EARLY LINCOLN COUNTY FAMILIES
"MRS. JAB BY WANDA BROWNING FALK"

Mrs. JAB Quilt Presented to W. C. Browning on December 25th, 1899

Mrs. JAB Biography of a True Pioneer Woman Everybody loved to hear my Grandma Angelna's stories of pioneer days in Missouri, Texas, and New Mexico. We children always begged for stories of the Indians, the cowboys and the trailblazers. We knew her stories so well we could prompt her when her throat was tired or she happened to sneeze. We all adored this tiny lady, who stood five feet two inches tall and weighed all of a hundred pounds. She could spin such good yarns and tell the best jokes and sing the happiest songs. It never dawned on any of us that she had suffered a living hell for twenty years. I was seven years old when Grandma Angelina (my father's mother) came to our home in Roswell, New Mexico. My mother warned me that grandma was very ill, and that the doctor would be coming to our house often. We were not to be noisy, and above, all we were to be very kind to Grandma.   Not until I was twelve years old did my parents tell me the horrifying truth about the Grandma's illness, but my the time she was in good health, the curse had been lifted, and I looked forward to her visits. I do remember feeling embarrassed when I saw her for the first time after my parents confession, but her ready smile, her good humor and sincere interest won me again. When I was older and a bit wiser, I realized that I could honestly say my grandmother was a heroine of the first order, and I was determined that some day I would get to tell her story. One night I interviewed Grandma Angelina for twenty years, jotting down certain important dates, gathering the few pictures available, and using the favorite stores when I had English compositions due at school. When I was married and had two children of my own, it came to me suddenly, that Grandma and I had better get together to finish this story of her life. After all she was past eighty. In 1929 we invited her to our home in Tucson, Arizona and we set to work. She went over all my notes, checked our history books, gathered, family pictures and reviewed my favorite stories. This meeting had to be different than all other. There were some important questions I was to ask, and I was to receive some very candid answers. When we finished this last long interview, Grandmother Angelina remarked good humoredly," I feel naked as a jay-bird."

Transcribed and Submitted by Mary Lafferty Wilson

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