Granny Brisco

When Grannie Brisco couldn't walk no more
They took her rocking chair
With a man on each arm
Carried her out to the yard
There were rows of picnic tables out there
Set up in the shade
People came from distant towns
For Grannie Brisco's eighty-eighth birthday

When she was young
They called her Lizzie
She had six children of her own
But it wasn't just for mothering
Grannie Brisco would be known
No Lizzie was a midwife
And she'd ride across these lands
And at the bedside of a mother soon to be
She'd lend a steady hand

O she was a sight
for weary frightened eyes
through the hollers and the hills
You'd see her coming day and night
riding hard against the clock
for the sake of mother and child
She was the kind of help you'd long to see
The kind of brave you want to be

Sometimes the calls came at midnight
The crack of dawn or dinner time
It didn't matter when those calls came in
Lizzie feared no dark of night
They would call her past the river
Or to the mountain's other side
She'd climb a ladder through a stony cleft
Passing through the needle's eye

Lizzie Brisco knew the way
Through the darkness to the light
One thousand souls were born
With Lizzie Brisco as their guide

O she was a sight
For weary frightened eyes
Through the hollers and the hills
You'd see her coming day and night
Riding hard against the clock
For the sake of mother and child
She was the kind of help you'd long to see
The kind of brave you want to be

Grannie rode into her eighties
Through Newton County and far beyond
When she was thrown from her horse
She knew her riding days were done

When Grannie Brisco couldn't walk no more
They took her rocking chair
With a man on each arm
They carried her out to the yard
There were rows of picnic tables out there
Set up in the shade
People came from distant towns
For Grannie Brisco's eighty-eighth birthday