Over the river and through the woods

My great-grandmother on her back stoop, 1955.

The day before Thanksgiving counted among the best days of the year when I was growing up. School would let out early, giving us plenty of time to help Mama with her baking and cooking. Fragrance of apples and cinnamon, laughter in the air.

It was more the anticipation than anything. A cherry pie was always part of the day’s culinary creation. “Johnny, can you please shell some pecans?”—that meant we’d have pecan pie too. With enough time, she’d bake either lemon or coconut meringue pie. “You know Hilburn will tease you about calf slobber,” my dad would joke as he shelled precious nuts collected from the tree in our backyard.

Mama would roll her eyes and bake that meringue pie anyway. Calf slobber indeed!

I’ve never been a morning person, but Thanksgiving Day I wouldn’t complain when my dad would wake us up for an early breakfast, so we could get on the road. Martindale was less than 200 miles from our home in Houston. But I-10 wasn’t finished-finished until the late 1960s. We would often drive familiar state highways to avoid construction.

During those growing up years, much changed, some for the better, some not. Thanksgiving seemed to be our one constant. My great-grandmother’s house beckoned us year after year after year.

My earliest memories of her tiny home invariably include its lack of indoor plumbing. Yes, she had an outhouse well into the 1960s. Complete with a Sears Roebuck catalog for toilet paper. Her wringer washer occupied one side of the screened-in porch.

The horse trough, mere steps from her back door, provided much amusement when we were very little. Then, it seemed gigantic. And as much as we loved them, the horses penned up near her house scared us.

We watched her move easily through backbreaking chores. Once Thanksgiving arrived and her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren gathered around her, her happiness knew no bounds. As long as I knew her, she was never one for great public displays of affection. Yet she remained the single constant, drawing us close to her and to one another.

She had had a difficult life, this mother of my mother’s mother. When she was seven, her parents sold her to a wealthy family, a wealthy childless family. Ostensibly the rich people wanted a daughter. Indeed, the single photo of her as a child shows her garbed in a beautiful dress, with ribbons in her hair.

But that wealthy couple wanted a maid, not a daughter. Despite the picture of her—forlorn and sad—at seven, she served her new “parents,” cooking and cleaning.

When a reasonably good-looking guy came along, she married him. She was thirteen.

Out of the frying pan, into the fire. She may have been a servant for six years, but for the next 27+, her husband abused her. An alcoholic, he was known to fly into a rage if one of their nine children so much as spilled a glass of milk. My mom remembered one of those rages. She was tiny at the time and did not understand what was happening, but the memory of her grandfather beating one of her beloved uncles for spilling milk never left her.

My great-grandmother did something that few women of her era would do: She kicked his sorry ass out of her home when she was in her forties. Better to raise nine children as a single mom than to fear for her life, and for the lives of her children.

I only recently learned that that horrid great-grandfather of mine had gotten into the trunk where she stored her few treasured possessions. He ripped up the pretty silk dress she wore as a seven-year old, as well as to anything else she held dear, and ruined everything.

When one of my cousins opened that trunk after her death and found shredded silk clothing, it hurt almost as much as if it had happened to them. My great-grandmother, Minnie Lea Kelly, had buried her grief and tears in a trunk she kept locked.

As the families of her nine children grew, the Thanksgiving meal was moved up the road to the somewhat larger home of an aunt and uncle. Photo is of Minnie Lea with four of her boys, Thanksgiving 1969. She had just turned 80.

They also had a TV, so we could watch the Aggie-Texas game. For years, I was the only “girl” watching the game. Women and their daughters were expected to wash dishes and put food away while the men watched TV. For some reason, they tolerated me.

A favorite cousin from my mom’s side of the family reminded me recently that one year, when everyone else was outside, my dad and I snuck back into the house to watch the game. That rings true!

Thanksgiving did not end with the Thanksgiving meal. Siblings and cousins and aunts and uncles caught up on family gossip while picking at leftovers. At some point, there would be an expedition to check on the bulls—even city folk like my dad would inspect them, making comments about their studliness and size. We kids, especially as we headed into our teen years, would try to get as close as possible without being chased. Which inevitably led to, of course, being chased.

At some point, Aunt Barbara would remind everyone that we should drive over to their farm for peach ice cream. A caravan of bouncy kids and their parents would wend their way slowly to their place. Aunt Barbara would already be busy making the custard—with fresh peaches, of course! Uncle Wayne would pull out the churn and get it set up with crushed ice and rock salt, the glow from the yellow porchlight his only illumination.

We would fight for the privilege of sitting atop the churn as Uncle Wayne turned the crank, effortlessly spinning tall tales. Adults gathered round, sipping sweet tea, laughing at the stories.

As evening fell, the community of family broke off into smaller segments. Some would go back to great-grandma’s to play 42 (my parents generally were in that contingent). Others would wander down to Uncle Hilburn’s house, or over to Uncle George’s to drink coffee (yes, at night) and gossip. It was fun to watch Uncle George saucer his coffee!

In the early years, when we were little, great-grandma would place quilts over every square inch of floor. We would sleep on pallets. Those days were special, because she would let us watch her take down her long, gray hair, always pinned into a respectable bun, and brush it.

As we grew up, there wasn’t enough square footage in Minnie Lea’s house for all of us. Our family took to spending most of our post-Thanksgiving meal time with Uncle Warren, Aunt Pat, and their three kids. We would sneak out when we thought our parents were asleep and head for the San Marcos River. Martindale then was all but a ghost town, a handful of old farming families keeping it alive.

Therefore we had night streets all to ourselves, and the river too. Those midnight excursions strengthened the bond with Jan, Mike, and Johnny. Thanksgiving joy encompassed the time spent with them, and only them, as much as watching football with the men.

Because as we grew up, things with some of the cousins became strained. Once great-grandma was not the center of the celebration—she still took part, but in a more minor role—cracks in familial ties reared their ugly heads. What had been ornery or childish took on darker undertones. I did not know then, but was not surprised to learn, that the cousins I had the most trouble with were brutal in real life. No wonder I perceived their meanness as something intolerable.

As long as I had Jan, Mike, and Johnny, things were all right. When the unpleasant group would literally go behind the barn to smoke and get drunk, I had Jan, Mike, and Johnny. That unpleasant group expressed horrifically attitudes toward Blacks and women as they entered high school. I was safe with Jan, Mike, and Johnny.

The first time we went to Martindale for Thanksgiving and Jan wasn’t there, I ate my meal as fast as possible, then sat in the car and read the rest of the time. It was too hard, putting up with hate-filled speech. After my great-grandmother died, I attended only one family get-together. By then, Jan (and Mike and Johnny) had moved away.

My fun-packed memories of Thanksgiving with Minnie Lea Kelly ended as cousins (and their parents) became more open with their bigotry and prejudice. They used the N-word long before it was "revived" as part of public speech in 2015. They related crude, offensive jokes many, many years before they donned red caps.

These days, Jan and Mike and Johnny are more conservative than I. Their politics skew center-right. But without hate. Their political beliefs are based on fiscally conservative ideology, with worries about spending money the government doesn’t have. Not based on disdain for people in distress, or with contempt for people unlike themselves.

My issues with “MAGA” cousins grew out of who they were prior to 2015, not who they voted for in 2016-2020-2024. I avoided them long before they cast their first-ever vote for Donald Trump.

I would encourage you, if you are reading this, to hold tight to family members who are compassionate, who give money to people in need, whose faith compels them to love the unloved and care for those who have been left behind. Regardless of politics, regardless of faith.

You know who among your family should be avoided. You’ve sat at table when the N-word has been tossed about like it’s normal, when people related to you have ranted about someone simply based on appearance or ethnicity or religion.

It’s next to impossible to change people who hate.

What fascinates me with the dynamics of this particular branch of my family: That sort of talk only surfaced publicly once Minnie Lea Kelly was not in charge. When my great-grandmother was in the room, cousins, aunts, and uncles were respectful. No cussin’ in front of Minnie Lea, no disparaging words, no racism. Just “yes, ma’am.”

Sometimes it may be a good thing to be a strong woman who’s feared. And loved. Like Minnie Lea Kelly.

Comments worth keeping

Thank you. Great story, beautifully written.

My own family history runs back through the women, and runs back through my grandparent's farm. The family festival was Christmas, being in Britain, but much the same in feeling.

--JWT Meakin, November 29, 2025.

Such a good Thanksgiving story. Family is so important. Thanksgiving is the time to remember the good times without glossing over the bad times. Thanks for sharing your memories.

--Cynthia Phillips, November 26, 2025.

What a vivid and lively picture of an extraordinary matriarch - the dead do live on in being remembered.

--Valerie Cotter, November 26, 2025.

Your story reminds me of the Christmas Eves we spent at my grandma's house when I was growing up.

--DW Davis, November 26, 2025.

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Image credits: Top photograph--My great-grandmother on her back stoop, 1955. © 1955 John Heap. Second photograph--Thanksgiving 1969. © 1969 John Heap. Bottom photograph--Me, Great-Gramma, and my mother, Thanksgiving 1975. © 1975 John Heap. Please contact me for permission to use any of these photographs. That means you, Arlene.

No part of this post may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the copyright holder, except for the “fair use” of quotations that are properly cited and credited, including identification of the translator if applicable. No part of this post may be included in any Large Language Model without proper licensing from the copyright holder, Denise Elaine Heap.