Grandma's Taffy

Copyright © 2008 Judith J. Bentley

My sister and I were still little children when Grandma Creighton, my mother's mother, used to ride the train all the way from South Carolina by herself to visit us in the summertime in Highland Springs, Virginia where my father was the Methodist minister at the local church and my mother taught chemistry, biology, and math at the high school. The fact that Grandma Creighton was in her '80s didn't seem to deter her one bit from those long train rides. She was a large woman and had a musty smell the way some old people do, but it wasn't too noticeable after she had doused herself with plenty of sachet and bath powder. She tried to help my mother with the meals, but they'd get into arguments in the kitchen about how things should be done so eventually Grandma Creighton retreated to her bedroom rocking chair and crocheted little doilies instead. Sometimes while waiting to eat the next meal, she'd stand at the dining room window looking out into the yard while mumbling to herself about how awful President Eisenhower was. I later learned that there was a solid line of Democrats drawn on both sides of the family, but as a child in the '50s, I couldn't understand why Grandma Creighton didn't like our President.

The best part of Grandma Creighton's summertime visits was the taffy she would make for my sister and me to "pull" in the afternoons. We waited eagerly as Grandma Creighton stirred it in a big pot on the kitchen stove until it was just right. Then out into the backyard we'd fly where she had set up a fold-out table just for our party. We stood side-by-side at the table in jubilant anticipation until finally Grandma Creighton appeared at the back screened door holding the long metal tray containing the hot taffy. She had us grease our hands good with butter and then stood by watching as we scooped up a big glob of the hot taffy and pulled it between us like a giant rubber band, back and forth, till it would "make" into long golden strands of delicious taffy all covered in butter. My sister and I never knew what all went into Grandma Creighton's taffy because she didn't tell us but that was okay. We knew we had helped her in the process of making the taffy with our backyard pulling sessions and we always got to eat as much of it as we wanted. When it came time for Grandma Creighton's visit to end, we'd take her back to the train station and say our goodbyes. Our mother would always cry when she left which I thought was strange since they didn't seem to get along so well in the kitchen.

The year the news came that Grandma Creighton had died, we all drove to South Carolina for the funeral. My Aunt Rebecca greeted us at the door. Inside in the living room which was called the parlor, there was Grandma Creighton laid out in an open casket with a few strangers standing over her. I had never seen a dead person before and Mother had not explained anything to me about what had happened to Grandma Creighton or why she was inside an open casket in her own living room and wasn't saying anything to anybody.

It was the custom in the South to "display" the body of the deceased in the home. This was called a "viewing." I was so frightened as I passed the living room and saw the casket with Grandma Creighton in it that I ran and hid in a back room with my cousin till my mother came and got me and made me go out into the living room and stand in front of Grandma Creighton and look at her. That was the absolute worst part. I thought it was mean of my Mother to make me do that, and I didn't understand why I had to. My Mother even took pictures of her lying in the casket still and silent, her hands folded across her chest. She had on one of those dresses she used to wear when she made us taffy in the summertime. All I knew was the Grandma Creighton wouldn't be coming to visit us anymore in the summertime and we'd never get to pull her taffy again either. I didn't think we'd ever get to go home.