Remembering a wise & creative grandmother -

My Grandma Ruby would have been 112 today. Born in 1907, she passed away just weeks before our first child was born in 2004. I’ve shared a little about her here, where I discussed the handmade furniture she created from scraps of wood for my mother to use with her dolls.

In honor of Ruby Cox Price Johnston today, I want to share some of what I wrote for her memorial service 15 years ago.

When I remember Grandma, I remember sweet iced tea. And pies and Christmas time visits (including the time she leaned too far and fell into the Christmas tree). I remember watching the Lawrence Welk Show and Hee Haw together by the wood stove in the house where I grew up. Grandma liked to stay very warm. There are countless memories of singing together. She loved the old classic hymns as well as the silly songs of long ago. She passed them down to my cousins and me, so we can sing the 1923 hit, “Yes, We Have No Bananas,” and “Carolina in the Morning,” first published in 1922.

When I remember Grandma, I remember praying. Grandma prayed and lived a life of godly devotion to her Lord and her family. She was not ashamed of the gospel, rather, she was ashamed of the many ungodly things in this world. For instance, she would never read a book any further than the first curse word she encountered. Over the course of her long life, she was a faithful member of several churches.

I learned these things from my Grandma Ruby:

Be faithful to God and the things He calls us to do.
Sing a lot.
Things that you carefully make with your hands are beautiful and valuable.
Pray often. I know she prayed for me.
Love your family; be proud of your children and grandchildren. And tell them you’re proud of them and that you love them.

Grandma Ruby lived a quiet, often hard life, working with her hands in what many would consider remote rural places. She picked cotton and tobacco in the fields of North Carolina as a child. She raised my mother and her sisters, as well as several step-children, in the mountains of Southwest Virginia, where if they had any luxuries, it was because she made them—toys, dresses, good food. She was never famous, but her legacy will reach far and wide through her many grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Thank you, Grandma, and Happy birthday. I love you.

Detail of handmade doll furniture by Ruby Price. The cracked mirror of the vanity, reveals some sort of bee keeping-related paper. My grandfather kept bees.

The old Price home — The home my grandfather built in Pearisburg, Virginia. This was where my mother and aunts grew up and was Grandma Ruby and PawPaw’s when I was little. Photo by Hannah Rountree

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