This is Mama's daddy (and my grandpa) Andy.  He only went to school through 5th grade, but he was a smart man and able to fix and do anything he set his mind to.

(This series of posts was originally published in October 2010.)

Ever since I was a little girl, I have heard Mama tell stories about her childhood years in North Carolina.  She comes from a big family, very poor but good, hard-working Christian folks who didn't own a lot but they always had what was most important.

She has countless family stories and a history that I don't want to ever be lost or forgotten, so recently I asked Mama to videotape her as she recalled some of her childhood memories.

I hope you enjoy this peek into her life as a little girl growing up as a southern sawyer's daughter in rural North Carolina.

Mama has very few photos of her early life, but she does have this picture of the house where she was born.  This photo was taken in 1996, 60 years after Mama made her way into this world right inside these very walls.

Mama (Lois Britt House) met her distant cousin Ron Britt for the first time last week.

Mama and Ron share the same great-great-grandfather, Brittian Britt, who was born was back in 1788 in Moore County, North Carolina.

You can never really go back.

My laptop is down. 

Yuck...I do hate computer problems.

Bumping down the red dirt and gravel lane in our family station wagon, with each bump it was as if we were driving backward in time.  Nearly every summer during our annual vacation to visit Mama's people in North Carolina, Dad would drive us down that dusty lane to visit Mama's Aunt Anna in her very humble home.

My dear cousin Lydia reminded me that tomorrow, March 30, would have been our Grandma Britt's 99th birthday.

That's our grandma, the little 4-year-old barefoot darling in front (who looks SO MUCH like Mama and my sister Maria) with her parents and siblings.  Grandma always hated it that she didn't have shoes on in this photo, but apparently she had a sore foot that day and it hurt too bad to put on shoes.

Wishing you a HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAD!!!

Before he was Daddy...

Squirrel Count = 3

Guess the squirrels wanted to find a home out of the nasty weather, so they set up housekeeping in the attic of the rec room.  We could hear them scampering above, not sure exactly what kind of critters they were except they were bigger than mice.

Kim lured them with nuts and they couldn't resist.  So far he's caught 3 (he doesn't have the heart to kill a cute little squirrel, so he's taken them down the road a few miles and released them in the woods) and it sounds like there may still be another one or more up there...

January 19, 1930.

"Even on this frosty North Carolina morning, butterflies were flittering inside Hazel.  She had hardly slept last night, filled with excitement and anticipation of today.  Nudging Alma awake beside her in the bed the sisters shared, the two whispered giddy giggles about their secret.