I did not know my great
grandmother. She lived until I was 19, but was very ill for most of my life,
and I never got to experience her the way her children and grandchildren did. What
I have experienced is her home, and my grandmother’s stories. In getting to
know her home, and her daughter, I feel I have gotten to know my great grandmother.
My great grandmother, Alma Etta
Graham, was born on January 20, 1920, in a small town outside of Athens,
Georgia. The oldest of seven children, she grew up on a small family farm. Her
parents were not wealthy, and the Great Depression created new challenges for
the family—Alma would walk to school in her carefully starched, handmade
flour-sack dress, carrying her shoes to keep them from wearing out. In high
school, her boyfriend would ride a mule over to see her. “It always embarrassed
her a little when her brothers told that story” laughs my grandmother,
Guynelle. Life was not easy for young Alma, and when she married the mule-riding
boyfriend shortly before her eighteenth birthday, she was filled with ambition.
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| Alma Bearden, as a newlywed |
Guy Bearden, Alma’s husband, had always
wanted to own his own business, and she worked alongside him to make that dream
a reality. In 1955, with three children in tow, they opened a NAPA car parts
store in Jackson, Georgia. They were unable to hire employees in the beginning,
which did not slow Alma down at all. “My mother would drive the truck to
Atlanta every week for parts for the inventory. It was very hard for her to learn
how to do that. She would come back every week with that panel truck stuffed
full of parts—tail pipes and everything…She kept the [store’s] books for many
years” my grandmother told me. Eventually they owned eight NAPA stores
throughout Georgia. But Alma didn’t stop with the business. “They were very
active members in their community” Guynelle shared. Alma helped her husband
head a committee that oversaw the construction of the building for Jackson First
Baptist Church, and was Chair of the Decorating committee herself.
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| Alma sometime in the 1940's |
When I asked my grandmother about
her mother’s hobbies, she replied immediately: “Working.” We laughed, and she
continued: “Mainly working in her gardens…She grew enough vegetables that she
would leave baskets of them at the doors of her friends. She canned vegetables
well into her seventies…Her flower gardens were a really big passion of hers…her
front yard was full of roses.” You won’t see these flowers if you visit her
house now—like her vegetables, she gave her roses away as she grew unable to
care for them. Much of her life followed this theme of generosity. “I have
heard her say many, many times ‘I just want my children to have a better life
than I had’ …She worked so hard for her family—it was all about her family”
said Guynelle.
The home that Alma and Guy built
for their retirement is a testament to Alma’s love of work. There is a large
kitchen, where she did her canning, with a bigger pantry to store it all in.
There are cabinets full of beautiful dishes and table linens that speak to her
abilities as a hostess. My grandmother has stories of the parties she would
host for the Gideon Society—the Jackson chapter that she and Guy founded. “She could
make a sit down dinner for fifty people—that’s where all those dishes come
from!” Guynelle added. It is a home that fulfilled her ambitions, and gave her
space to continue her labors of love.
