1871-1961
I have the honor of sharing the memories of my great grandmother, Virginia Grace Robinson. To her great-grandchildren, she was Nanny.
Think for a moment what that woman experienced in her life. Born in the deep south only six years after the Civil War, she lived to see the world’s first ventures into space.
I remember studying the Civil War in school and mentioning Carpet Baggers in her presence. She visibly, and negatively, reacted to the term, because she had first-hand knowledge of what Carpet Baggers really were.
The bus trip
Shortly after she turned 90 and the summer before her death the next February, she informed her daughter/my grandmother that they needed to take her to the bus station so she could go see her babies (we lived in Fort Stockton at the time). My grandmother said, “No, Mother, you do not need to make that trip.” It was easily a nine hour trip from San Antonio.
Nanny said, “You can take me to the bus station or I can call a taxi.” My grandparents ended up taking her to the bus station. Picture a 90-year-old woman, who was by then completely blind, getting on a Greyhound bus for a nine-hour trip.
She was quite a lady.
Speed limits
To Nanny, speed was measured by what she experienced in her life. As I remember, we were near Junction on our way to take her back to San Antonio, and the subject of speed limits came up. Her observation: “I do not see why anyone would want to go more than 40.”
For a woman who grew up when horses and wagons were the only means of transportation and one who experienced the entire spectrum of personal cars, 40 was pretty fast.
rlspublishing.net 