One of my
fears, and I’m not saying it’s a rational one, is of becoming the other
grandmother; the one who lives further away and doesn’t get to spend as much
time with the grandkids. When I was growing up, my family spent many Sunday
afternoons at my grandparents’ farm. The farm was about an hour’s drive from my
home which, when I was a child and prone to carsickness, seemed an insufferable length of time to be trapped
in the backseat of a Chevy. My other grandmother lived about a half hour
further away, and so I saw her less frequently than I did the farm
grandparents.
I didn’t know my other grandmother well, but I do have a few
distinct memories of her. I remember that during the extra half hour drive to
her house, we passed a small wildlife exhibit which featured a bear kept in a
cage. The bear’s name was Toby and, even though it would make the trip to
Grandma’s take even longer, my siblings and I always begged Dad to stop and let
us see Toby the Bear.
I never met my grandfather; he died when my father was a
young man, before my parents were married. Grandma lived with one of my aunts
who never married, in a tiny house in a small town in the Allegheny Mountains
of Pennsylvania. Next door to her house was an actual mansion and, although its
owners shared garage space with Grandma, I never met them or knew anything
about them. Several years ago my brother told me he saw the mansion listed for
sale in The Wall Street Journal, and I realized I’d never learned the story of
who built it. I’m guessing its first owners were somehow connected with the oil
boom which took place in that area in the late 1800s.
 |
| Dad and My Brothers, circa 1976 |
The
Allegheny River flowed through the rear of Grandma’s property. The small town
in which she lived continues to host the annual Pennsylvania State Championship
Fishing Tournament. One year my dad took my two brothers to Grandma’s for the
tournament, and each caught monster-sized carp. The younger of the two, and the
one who caught the larger fish, still remembers that his measured twenty-eight
inches and weighed fourteen pounds.
 |
| Triumph Swedish Union Church. Tidioute, PA |
I don’t
remember Grandma being a church-goer, but I learned sometime after her death
that her parents, Samuel and Lovina Donaldson, had sold a piece of their
property to a small Swedish church in town. The church served a small
congregation of immigrants who were mostly farmers and oil field workers. Grandma
even taught me a Swedish phrase: tack så
mycket which means thank you, very much. I’m sure she used the phrase when
I made the trek to her house to introduce her to my beloved Swedish fiancé.
When I think
of my grandmother, I think about yarn. She always had piles of the stuff which
she would pull out to describe her latest project. I remember the year she gave
me a pink poodle she’d crocheted to cover a bottle of clear nail polish. Even
now, in my home I have three afghans which bear witness to the work of her
hands. I remember her in her later years, when she could no longer work her
needle, and felt as though an important part of Grandma was gone.
Grandma
often kept cans of Pepsi in a refrigerator in her basement which seemed a
luxury since, when I was young; my parents didn’t often keep pop in the house.
To get to the refrigerator, one had to walk through Grandma’s mudroom, passing
a cactus which was taller than both she and my aunt. She didn’t have many toys
or games at her house, just a few puzzles and an electric organ which my
cousins and I played around with when we visited. Grandma often served us Jell-O,
which she referred to as “wiggle food.”
My grandma
taught me a technique for memorizing the alphabet backwards, a party trick
which I continue to pull out to this day. A school teacher by training, Grandma
explained that the secret was to break down the alphabet into short letter
sequences. She told me, “Once you learn it, you’ll always remember it.” And I
have. The sequence is here:
ZYXW VUT SRQ PONML K JIHG FED CBA
I have no
idea if or when I might ever be a grandmother, or how far away I might live
from grandchildren when they come along. I’m certain I won’t crochet them
anything. But perhaps, when they come to visit, I’ll tell them that the real
name for Jell-O is Wiggle Food, and I’ll teach them the trick for reciting the
alphabet backwards. And as they drive away, I’ll be sure to wave with both
hands.
Sharing another imperfect memory over at emily's place:
