Grandma Jackson's Kitchen

I miss this place I used to go. 

It was a place from my childhood; you do not know. 

My memory of this place is vivid and deep. 

It is locked in my heart to hold and keep.

Grandma Jackson's kitchen was a cozy space growing up with red and white checkered strawberries on starched white kitchen curtains, brown cabinets, and a kitchen table in the center of it all that only left a little walking space around the table itself. The walls were painted yellow and the floor was covered with well traveled beige linoleum with brown lines and specks on it.

Grandma Jackson had strong dark brown hands. I remember being amazed in how she held a paring knife and peeled apples without ever breaking the apple peeling until the apple was completely free of peel. She stood about 5’6” and had pretty black and silver hair. Her skin was smooth and dotted with barely noticeable tiny black freckles. Grandma Jackson always wore a house dress in the kitchen and an apron smock with front pockets.  She wore bifocals that had black frames and stainless steel metal top trim, but I think her sight was better without them. Grandma Jackson had a kitchen philosophy, “Keep those hands clean,” and “children stay in a child’s place.” Although she was very keen on children staying in a child’s place, she still let us sit around the kitchen table while grown folk were having discussions—as long as we didn’t get in the middle of what was being said.  

Jeneen a very close friend-like-a-sister is Grandma Jackson's biological granddaughter. We’ve known each other since before we started elementary school. Grandma Jackson was my grandma, too, after my grandparents passed away. Her house was just next door across the driveway from my childhood home and there was a foot path beaten from the edge of our driveway to the edge of her back porch steps. All four of my own grandparents had passed on by the time I reached 10 ½ years old, so I just hung out with Jeneen over there until I earned the right to call her Grandmomma, too.   

The back door of her kitchen faced east, and each morning during the summer months, I could count on the wooden door being open so that the aroma of coffee percolating on the stove would drift out onto the back porch. This enticing smell was the “c’mon in, it is breakfast time, scent.” Talk about biscuits, scrambled eggs and bacon. Trooper, Grandma Jackson's dog, would run back and forth and jump to snip the ends of each side in his chained link fence enclosure all morning long when he smelled the coffee. He was so excited.  I think he knew breakfast scraps would be coming soon, “hold the coffee, but throw out some of that bacon fat.” Trooper had a can near the door that we kept scraps in to mix with his dog food. The door facing north led to the basement steps and also the driveway. People drove into the driveway and many came up those steps to see what Grandma Jackson was cooking six days a week. Extended family and friends were always welcomed into her home. 

The wall over the sink reminds me now of responsibility, both shared and sole responsibility. I would wash dishes there with Jeneen and think at the age of around 8, “This ain’t even my grandmomma.” Jeneen did what she was told. She was obedient and was mostly the perfect granddaughter. She had a bad attitude about a lot of things, but she knew not to go “there” with Grandmomma.  As I matured, I came to the realization that in order to spend time in that kitchen, I had to take on some responsibilities which involved cleaning up other peoples’ messes and making sure things were put back in their proper place. Sitting around the table and keeping out of grown folk’s conversation was obedience, but washing dishes, chopping onions, and peeling potatoes were kitchen responsibilities. Grandma Jackson’s kitchen was where I learned that difference. Doing what was required and-then-some contributed to my being able to take care of and be responsible for other people in my life. Today, I can throw down on some mean greens, buttered hot water cornbread, soul simmered chittlins, crispy fried pork steak, Grandma Jackson’s sweet potato pie and lemon cake, and my momma couldn’t even cook. My family is honored because I am obedient to a southern tradition and I am honored to be responsible for my family.

I developed skills right there in Grandma Jackson’s kitchen, and I have to give her credit for being the wisest person I ever knew, and also a soul-food culinary genius.  She taught me everything and-then-some about cooking and what it means to take care of people. Washing those dishes prepared me for some real chores in life, and taught me that our labor should show those we care about our willingness to contribute and be accountable for one another. I learned how women can really make a difference at home by just being there for their families versus running around in the street and indulging themselves excessively outside of family. 

I remember just before winter when the Rives, Grandma Jackson’s family, would go down south to Starksville, Mississippi to get a whole hog and bring it to use the whole thing for suppers to come and sharing with friends and family. The men would bring it, pull it out of the truck, and take it downstairs into the basement kitchen. I can’t remember whether or not it was dead or alive when they first brought it up from Mississippi, but I do know it was dead when it was taken downstairs.  Jeneen and I would twist our faces and grimace at each other at the mere thought of this large dead animal on the basement kitchen table. The women, Grandma Jackson’s daughter-in-law, and some of her nieces and cousins would descend on that table and cut and carve for pig feet, pig ears, hog maws, snoot, chittlins and everything else. The men would smoke and cure some of the meat. I was told head cheese, some call it, or souse meat was made from the trimmed off pieces white butchers used to throw away back in the day as waste. Black folk learned to use those trimmings and make mouthwatering head cheese. 

The yellow stove on the wall facing the back yard in Grandma Jackson’s kitchen causes me to think of commitment. Every day, except Sunday, Grandma Jackson cooked on that yellow gas stove with foil that lined the oven because she was committed to nurturing her family and everyone who sat around the table in her kitchen. Grandma did not cook or iron on Sunday--that was "the Lord's Day."  She would always say, "You give glory to the Lord on Sunday and you don't work on the "Lord's Day." She cooked Saturday evening and only heated up the food on Sunday. A hi-tech stove was not required to prepare the best soul food to ever pass my lips...just a commitment to use the sometimes meager resources we already have to assist in creating a better human condition through nurturing and strengthening people we care about whether those people appreciate what we do, or not. It’s a commitment to selflessness and helping others until they have the ability to help themselves.

Underneath the TV, there were a couple of shelves with books on them...a daily bread devotional book, an East St. Louis phone book, a St. Louis Phone book, some hardback books, and a Webster's dictionary. I took a rag with some blue glass cleaner on it once and wiped the grease residue from the makeshift TV stand and no one could figure out what was different about the kitchen. It just was not important. We were doing some extra cleaning because folks from down south and up north were coming for the Rives family reunion. Her kitchen was just like that. It was always the place to be even though the official family reunion was in a city park under a huge pavilion. People would hit Grandma Jackson’s kitchen before and after the big reunion. She always offered something good to eat. 

Grandmomma’s conversation was not without mother’s wit, knowledge and humor. She didn’t waste words.  Her kitchen table always hosted a very colorful topic, but she interjected wisdom and jam packed it with clairvoyant insight. She would sit there and tell you “Put God first, your family second...pray with your family, get your education, and save your money so if you need to help somebody, you can.” She would peel potatoes and say, “You can read that devotion, but you got to read The Word; that's the real truth.” She was not over done or ruined with education personally, but educated all the same, so the Webster’s dictionary sat in the kitchen until she passed on, and she valued education enough to make sure that we knew how important it was to study. 

Jeneen, Grandma Jackson’s granddaughter, attended Western Illinois University before I made my way from East St. Louis to Macomb years later in the 90s. We've known each other for over 35 years and we spent a significant amount of time in Grandma Jackson's kitchen. We lost Grandma Jackson on November 5, 1998. When I took the call my heart sank and bled. I did not go back to East St. Louis often in those days, so it was unusual that we talked and joked one last time in her kitchen just a week before she passed away. That kitchen was the place Grandma Jackson made clear to us how important it was to go to college and make something of ourselves. She wanted us to always keep in mind good common sense, for survival, in regard to our soul salvation, a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, and in our hearts, love for all human kind. That time in her kitchen played a huge role in the confident people we have become today. Now, not only are we comfortable in the board room, but we can stir-it-up in the kitchen something fierce.

Grandma Jackson’s kitchen is a place now only in my memory do I visit, and I can still hear her voice around that kitchen table.  I gather from it for all practical purposes sound wisdom, love and truth. I am thankful for God’s gift of a wonderful teacher named Lillie Ann Jackson in the classroom called “Grandma Jackson’s kitchen”. She was a dynamic mentor. Grandma Jackson's kitchen is a place we all need in our lives in order to pull from it the strength, stability and the validation needed to piece this puzzle we call life together—so that eventually, we can all see the big picture, do away with unimportant details, such as age, gender, lifestyle, ethnicity, background, and simply become a society who is tolerant and just in our world.

I miss this place now only in my mind, I go;

A place from my childhood—now, you know.

My memory of this place is vivid and deep;

It’s locked in my heart to love and keep.