Annabelle's Diary

They said that in her youth, Annabelle had long, coal black hair, high cheekbones, and deep, penetrating, brown eyes. Her eyes could still penetrate the soul, but they were paler in color, maybe because they were covered with the whitish film of cataracts. I remember watching her take her hair from the neat bun she wore and let it down to comb. Her hair was long, but no longer black as coal. It was the color of newly formed storm clouds and fell in a silvery braid to her hips. I watched her comb it out and then she would braid it, wind it back into a bun and pin it low, just above the nape of her neck.
Everyone always said that I favored her a lot. Annabelle was my great-grandmother; she was a Full Blood, a Choctaw Indian from Savannah, Georgia.
When a child, I thought she was tall, larger than life. My admiration of her as we walked in the yard and I helped her gather eggs and pick flowers, was unsurpassable; but as I grew, I realized that she was a tiny woman.
Shrunken from her many years on earth, she stood barely four feet, ten inches tall. In her older years, maybe even her younger ones too, she was never without a jar of Garrett snuff.
One summer, when I was about twelve years old, I went to stay with my grandmother Annabelle. And because her house was so small, I slept in her bedroom with her. Each night before we went to sleep, she pulled a leather bound book from underneath her mattress and wrote for a few minutes before she extinguished the bedside lamp. She seemed intent on what she was doing so I did not bother her with questions, but after several nights, curiosity got the better of me and when she finished and placed the book under the mattress, I asked what she was writing in the book.
She told me that she was writing her thoughts on the events of the day so that if she wanted she could look back and know exactly what she was thinking and how she felt that particular day.
€œIs that how you remember all of those stories you tell me, about when you were a child and about your kinfolks back then€ I asked.
€œIt is a part of it,€ she replied, €œbut some things you just do not ever forget. They remain with you your entire life.€
€œTell me a story, Grandmother,€ I begged. €œTell me about when you were a child; a young girl like me.€
She began her story that night, by telling me how she met and married my grandfather Jesse. She also told me about leaving her home and family in Savannah to move to Mobile to live near my grandfather€s family. And in that telling, I discovered that my grandmother had led a very interesting life, especially in her earlier years.
Her life was filled with heartbreaks, heartaches, great times, and sad times. She attended Mardi Gras Balls and traveled extensively around the South. She was involved with an assortment of ill-fated lovers. Indulged in hoodoo, voodoo, even murder! Hers was a life I found extremely fascinating; a life, I wished I could live.
That summer, I decided that when I grew old, I wanted to be just like my grandmother Annabelle. However, today, as I sat staring across the haphazard layer of hills to the west and thought of Annabelle and the olden days of grace and charm. I realized that those days were forever gone. They were days that I myself would never know, except through my grandmother€s eyes and memories.
No longer that young inquisitive girl, I am an old woman now. On my own, I have lived a long uneventful life. Only through her stories could I live the life I dreamt of; therefore, I decided to share her story with the world. I am certain she would approve.
I hope you all enjoy reading her story, as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Her story began April 1865, at the end of the Civil War, as was told to me by my grandmother, Rebecca Annabelle Maples Foster.