The Staycation That Went Horribly Wrong

A Staycation in the Early Twentieth Century

                As last month kicked off the summer vacation season, I reflected on one of the Rainey staycations. Of course, the 21^st century has coined the term staycation. I heard it said, tongue-in-cheek, that a staycation simply means you are too poor or too strapped for money to go anywhere.
               Gladys Rainey Smith, my maternal grandmother, was born in 1900. She was the fourth child of seven born to Bill and Rosa Rainey. Anyone who knew my grandma knew she was spunky and determined. I have my own theory why she was like that. It has to do with birth order.
              Each of her other siblings had a special position in the family. Daisy was the oldest girl. Lewis was the oldest boy. Della died as a young child, and according to my mother, a large portrait of her always hung above Rosa Rainey’s bed. Alice was legally blind. (See the blog entry posted on February 9, 2014, entitled Alice Rainey – The Valentine Baby.) Emma was the youngest girl. Gene was the youngest boy.  Grandma didn’t have a unique place so, in my theory, she had to be multi-talented to get attention. As a result, she also became a scrapper so she wouldn’t  fall through the cracks and go unnoticed. Grandma was so creative and talented with a double dose of over achievement.
               The Rainey family lived in Konawa, Oklahoma, in the first decade of the last century. Vacations were unheard of for them. One summer in the first decade of the last century, a couple who was friends of Bill and Rosa Rainey came with their children to visit. Notice I said the couple was friends with my grandma’s parents, not necessarily their children.
              As fate would have it, the family had a daughter around the age of my grandma. And wouldn’t you know it, Grandma didn’t like her, particularly after the girl’s family had been visiting the Rainey family for over a week. Grandma must have agreed with Benjamin Franklin’s quote from Poor Richard’s Almanack, “Fish and visitors smell after three days.” So Grandma decided to hasten the family’s departure.
              The bossy, mean girl - as Grandma described her – was playing with an already unhappy, fed-up little Gladys. For some reason, they were playing in the smokehouse where there just happened to be a wasp nest. Grandma deftly knocked down the nest and scampered out the door shutting it as she escaped.  The girl's screams & flailing arms were hilarious to Grandma, but not to anyone else.  When her mother discovered what she had done, she soundly spanked Grandma, and to no one’s surprise, the family soon decided to go home. Probably in Grandma’s mind, the spanking was worth it to get rid of that despicable girl!
              I guess if Angie or I are ever assessed to be strong-willed, then we come by it naturally!

This is one of the earliest photos that we
have of Grandma. It was taken when she
was a student at Oklahoma A &  M. Notice
her unruly hair. She said as a child she cut
off her braids. Her mother exasperated with
 Grandma's action reacted with "I hope your hair
never grows again." Grandma said her hair
never grew and was always difficult to handle.