Life with Mammaw Wellons

I was lucky to spend more than half of my kindergarten year (actually there was no kindergarten in Indiana at the time) at the home of my grandparents, Ralph and Bess Wellons. Since my grandfather worked every day, I naturally spent most of the time with my mammaw.

Besides the things I loved about spending time with her when my brothers were present, I got to do some special things during that year. For example, we went shopping one day each week. Shopping in 1960 meant taking the bus downtown and going from store to store. J.C. Penny still had the vacuum tube money handling system where the clerk that sold you something sent your money upstairs with a sales slip and the cashier upstairs sent back a receipt and your change. J.C. Penny was a really big deal. We also went to Sears, which is now the home of the Anderson Public Library. The basement floor had the famous candy counter. The Fair Store was a local department store, which was quite large and had two floors. It was in a multistory building and offices were on the upper floors. Our doctor after Dr. Koop retired, was my dad’s childhood friend Dr. Jim Drake. His office was on one of the upper floors. The building was later bought, long after the Fair Store closed, by a Highland High School classmate and teammate named Jeff Hollon. He renovated the entire building. We would often stop at Woolworth’s, and sometimes get something to eat at the lunch counter. And we would usually walk a few blocks south to visit my mom’s Uncle Paul at his shoe and hat repair shop. Then we would bus back home, hopefully in time to see The Guiding Light on TV.

I don’t remember taking naps and my grandmother and I had a deal, even when my brothers were there... I could skip the nap as long as I pretended to sleep until they went to sleep and stayed quiet during nap time! Sometimes I would see her run the Bissell sweeper or the bigger canister vacuum. With just the three of us, the place didn’t get that dirty. As we grew, my brothers and I jumped at the chance to run the Bissell sweeper in the living room for my grandmother.

I learned how to color, and maybe worked on numbers. I remember learning to play rummy, but that must have been a year or two later when my brothers were napping.

Sometimes, her friend Pearl Jones would pay a visit. This is the only non-relative friend, other than Pete and Hazel Sutton, that I remember.

I have always wondered if my obesity problem, which has plagued me most of my life, started with those days snacking with Mammaw Wellons. Who knows? I know her “dip cheese” cheese dip was so, so good with potato chips or crackers. I used to help her make it so I know the recipe called for a package of Philadelphia cream cheese, a container of sour cream and a cup or so of dried onions. And then there was the buttered toast each morning. And fried hash that I helped to prepare by turning the grinder as the ingredients were fed in the day before.