ABOUT

Every summer when I was little, my grandmother, Lillie Jane McAdams, would come and get me for a two week visit. These were some of the best days of my life. I was THE queen for two solid weeks. My brother didn't get to come. He had his own two weeks. My grandfather was deceased, so all of her attention belonged exclusively to me. She fixed incredible chocolate cakes, crazy grilled cheese sandwiches, and chilled cucumbers and onions with yummy vinegarette. Her cupboards were filled with every wonderful treat a kid could ever want. I always came home looking like a little chipmunk, with my puffy cheeks.

She took me to the lake. We blew up those brightly colored plastic rafts, and leisurely floated all day long in the cool water. She taught me to swim in that lake, even though she didn't know how to herself (a fact I didn't learn until long after I was grown). We ate barbeque...and watermelon. She made me a tire swing and hung it from a HUGE old tree..by herself. We canned tomatoes. Well, she canned, I watched. She said it was too dangerous for me. We snapped beans. We took naps. We had pineapple floats at the Dairy Queen. We went to see her only cousin in the next town over. The cousin made a sport of killing flies on the windows of the little local restaurant that we always frequented. It made me kind of sick. We drove out to the country, just for the heck of it.

She had a great group of friends. Her best girlfriend was "Miss Nell" Winfrey, who died a few years ago. Every afternoon, Miss Nell would come up to my grandmother's house, wearing a flowerdy housecoat and black, hightop, leather, Nikes. She had weak ankles. She liked the support the hightops gave her. Miss Nell was married to Mr. Bill, who was a former state trooper, who liked to bend his elbow a little too much. He was a hoot. So was she, for that matter. She and my grandmother would discuss all the latest town news, including all who had died, all who were about to die, and all who wished they were dead. She had lots of other fun friends, too....Homer and Patricia Bradbury, Buck Cook, Miss Emmabelle, and Miss Ruth Irvine just to name a few. She lived in a tiny town in West Tennessee, called Dresden. I was born not far from there in Paris, Tn. I loved telling people I was born in Paris and that my grandmother was from Dresden.

My grandmother and her girlfriends laughed and laughed and laughed, about everything. They enjoyed going places together and always "fixed up" to go out. They got their hair "done" on Fridays...they needed to look good for weekends and Sunday morning prayer meetings. They walked to town in their finest, and siddled up to the Drugstore lunch counter. Sometimes when I was there to visit, she would give me $.10, and I would trek next door to the Dime Store. Silly putty and playing cards were usually what I purchased. Then we would begin our walk back home, stopping by the tiny local library to get a new stack of treasures to read. I was a voracious reader at that time. It was an option then, not a requirement, and I personally think that's why kids liked to read more then. I plopped the books in the white wicker basket of the PURPLE bike I rode. It had long curvy handlebars with a banana seat. She bought two of them, so I could leave one there, and take the other one home. TWO BIKES! :)

Anyway, these memories of my grandmother and her delightful cronies, fill my imagination with lots of wonderful images. They manifest themselves in everything I do, from doll making to print work. I am thankful for her love and support and her encouragement to be myself.

This site/sight is dedicated to you Lillie Jane...I love you with all my heart. Thanks for all you did for me.

Julie Britton Burney
Lillie Jane McAdams 1912-2011