Gypsies

My grandmother was a loving person except for the few she hated.I spent quite a bit of time with my grandmother before I had my fifth  birthday. She was always referred to as “Ma” since she considered herself too young to be a grandmother at my birth. I was the first grandchild. She and my grandfather, “Pa”, lived on a farm. Born in ‘98, 1898, I considered her the last pioneer woman. 

Days were long in the summers I remember. She would read the comics to me from the newspaper. Ma was a fan of Red Ryder and other western comic strips. I knew what to expect when I saw the rural mail carrier’s battered Jeep at the mailbox. After reading the comics, I would take a nap on her big front porch. Sometimes peddlers would stop by the farmhouse in their rattling pick-up trucks. Ma would sometimes buy something. Maybe a bottle of vanilla extract for baking. The iceman would come and put a big block of ice in the icebox. Ma and Pa did not have electricity. But they did get electrical service in the late 1940s. If Ma did not want to deal with a peddler we would hide and pretend no one was home. Pa would be away working at the cotton mill. He would walk a mile every day to catch the mill bus to take him to his job. Like I said, Ma liked almost everybody, but not the gypsies. When they drove up in their old pick-up trucks, there always seemed to be at least two, Ma would hide me and grab Pa’s shotgun.  She usually hid me under a bed. You can get into small places when you’re only three feet tall! The dust bunnies would make me sneeze. The gypsies would spend little time with a “pioneer” woman holding a shotgun! She said she hated gypsies because they would steal babies and young children. 

Later when I went to school I read a bit about gypsies. It seems that all over the world. In the British Isles they are known as “travelers”. I had only had one occasion to meet some gypsies. Never did I find a reference that they stole children. I started to believe that Ma just told me that to get me out of her hair. After all, she did tell me that the great hoot owl would get me if I did not go to sleep at bedtime!

While in Spain we had an opportunity to visit the city of Granada. The city is famous for many things including the Moorish fortress, Alhambra, and the final resting place of Isabella and Ferdinand. Isabella and Ferdinand were the monarchs responsible for uniting Spain in 1492. Perhaps, they are better known to Americans as the financiers of a certain Italian sea captain’s discoveries. While in Grenada we visited the tomb of these Spanish monarchs. At the entrance were many gypsy women selling sprigs of rosemary. According to them it was a good luck charm. If you did not buy, they would put a curse on you. I don’t recall exactly what I did, but I probably spent a few euros to get them out of my face. I did not get a chance to find out if they still stole children. But later I would hear of the gypsies’ children stealing habits. 

A few years ago, after exercising at the gym, I was having coffee with friends when the subject of gypsies came up.  It was a diverse group of men and women, well seasoned adults. I was probably the one who brought up the subject of baby stealing gypsies. Nobody had heard of such a thing except one lady and the one who brought the subject up. She was rather height challenged and spoke with an accent only common to the southernmost part of our great country. Calmly she told us that as a little girl she had been stolen by gypsies in Mississippi. She was living with her family on what had been an old plantation when the gypsies came. Her mother had told her to stay out of sight while she dealt with the gypsies. But while her mother was talking to the gypsies at the front door, one crept on the back door and grabbed her. Her brother, who was almost eighteen years old saw what happened and chased the gypsy down and pried her from the kidnappers hands! She said she remembered it like it happened yesterday. She even remembered she was wearing a blue dress!

Ma was right. Gypsies did steal children. After sixty years I felt I had proven her right.