and Aunt Billie were just sick. They were two women alone, and they did what they had to do.

_contributed by Martha Nell Johns Hoover

GRANDMA

She was a magic presence who appeared in person here and there but who was always there. I was nine or ten when she died, but still she is always there. When I try to call her to mind I am unable to find any images except for those of her laughing, and I realize that when we all were born the ancestors gathered around to offer gifts. From the Bryants we received that soul satisfying, life saving gift of laughter. The family funny bone. The woman who was a roommate of hers in the hospital at the moment of her death told the family that Nellie had been laughing and telling tales of her children and grandchildren when she apparently fell asleep. A short while later the roommate realized that she had quietly passed away.

I am now close to the ages she was when I knew her, and I am finding that the maladies of old age are checking in right on schedule; cataracts, arthritis, fat. I am seeing Nellie here in this aging near senior citizen more clearly as time goes on, physically and also in my personality. She would go wherever she wanted to go, bad heart, lack of carfare, and no matter. She would walk if necessary, but she would go. If she wanted to go to Ohio from Florida to see her Ohio family, and if her heart was acting up, she would grab a grandchild or two to take along to help her. I thought that Grandma went all over the place because…well…because she was Grandma, and that’s what a Grandma did. Now, as I face worse maladies to come I realize that the one I will fight with every resource at my command is getting stuck in one spot, unable to move. Because I received a direct shot of nomad genes that’s why. And I have to go all over the place because that’s what a Grandma does.

Grandma did not intrude on our childhoods. She took delight in our having them, and she shared them whenever we allowed her to do so, bringing laughter and a talent for decorating a childhood. She decorated those time/space bubbles with doll furniture, string cats cradles, pastries, new dresses and shirts taking form on her sewing machine in the time between awakening and leaving for school, work becoming fun, Pat & Mike stories which seemed always to have a character named The Farmer’s Daughter. With a sense of our being cherished.

She was about my height, I think, about 5’3". As the years pass she grows taller.

_by Virginia Isabelle