School Shopping in 1932

Calvin Callcayah Smith, my maternal grandfather, exuded permissiveness and leniency in parenting my mother, Bernyce Smith Gates. She was the only child of my grandparents.

Early photo of Mother
in a dress created by
Grandma.

           The Cherokee culture taught children were gifts from the Creator. Grandpa never articulated that credence, but his response to Mother, as well as my sister and me, bore out that he valued his daughter and granddaughters highly.

During the height of the Great Depression, as school began, my grandmother, Gladys Rainey Smith, had an appendectomy at the hospital in Ponca City, Oklahoma. Her recuperation time allowed Mother, a primary student at Belford School on the east side of the Big Bend, unheard of freedom in selecting some school clothes.

This little girl received free-rein in selecting a pair of shoes and a couple of boughten dresses. Grandpa set no parameters or guidelines. As she chose a pair of black patent shoes, Grandpa never hinted that his little daughter had selected an impractical pair of shoes for school wear since she would walk muddy paths on rainy days to Belford School.

Mother followed one criterion in picking the two dresses from the store rack. Never had she done anything like this. Grandma always created and sewed dresses unique to Mother in fit and design. No one in the rural Belford school had anything like Grandma made for Mother.

Mother’s one criterion was a pretty dress. Warmth and practicality never crossed Mother’s mind. Grandma, if she ever considered buying a store-bought dress for her daughter, would have inspected the quality of construction. Not Mother. The two dresses just had to be pretty.

Mother knew from a young age her family’s financial limitation imposed many constraints on what she could have. Yet that autumn day, prices or usability of her new clothes never crossed her mind. She only knew her daddy had granted the wish of her heart.

            As I reflected on the generosity and love of my grandpa for his little daughter, a passage in the New Testament came into my thoughts. We serve a heavenly Father who wants to give good things to His children. In what has been characterized as The Sermon on the Mount, Jesus taught about prayer and the importance of a persevering prayer life. He concluded the section with a beautiful verse to encourage us to come to our loving Heavenly Father with our requests with confidence in His desire to give us what is best for us.

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children,

how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

Matthew 7:11

An additional thought about prayer– Grandpa would never have agreed to something harmful to my mother. We must remember if a prayer appears  unanswered, then, God, in His wisdom, knows it is not best for us or if His answer is delayed, He wants us to “wait” until the timing is right for our good.