The Bingo Hall

Pamela Peery’s Grandmother Fanny

Frances Atkin Pennell was born on April 3, 1905 in Browning, Virginia.  She passed on February 9, 1973, in Los Angeles, CA.  Frances aka Fanny was a scrapper.  As a young woman with no family to support her, she opened a boarding house near Tazwell, VA.  This is how she eventually met my father’s father – James Bane Peery the 2nd, a traveling salesman.  The two hit it off and soon were married.  James, sadly, was murdered under suspicious circumstances, leaving Fanny with a 4-year-old son to raise alone.  The Peery family wanted Fanny gone and paid her off to leave the Tazewell area.  Details are sketchy, but the murder was said to be motivated by detractors of George Campbell Peery who served as Virginia’s governor from 1873 to 1952.  At any rate, Frances was on her own with her son, Wilkie B. Peery, and not a lot of options.  Eventually, she met a kind widower, Harold Pennell.  He was a northerner, she a southerner – match made in heaven.  Hal had a son named Lawrence, roughly the same age as Wilkie B. Peery.  Frances held a strong fascination with the movie industry and hand longed for years to move west to Hollywood.  Hal, an industrious man, and excellent carpenter was on board with the idea, and the couple set out for the movie capital of the world.  They loaded up their belongings, and took up residence in Hollywood, CA.  Frances was truly in a place she loved.  Hal landed a job with the Department of Water and Power, which placed him in interesting places, like a side job building a wine cellar for Clark Gable.  Fanny and Hal invested in a home that provided two rental units, and so continued the legacy of Fanny, a scrappy red-headed boarding house gal, who learned early that success in life required determination.  She loved her booze, she loved her cigarettes which she’d smoke with a sterling silver cigarette holder, and she loved her sweets, indulging nearly every day with a treat from the Helms Bakery delivery man.  We were peas in a pod, truly.

Fanny Granny – A Sunday Afternoon

Fanny grinned, energetic, pulled the clear,

red-labeled bottle off the shelf,

clanked a pan atop the stove

and ordered, “we’re getting

up to some mischief today

and your dentist daddy doesn’t

need to know about it.”  My eyes

widened.  My smile spread. 

Accomplice to the sugar fairy,

I nodded.  Fanny’s fiery hair glowed

in the light of the burners

and the tic-toc kitty clock

kept time.  One swipe of her knife,

the cereal box top flipped off.  She

swept her brow, stated fiercely,

“stand clear, hot sugar burns.”

I stepped back.  She got to business.

Poured cereal into heated syrup,

worked the pot, slipped the dishtowel off

her shoulder, gripped the pan, spread hot gold onto

a cookie sheet, and another command:

“young ‘un, we gotta wait till it cools, you got it?”

She said it every time, and there was

no way around it.  I sucked it up,

“Yes, ma’am.“  Even at 8, I knew I could wait,

Fanny’s bars - sweet, crunchy,

out of this world, a visit to Mars.

The timer rang, our smiles spread,

two sticky-fingered outlaws,

she with her cocktail, me with my milk,

munching moony eyed on a Sunday.

@pjpeery2022