Living with Grandma...

My Mother, Ethel Jean Hickman Blue lived for much of her younger years in the home of her grandmother, Ethel Clara/Claire Austin Ham. This is an attempt to record some of the things she told me about her family. Jean ("Jean Doll") lived "with Grandma" because her parents worked the cafe from daylight to night and she was too small to leave alone.

"Grandma lived with my uncle on the farm". Mother could not remember specifically, if Grandma Ham actually lived with her son OR if she had her own house on the property. Mother admits she was "very spoiled" by her grandmother and did not have to do many chores, certainly nothing she did not want to do. When she was older she went "back and forth on the bus" to see her parents. "Grandma liked my daddy (Weaver James Hickman) alot" and "did not care for Mama (Gertude Ham Hickman Barton)". For some reason there was some love lost between Gertude and her mother. I can only specilate that it had something to do with Gertrude leaving Weaver and marrying Curry Barton. When Jean Doll was about 8? years old she recalled that Grandma had gotten a call from Gertrude and that she (Gertude) was coming to get her and Buster and take them home with her. At that time Gertrude had remarried and had another child, Marie. Grandma called Daddy and told him that "Gertrude" was "on her way to get" me and would be there at such and such time. Daddy arrived before Mother and "I was in the car with him leaving just as she arrived"or she had "just missed us" . **Wasn't Buster there too? ** Another time Mother told me about her half sister, Marie. "She was very young, maybe 3 or 5" and "She was so beautiful(or pretty, I can't reall what word she used) in her beautiful white dress"... "I was so jealous of her". Was this the FIRST time that Mother had ever seen her half sister? Hard to believe. I belive that Buster (James Weaver), Mother's brother was also there most of that time. I believe that Dorothy, her sister, lived elsewhere with an Aunt (Gertrudes sister?).

When I was growing up and we would be around Papa Hickman (Weaver) he would always ask Mother if she had heard "from your Mammy"? When Grandmother Barton would mention Granddaddy she would call him "Mr. Hickman". Odd for a marriage don't you think...even for one ending in divorce? I know for a fact that Mother was the only sibling (of second marriage) to keep in contact with Grandmother Barton at all and Dorothy ws the one who was in contact with the girls from the first marriage. Much of Buster's adult live was spent in the Air Force overseas. Interestingly enough I never heard him say a bad thing about Grandmother Barton and as you know "little pictures have big ears" and I was always the quite one...listening to the grownups! But he always said that Grandmother was his "best worker"!