Every June 14, when I hear or read about Flag Day, I am reminded of another reason this day is special: it is Grandma Love's birthday. And this particular day is really special, because it would have been her 100th birthday. It was on this date in 1914 that Grandma was born, and she would live for another 93 years and see 17 U.S. presidents. In the process, she experienced the very worst and the very best of life--from the Great Depression, illness, and the premature deaths of multiple children, to a 50+ year marriage and the building of a very large and loving family. In the 18 years I was able to spend with her, she taught me more about life than perhaps any other single person, and I owe a great deal to her.
Today, my family is gathering and sharing stories and memories from my grandma's life, which I think is a lovely way to spend the day. In lieu of being there, I thought I would share some memories and stories about this woman that none of you have ever met. I'm in a good position to do this, because when I was a kid, she filled out a memory book for me. It's something I didn't appreciate until I became an adult, and the book now sits on my coffee table. I often flip through it and read and reread what she had to say. The stories she shares in the book are very short--much shorter than they were when I sat on her lap and asked her to tell a story--but my memory can fill in details. And there is something very comforting about seeing her handwriting. It's one of my greatest treasures. Follow me below the fold, but first, a picture I've shared before of Grandma Love holding me as a baby.
As I flipped through Grandma's memory book today trying to figure out how to construct this diary, it struck me that it really reads just like a story of her life. It starts by asking about her earliest memory, which happens to be a story I shared earlier this year here at Kitchen Table Kibitzing. Here it is, in part:
When I was a little girl, about 5 1/2, we lived on a small farm not too far from our present home. Only of course there were very few cars, and horse and buggy in summer or horse and cutter or sleigh in winter was the way to go.
It didn't take much to please either children or their parents and social events of any kind were welcome. In the late fall there was a box social at one of the houses. I can still remember the house and even the room we had it in. The ladies fixed box lunches and then decorated the boxes real pretty. Then some man would auction off the box to the highest bidder. Then he and the person who brought the box ate the lunch together. I think it was common for the girl to tip off her boyfriend that the certain box with the big bow or flower on it was hers. I got to eat with a boy who was either coming down with scarlet fever or getting over it. And in the proper length of time I got very sick with scarlet fever. There were no miracle drugs...no penicillin or antibiotics. So the family was quarantined with a RED SCARLET FEVER card on the house. No one could come and no one could leave.
It so happened that old Uncle George was at our house at the time. So he had to stay. Uncle George often came and I never wondered why he wasn't at home with his children.
I remember I laid in a little bedroom off the kitchen. I was so sick...and I wanted water or ice...but I wasn't allowed any. Jessie [her younger sister] wouldn't have been much more than 4 years old, but I had her go outside and break off an icicle that hung from the porch roof in front of the window. I don't remember if we got caught at it or not. Little Mattie [her youngest sister] and Mama, who was expecting a new baby in a few months, both got the dreaded fever, too. Little Mattie had to learn to walk again.
Scarlet fever aside, some of the worst parts of my grandma's early life are not fully addressed in the book. When she was a small child, her mother divorced her father and left the family, something that was particularly hard on her. But that would pale in comparison to living through the Great Depression, which of course was not a treat for anybody, but with several younger siblings and an unemployed father, it fell on my grandma (who was only a teenager) to bring home what little money the family had. When the book asks her about her high school years, she gives a simple and sad reply:
I didn't get to high school for only 2 wks. I only had 2 dresses and the school was in Youngsville [three miles away] and no bus.
Instead of going to school, she worked as a waitress for $1/day at the local inn, which had to go a long way to feed the entire family.
While she had much to tell me about the Great Depression when I was growing up, she does not say much about it in the book. But something I didn't notice until today is the very first glimpse I've ever gotten about my grandma's political opinions. I come from a largely conservative family, but my grandma never discussed politics. In fact, I asked her once whom she voted for in whatever election was held that year, and in one of the only times she has ever gotten cross with me, her mouth turned into a frown and she told me frankly that it was none of my business. When asked in the book about which political figure she remembers most and why, she says:
In 1932--the big depression was on. It was terrible. Then it was voting time and Franklin Roosevelt got in office. That was a good thing. Things got better--slowly.
Despite hearing many stories about the Depression, I have never heard her talk about FDR, so that was a little interesting.
My favorite story she has to share is something I wrote about over a year ago at Top Comments: my grandparents' wedding in 1932. They had met two years earlier, and because neither of them had a car and they lived a few miles apart, my grandpa walked those three miles and back daily to see her. The story of their wedding day is kind of hilarious:
Sidney [my grandpa] had bought an old car from his brother for $10.00--this was during the Great Depression in 1932--he sold the car license and all for 15.00. That was all the money we had. I had bought a cheap dress, and a few things I needed--the rest of the money was gone. Sid's brother Laverne was going with my sister Jessie at the time. We borrowed a car from a friend of Sid's and went to Mayville, N.Y., on June 25, 1932, got the license, and went to the wrong church. The minister put on a robe and we were married in a big church--no one there but 4 of us and the preacher. We stopped and had a hot dog for dinner. When we got home, company from Buffalo had come and took the room I had ready for us. There was no honeymoon, and it was 25 years before we took a belated honeymoon to New England.
It was the start of a very long and happy marriage and the beginning of a large family. But that family did not begin easily. She doesn't talk about this in the book and she rarely talked about it in life, but her first child died from the flu as a baby. She would lose two more children prematurely--a daughter, unexpectedly in middle age, and my dad, unexpectedly in 2006. But she lived to see great-
great grandchildren.
From the beginning of my life, I was a grandma's boy. My grandpa was alive for much of my childhood, and he was a very kind and loving man at heart, but he did not show affection very well, and I was always much closer to my grandma. We lived next door to her, and I spent most of my days with her, eating snacks from the Great Depression (bread, butter, and sugar!) and listening to stories. Here I am, returning home from a long day at Grandma's house:
A wonderful baker (she actually worked as a wedding cake maker for a long time), she also taught me the basics of baking from a very early age, including how to make pie crust.
I also got my love for cats from my grandma. Stray cats had a habit of showing up at her house, and she treated them all as her children. There is no better example of my grandma's big heart for cats than the time she found her cat and closest companion in her later years, Noah. He was named Noah because my grandma found him as a kitten after a flood floating on a styrofoam plate. She taught me everything about raising kittens, and she was my biggest cheerleader when I lobbied my parents to let me adopt a kitten that was found on my grandma's property. I was successful, and I named her Nermal. You might notice that she bears a resemblance to a certain cat I have today, which may or may not have played a role in my decision to adopt Zoe. Nermal may one day get her own diary.
The very end of the memory book always makes me laugh. In response to the question "What do you hope the future brings for me?" she says:
Christopher--You are a smart boy. I wish for you to keep on learning and really make something of yourself. Don't get mixed up with a wrong crowd and cigarettes [a clear reference to my dad, who smoked his whole life]--drugs, etc., and you can go a long ways.
Then I hope you find a lovely Christian girlfriend and have a happy home.
Well, it looks like I'm a mixed bag. I'm in a Ph.D. program and I don't smoke, but I only have a lovely agnostic boyfriend.
My grandma was already gone when I came out, but she knew me better than most, and I sometimes wonder if she had an inkling. In this time of rapid evolution on LGBT issues, I don't find it productive to speculate about what my grandma--who never talked about homosexuality in the first place--would have said. But I do know she wanted me to be happy, and I am.
Happy birthday, Grandma. You are sorely missed.
|
|
|
|
Kitchen Table Kibitzing is a community series for those who wish to share part of the evening around a virtual kitchen table with kossacks who are caring and supportive of one another. So bring your stories, jokes, photos, funny pics, music, and interesting videos, as well as links—including quotations—to diaries, news stories, and books that you think this community would appreciate. Readers may notice that most who post diaries and comments in this series already know one another to some degree, but newcomers should not feel excluded. We welcome guests at our kitchen table, and hope to make some new friends as well.
|
|