Dovie

There is a story in my family that I have loved since I was a child. My great grandmother was the sweetest human to ever live. The story I knew went like this: Granny and Grandpa were in love but they were poor. He wanted to give her a wedding ring but he didn’t have the money. So he got a nickel and melted it down and made her a ring. She loved it. She cherished it. She never took it off. Eventually the back of the ring was completely wearing away. Grandpa bought granny a real wedding ring. But she always preferred the nickel. I imagine myself hearing that story as a kid with hearts in my eyes. How lovely. But when you hear the rest of the story the hearts go away and the story has a whole new meaning.

I have few memories of my great grandmother. Her name was Dovie.  We all called her granny. She was small and quiet with white hair. I remember she always gave me socks, underwear, and $5 on birthdays. I remember her 80th birthday cake having so many candles and the fire getting high. I remember her teaching me to read the bible, a memory I now love to look back on. Honestly, I didn’t know her very well. As an adult, the stories that I have heard make me want to go back in time and get to know a woman like that.

She was married to Grandpa. They were married very young. The nickel ring is a true story. He promised her a good life and that they would travel. Traveling never really happened. Grandpa’s real name was James Steveson. He owned a body shop that was attached to their house with an arc. He called the shop Steve’n Son Shop.

He was a mean drunk. He hit her. She would make dinner and he would throw it off the table. He would pull his pocket knife out and tell the grandkids that he would cut their ears off. He kept a fifth of whisky that was wrapped in a paper bag under his chair. The chair that was only his and no one else could sit in. My mom remembers him sitting in that chair when she was a child. The chair was in front of the kitchen. My mom walked outside and around the house into the back to talk to granny in the kitchen so that she wouldn’t have to walk by him.  Granny didn’t drink. She didn’t drive. She would be at home taking care of the kids, cooking, and cleaning while grandpa was in another county with his girlfriend. They lived in a dry county so he would take his girlfriend across the county line to the dive bars in that area. The only time granny drove was when she would go pick him up because he was too drunk to drive. When grandpa’s mother was in the hospital he brought his girlfriend with him, while granny was there. Can you imagine picking up your drunk husband from a date he was on with another woman? Can you imagine him bringing her around you? Can you imagine picking dinner up off the floor after he throws it off the table? Can you imagine seeing him passed out on the couch after he has hit you?

Rumor has it that her son got into a fist fight with Grandpa because he had once again hit her. Grandpa was left with two black eyes and never hit granny again. Another Rumor spread around our family that Grandpa decided to throw dinner off the table again and granny hit him upside the head with a frying pan. Man, I hope that part is true. My mom asked her once, “Granny, why did you marry Grandpa?” She said, “oh honey, he was so debonaire.”

Granny’s daughter, Minnie, committed suicide. How much can one woman take? My mom loved spending time with Granny. She remembers spending the night with her and laying on a pallet. Granny said she was going to walk to the cemetery early in the morning to visit her daughter but then she would be back. But my mom wanted to go. Granny said ok but told her they would have to get up very early. My mom walked with her about a mile along the busy highway to get to the cemetery. Granny made this walk every day to visit her daughter’s grave. She told my mom that at one time she had thought that she just couldn’t take it, the pain was too much. She was thinking about walking in front of one of the eighteen wheelers that kept passing by her as she walked on the side of the road. But she told my mom that she just couldn’t do that to the driver. That is classic Granny for you. She couldn’t hurt anyone.

Grandpa died in his 60s. It was a heart condition but I’m sure the drinking didn’t help. Granny lived into her 80s. Granny ended up living with her daughter, My aunt Martha. Aunt Martha said she was thankful to get to enjoy 20 years with granny without grandpa. My aunt Martha was beautiful when she was young. Elvis once walked into a fast food restaurant in Lufkin, Texas and asked my Aunt Martha to go on the road with him. She didn’t know who he was, he wasn’t that famous yet. She told him no, that she was going to college. She became a teacher. She married my Uncle Ronny who was a Judge in Galveston County. I once worked as a law clerk and the lawyer I worked for had a sketch of my uncle with a mean face in her office. I said “That’s my uncle!” She said ” OH my God, you are related to Hang em High Wilson?” I guess he was pretty tough in the court room but I only saw him as sweet uncle Ronny with his suspenders and tie. I remember going to their house for family events. They had a wall of books and my sister and I found some of those fake books that are empty that you hide things in. We thought that was so cool. I have one now :).But I digress, they took great care of Granny.

There were two grannies in our family so my sister, Tina, decided to call this granny, Fat granny. She was the chubbier one. Granny laughed and signed her cards as  “Fat Granny”. She was a Christian woman. She read her bible and went to church. But you knew she was Christian by the way she lived her life. My Uncle Ron always refused to go to church but he started to go because of Granny. He said he would never be good like granny, he just didn’t have it in him. But he would do anything for Granny so he went to church. In her older age she would go to the senior center. A man there asked her to go get an ice cream cone. My aunt took them. It made another lady at the center jealous and granny said she was “tickled”. Isn’t that the cutest thing ever? We went to see her when she was close to dying. I sang to her while she laid in bed. She said “I see him, I see him”. I asked her, “who do you see?” but she never answered me. She was on a lot of meds and She had also seen dogs and other hallucinations. But I always wonder who she saw.

I started this out wanting to write about the “nickel ring” but as I interviewed people to get facts right I realized it is only a detail. The better story is the one about Dovie Steveson. If ever a name was so right for someone it was hers. She was sweet and peaceful like a dove. No one would have ever known about the things that she went through. She dealt with so many hard things in her life and still kept her faith and it was seen by everyone in her family. I know one day I will see her again and I look forward to that. Thanks for reading.