Mortal Remains
Getting to Know Lizzie
by S. M. Hutchens
When I was a little boy, our family lived down the street from a big, ramshackle house where lived a girl named Lizzie who was the most fascinating person I had ever met. She was about my age, we played together whenever we could, and I liked her a lot. She and her family, I was told, were from deep in the southern hills. I had never heard a person speak as she did; her language was as fascinating as her person, although my mother didn't seem too pleased about my acquiring some of it, especially, as I recall, "ain't."
Lizzie lived with her grandmother and a bunch of taciturn, scruffy-looking uncles. Granny was the most arresting person I had ever met: I had no category for her, for she was nothing like any grandmother I had ever met, especially my own. She was obviously ancient—perhaps even fifty—gray, homespun, thin as a rail, missing a lot of teeth, and in the afternoons she sat on the porch smoking her pipe and singing hymns about Beulah Land.
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
S. M. Hutchens is a Touchstone senior editor.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on ecumenism from the online archives
31.4—July/August 2018
Labels & the Ecumenism of Discipleship by James M. Kushiner
more from the online archives
30.3—May/June 2017
Insider Attempts to Disorient the Orthodox by Alexander F. C. Webster
32.2—March/April 2019
Misguided Mercy & Dante's Infernal Purgation by Joshua Hren
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
