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Nana’s little table

December 5, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

In October, in honor of Old Farmers Day, I wrote about Nana and Papa Creecy and how they set up housekeeping in 1936 buying the following goods:  (Click HERE to read the original story.)
Nana's little table
Somewhere buried within this original invoice included a side table. Although the little table wasn’t individually listed, it has been part of our family since day one of Nana and Papa’s life together.
Nana's little table

 

Momma remembers when the table originally had a shelf around the bottom. She broke the shelf climbing and playing on it when she was a little girl. I remember playing underneath the table too when it sat in the entryway across from the front door of our house.

Lots of hair brushing took place in front of the mirror that hung above the little table. It’s where Momma wrangled our hair each Sunday morning, pulling and tugging it into a tight ponytail or some style appropriate for church.

Before bedtime we brushed our hair at the table—one hundred strokes to make it silky…

One summer Momma stripped the wood and antiqued it greenish-white (pictured below in this first day of school picture).
cousins
Me, Lesa (cousin), Staci (sister)
Fortunately at some point, she restored the table to its natural wood finish. 

When John and I bought our 100-year-old house in Munger Place, Momma passed the table on to me. She said it fit our house better.

Nana's little table

 

For years, we’ve wondered why the table wasn’t listed on the original invoice. Maybe it was lumped in with ‘living room suite’ of $10.00?talya

Grace Grits and Gardening
Farm. Food. Garden. Life.

 

 

Lake Birthday!

July 10, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

Happy birthday to me!

at the lake

Most of my birthdays have been spent at Lake Norfork with Nana’s strawberry cake and cold watermelon on the dock.

Grace Grits and Gardening

Including this one.

Fifty down.

Fifty more to go…

talya

“With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.” 
― William Shakespeare

First Mother

May 11, 2013 By Talya Tate Boerner

We discussed the passage below in my writing group this week. The perfect tribute for Mother’s Day…


“It is often said that the first sound we hear in the womb is our mother’s heartbeat. Actually, the first sound to vibrate our newly developed hearing apparatus is the pulse of our mother’s blood through her veins and arteries. We vibrate to that primordial rhythm even before we have ears to hear. Before we were conceived, we existed in part as an egg in our mother’s ovary. All the eggs a woman will ever carry form in her ovaries while she is a four-month-old fetus in the womb of her mother. This means our cellular life as an egg begins in the womb of our grandmother. Each of us spent five months in our grandmother’s womb and she in turn formed within the womb of her grandmother. We vibrate to the rhythms of our mother’s blood before she herself is born. And this pulse is the thread of blood that runs all the way back through the grandmothers to the first mother. We all share the blood of the first mother – we are truly children of one blood.” ~ Layne Redmond
Nana                 Momma                  Me                    Kelsey

talya

Musical Pairing:

Mother and Child Reunion, Paul Simon

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Hi! I'm Talya Tate Boerner. Writer, Reader, Arkansas Master Naturalist / Master Gardener, Author of

THE ACCIDENTAL SALVATION OF GRACIE LEE (2016)

GENE, EVERYWHERE: a life-changing visit from my father-in-law (2020)

BERNICE RUNS AWAY (2022)

THE THIRD ACT OF THEO GRUENE (coming 2025)

Recent Ramblings:

  • Sunday Letter: 11.23.25
  • Maggie and Miss Ladybug: My New Children’s Nature Book
  • Sunday Letter: November 9, 2025
  • Sunday Letter: Oct 26, 2025
  • Sunday Letter: Oct 5, 2025

Novels:

Coloring Books:

Fiction-Themed Coloring Books

Backyard Phenology:

Children’s Nature Book:

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