Author: Greg

Grandma’s Puppy Pal
One of a series of “Stories for My Great-Grandchildren”
Excerpt from “An Oklahoma Story – Growing Up on Polecat Hill”
By Ruby Beard Tuggle

Edited by Greg Bennette
Illustrated by Carol Bennette
© 2006

[Fall 1931] About a year and a half after we were married, Paul came home from town, popped into the kitchen where I was working, and said, “We have our baby!” I clasped my hands over my bulging pregnant waistline and said, “What on earth are you talking about?”

He opened the door again and in bounced the friskiest pup I’d ever seen. We both laughed at once. He tilted his head at an angle which seemed to say, “Come on! Let’s have a little fun!” His name was Pal.

Grandma was a very proper lady barely five feet tall with tiny hands and feet and a slender waist. I doubt that she ever weighed much more than a hundred pounds. She was always properly groomed from the soles of her well-shod feet to the crown of her perfectly arranged hair. She used to say, “Cleanliness isn’t next to Godliness. Cleanliness is the more important!”

Continue reading “Grandma’s Puppy Pal”

Mildred’s Wedding
One of a series of “Stories for My Great-Grandchildren”
Excerpt from “An Oklahoma Story – Growing Up on Polecat Hill”
By Ruby Beard Tuggle

Edited by Greg Bennette
Illustrated by Carol Bennette
© 2006

On the morning of her wedding day Mildred asked me to go with her to get the flowers that friends had told her she might have from their gardens, and to gather fern-like asparagus foliage to use in the bouquets we would make. How lovely our house looked! In my imagination, I saw my pretty sister standing amid those beautiful bouquets, promising to love, honor, and cherish Harry Pickett.

Continue reading “Mildred’s Wedding”

1918 – A Time for Dying
One of a series of “Stories for My Great-Grandchildren”
Excerpt from “An Oklahoma Story – Growing Up on Polecat Hill”
By Ruby Beard Tuggle

All was not well with the world the year of 1918. War had drained America of her finest young men. The flu killed more people than the war. I was five years old.

Ted was the first to come down with the flu; then Henryetta, Frank, and I quickly followed. The danger that we might die was very real. We were so scared.

Continue reading “1918 – A Time for Dying”