Jeannie in Spring Branch, Texas, says her grandmother, who far outlived her husband, described herself as a weeds widow. Since this term is extremely rare, it’s possible her grandmother conflated the terms widows weeds and grass widow. The former is the garb of a woman mourning her deceased husband, and the latter is woman who is separated from her husband, either because he has deserted her or is simply away traveling. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Weeds Widow”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello, how are you?
Excellent, thank you. And how are you and who are you?
I’m Jeannie and I live in Spring Branch, Texas.
Welcome to the show, Jeannie.
What can we do for you?
Well, I have a question on something that my grandmother used to say.
Her name was Amabel Wallace and she was born in 1894.
She used to say to me that she was a weeds widow.
Which I didn’t understand what that meant.
I know she lived to 89, but her husband was born in 1893, and he only lived to 39, but she had six kids.
And when I would ask questions about my grandfather, she would just say she was a weeds widow.
Even before he was dead, she would call herself a weeds widow.
So I don’t know what that means.
Even before?
Before my grandfather was dead.
She called herself a weeds widow.
Where was he if he wasn’t dead?
Was he not living with her?
Well, he would come home long enough to get her pregnant, and then he would leave again.
And he was kind of a traveling man.
They were married, but she lived on a farm.
And it was just kind of odd that she called herself that.
This is really interesting, isn’t it, Grant?
It sounds like it’s conflating a couple of different ideas.
But it’s getting to something that we know.
It’s getting to a term, yeah.
I think I know where you’re going with this, Martha.
Are you familiar with the term widow’s weeds?
No.
Yeah, widow’s weeds refers to the clothes that a widow will wear in mourning.
You know, black sort of crepey clothing.
It has nothing to do with the plants in your yard.
It’s a totally different word.
The weeds there comes from an old word that probably means something like cloth or clothing.
So we have that term.
But then we also have a term that you may or may not have heard, grass widowed.
Back in the 1500s, a grass widow was a woman who you might describe as having loose morals.
You might have a role in the hay with or in the grass.
Or it might refer to a mistress who’s been deserted by a man.
But by the 19th century, the term grass widow had evolved into referring to a woman who was away from her husband, either because, say, he was away at sea or traveling or because they divorced.
And I’m thinking that perhaps these widow’s weeds and weed’s widow were somehow conflated in her mind.
Well, I got to tell you, Jeannie, this is super interesting.
Thank you for sharing your family’s history and memories.
With Martha, I think this probably sounds like weed’s widow comes from a mix of the expression grass widow and widow’s weeds.
So it sounds like a real logical extension of the idea of grass widow.
It does.
It does.
Yeah, sure it does.
Hopefully, we’ve got it on the head, hopefully.
Yeah, I think so.
All right.
Take care now.
Thank you.
Jeannie, thank you so much for calling.
You too.
Bye-bye.
Yes, ma’am.
Bye-bye.
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In this episode, I believe that the caller’s grandmother was referring to the fact that her husband worked away from home, so she was a “widow” in a sense. Whether or not she was conflating “widow’s weeds”, I do not think that she was referring to actually being a widow as she used the term prior to her husband’s death. I’d be curious to know his occupation as that may provide some context.