A One-of-a-Kind Grandmother

My Grandmother Young was a real character. Her brother gave her some land, and she made quite a good farm from it.

When she wasn’t canning vegetables, Grandmother Young was out with her .22-caliber rifle. She was a crack shot, and it was told that she shot a squirrel out of the top of a tree from over 200 feet away — from her porch. She built rabbit boxes to trap rabbits in the broom straw field next to her house.

Her dog, Popeye, was well known as a good hunting dog, and local hunters would ask to borrow him in exchange for game. Grandmother loved her chickens, too, and she maintained a large lot behind her house. We often had to hunt for her in the chicken lot when we visited.

When it was necessary to travel to Southport or Wilmington, Grandmother Young would board the mail truck in Winnabow and ride to her destination. When she visited us in Wilmington, she would ride the mail truck to Wilmington, where she would transfer to a city bus for the trip to East Wilmington where we lived. She would get off at the last stop to meet my brother.

They would cut through the woods to make it home. We always looked forward to her visits. As soon as she walked in the door, she would open her pocketbook and pull out Mounds candy bars. She would give each one of us half a bar. Most of the time she visited so Daddy could carry her to Johnny Mercer’s pier at Wrightsville Beach to fish. She wore a large brim hat and fished all day until Daddy went to get her. I lost Grandmother Young in 1979, but she will always live in my memories.

Carolyn Willis, Winnabow, a member of Brunswick Electric