52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Week 9: Sounds

Do you know that sound? Listen. You hear fingers dipping into a bowl of cellophane wrapped candies to take one. Like peppermints or mixed hard candies. Listen again, do you hear it now? That distinctive sound of the wrappings rubbing against each other and crinkling? Whenever I hear that sound, say if a candy dish is out at work, the first thing that comes into my mind is wondering if that is Grandma Willie in the candy dish. Then I smile. She was the sweetest woman. She was my Grandmother's step Mother and my Grandmother took care of her until she died. She was the second wife of Edward Alexander Cummings Fender and she worked with my Great-Grandfather at Tasty Bread Company in Akron Ohio. After my Great-Grandmother passed away, he married Willie. She is Willie Clay Moore Fender of Tennessee. I am not sure what brought her to Ohio. She was almost completely blind by her old age I remember. She had to hold her phone book up to her nose to read it and it took her a while to decipher. She always smiled, she always wore an apron and even though she couldn't see, my Great-Grandfathers picture never left her bedside table.

Summer traffic. My Grandmother lived on West Exchange Street in Akron, Ohio. It was a three story house with an apartment on each level and I would seriously love a place like that today. It was a big apartment. The front section of the house was the living room with double doors that opened to a front porch that was the entire width of the house. My sister and I played out there countless hours. The next section back was a formal dining room with bay windows along one wall with a window seat and the length of it was covered with potted plants. Through a swinging door on the left side of the dining room you came into the dinette "room". The inside wall of this room was glass door cabinets were all the china and serving dishes were. And, my grandmothers soft boiled egg cups. Something I still have today and cherish. Through that room then you stepped into the kitchen. On the right hand side of the dining room was the doorway to the hall that went to the back of the house on the right side. Down this hall were two bedrooms and a bathroom in between. The hallway had a huge linen closet. And old wood trim. Delicious! It smelled like old wood, you know that old house smell that I am talking about?  Sometimes when the traffic is busy like it was on West Exchange Street, i will hear a horn blow or some traffic sound that triggers my memory and brings me back to this place.  Every time I go back, it seems to be back into my Grandmother's world.