Snuff

My Grandmother dipped snuff!!! There it is…it’s out there now… (She really didn’t want anybody to know…even though everybody did know).

It wasn’t just any snuff either, it was three dot Garrett snuff. Ever tried that? I did…it’s the stuff you kinda want to back away from slowly. My Grandmother was the mother to four girls and four boys…she earned the right to dip what ever she wanted!

When I lived with my Grandmother, it became a common thing, that my Grandmother dipped snuff.  I don’t recall ever really paying attention to it, we had so much other stuff to do.  I do remember her dashing to the bathroom when unexpected company drove up to her house and she would tell me on the way to tell them she would be right out.  She would call her grocery order in on Thursday afternoons to have it delivered to her house on Friday afternoon, and snuff was always on the order. If the store happened to be out of it, my aunt would be called to rustle around town and find some.  I think my aunt had a small can at her house for emergency back up.  Apparently, my Grandmother was someone you didn’t want to be around if she went without snuff for any length of time.  Mind you, my Grandmother was the most gentle, loving person on earth. I never saw the “no snuff” side of her.

In her later years, she fell and broke her hip (doctor said it could have been the other way around where she broke her hip and fell). My Grandmother was born in 1880 and was 94 or so at the time and the Doctor gave her very little chance of recovery…even coming out of the anesthesia might not happen. We waited in the waiting room for several hours and the doctor came rushing out….” I now know she is a covered wagon girl, but what in the hell is 3 dot Garrett?” My Aunt said it’s her snuff…he said, “Well get it before she tears up the ICU!” We had some on hand and gave it to him.

Later, after all the fuss died down, the doctor came out to give us an update on how things went.  He told us everything went fine, but she will need to convalesce for a few weeks, and if she went home from that, she would require nursing visits daily to make sure she stayed on the mend. The doctor said they don’t come any tougher than a covered wagon girl.

When asked about the covered wagon comment. The doctor said he had gone to the intensive care unit to check on her and she was awake and was talking-giving orders was more like it.  He said my Grandmother let him know in no uncertain terms she has been through a lot worse than what his scrawny rear end could put her through, but she required her snuff before anything else happened. Once she got the snuff, he said she became an inspiration.

While my aunt had been a daily visitor for my Grandmother, she was at an age where the nursing chores would have to be taken over by someone else.  As a result, my Grandmother never left the convalescence atmosphere.  Her home was everything to her.  Her father, a carpenter, built the structure. It was added on a couple of time before his death in 1905 in that house.  Her mother lived with her in that house until her death.  My Grandmother was never able to mend well enough to return to her home, and I think it broke her heart. She passed away after spending a couple of years recuperating, and finally knowing she would not be able to return home.

My Grandmother, holding her Great Grandson forty-six years ago.  He has a bottle of her three dot Garrett snuff.