When we moved to Tennessee we left all our relatives behind, mostly in Utah and California. Even my father lived in Indiana.

Then we met Mimi at church. Specifically, her real name was Ida Lou Duggan. She was a retired 3rd grade school teacher who lived in the country up on Mecca Pike with her husband about halfway between Etowah and Tellico Plains.

She had grown children and scads of grandchildren, but Mimi was one of those people who treated all children like her own grandchildren. So Mimi became our children's Tennessee Mamaw.

Our son was close friends with a couple of Mimi's grandsons and often went home to Etowah with them after church. Invariably they ended up at Mimi's. In the summers they had slumber parties at Mimi's house, which was tucked up against a steep mountain side. She cooked up fried chicken and homemade gravy, corn bread with homemade jam, and for dessert--her incomparable peach or blackberry cobblers. (The things that sweet lady could do with blackberries… Makes my mouth water just thinking about it.) In the morning, before the boys even had a chance to complain how hungry they were, Mimi was frying up bacon or ham, eggs, and preparing scratch biscuits that would make Hardee's jealous.

In her later years when she was a widow, Mimi moved to Etowah, buying a little house on Ohio Street. She still loved cooking for her grandkids, but she was now using a walker.

What I remember most was a woman who was dynamic until the end. When cooking became too hard, she made trips to the grocery store to buy bags of mini candy bars. After church service she stationed herself at the chapel door, opened up the seat of her walker/chair and pulled out a bag of candy. Every child would get a candy bar, sometimes someone would sneak two. Even the "big kids" like my husband would come to get one. With a twinkle in her eyes and a grin she would declare, "You scamp!" and let him grab a candy bar. Mimi was a true southern grandma in the finest sense of the word and I dearly miss her.

Just say, "You remember Mimi?" and both of my children smile and start telling stories of their Tennessee grandma.