Friday, October 14, 2016

Mean Grandma



I loved my father's mother. Much of the time I did not like her very much. She was a mean-spirited woman who's biggest joy in life seemed to be talking bad about someone, anyone, everyone else.

I do understand that she had a rough time of things. I don't think her marriage was a happy one. My grandfather drank from what I've been told. I did not know him. I have a feeling he probably was physically violent too but I do not know that.

Grandma had 11 children. Two died at birth or as babies. The Depression was a hard time for families in this country when her children were young.

One uncle had epilepsy. Back then it had such a stigma and there was little that could be medically done. He was put in a home and everyone was told that he was in a reform school. It was better to have a bad boy than an epileptic. He died there. I don't know if he knew whether anybody cared about him or not. It was way before my time.

Grandma was either the first baby in her family born in the United States or the last one born in Denmark. I can never remember which. She tried to teach me a little Danish but I only remember the word for hen.

Perhaps because she had so little when she was younger my grandmother was a collector. She had hundreds of sets of salt and pepper shakers on display in her house.

It was a small two-story house. Half of the upstairs was finished into an extra bedroom. The other half was for storage. And boy did she store a lot.

She lived in a little bitty town. The department store there actually was just a mail order hook-up. They displayed all the various mail order catalogs of the time. Grandma ordered sets of dishes, pots and pans, linens, and who knows what all. When the boxes came in she would promptly have them put upstairs. Most were never opened.

She was like that. She had things just to have them. It is such a shame they were never used. My aunt asked me what I would like as a wedding gift and I told her something of my grandmother's. I received a set of beautifully embroidered sheets. Sadly my husband went to plump his pillow and his hand went right through the material.

She did like working with cloth. She embroidered and did needlepoint. She also made the loveliest silky covers for her throw pillows.

Grandma would buy bananas and let them sit and rot rather than eat them. Heaven forbid if one of us was hungry. Whatever it was we asked for she was saving it.

My aunt had a scar on her hand. It seems that grandma was peeling potatoes for supper and my aunt asked for a piece for a snack. As she asked she reached to take a piece, grandma whacked her hand with the knife. It was a nasty cut. Grandma was stingy.

I remember once when we were visiting her she made oatmeal for breakfast. I love oatmeal. When we started to eat it we found all these tiny nails in it. Apparently she bumped the box of nails as she was making the oatmeal and it fell into the pan. Instead of throwing it out she expected us to eat around the nails.

Another time she made oatmeal again. When she served it to us we saw "things" floating in it and wiggling. She had mealy worms and saw no sense in letting the food go to waste.

She was not very nice to my mother either and that is something a child cannot forgive. She always made it clear that Mom was not a part of the family. More on that another time.

I did love her though. When I was in second grade we were working with modelling clay. I made the bust of a woman. When I finished it looked like Grandma. We went to visit her over the Christmas holidays and I took my little grandma to show her. She actually liked it and asked if she could keep it. Being an honest child I said she could as long as everyone understood that I got it back when she died.

All the rest of her life she kept it on the table by her bed. Sadly when she died it disappeared. I never saw it again.

None of my children knew Grandma. She died shortly before I married. When they were small we would look through family pictures and every time one of the kids would ask who that mean looking woman was.

I do miss Grandma. Maybe I could have known more about my father's side of the family if I had been able to ask her about it. Maybe I could have understood her better.

18 comments:

  1. Your grandmother was loved despite how she treated her family. Loved by you. It may be why she wanted that clay bust you made of her. Here was a gift that was made in her likeness. Made by one of her grandchildren...not bought in a store or ordered through catalogs.
    The depression changed people. My hubby and I have heard stories from our families, too...all of hardships and of very little to enjoy being alive.
    This is a sad story, Emma...but I believe your gift was special to your grandmother because she asked you to let her keep it. I wish you could have gotten back after your grandmother passed away. This was a bond between you and her~

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    1. Thank you for understanding. She was a mean spirited woman but we loved her. We just did not always like her.

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  2. Your grandmother was memorable for a variety of reasons. It makes one wonder about her childhood for sure. Isn't is amazing how love works though!

    I enjoyed meeting her!

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    1. I am glad you enjoyed Grandma. I wish I knew more about her family. They were not close. I knew of one of her brothers who lived in town but I do not think she ever visited with him. She did visit with a sister in town and I later learned that the was another brother also in the same town.

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  3. A rather extraordinary tale. my wife's grandmother was very similar. She brought a dessert once with cat prints in the frosting and was hurt nobody ate it.

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    1. I wonder... was it her cat? Grandma would not have eaten it either but she would have been upset if we had not eaten it. Funny story.

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  4. This is so sad. I wondered from time to time how my father would have been had he not been a depression orphan.

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    1. It does make you wonder what a life could have been under better circumstances. Was he unhappy like Grandma?

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  5. This is sad.. I felt very sad.. but I love your writing.. it is so simple and lucid.. love to read..

    Please visit: nice pictures of Mexican market, very much different from the USA..

    Please visit: http://from-a-girls-mind.blogspot.com

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  6. Very kind comments. I will visit your blog.

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  7. Your grandma sounds like a piece of work.

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    1. I prefer to believe that she did not know any better. She was a bitter woman.

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  8. Such a story and character of your grandma.

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    1. It is so sad that there are people like that in the world. I wonder if she knew she was loved by some of us.

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  9. It needed certainly much love to love her, Emma - even if one can understand why she became like that. Honestly: I don't know whether I would have been able to love her.

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    1. I often wonder about that myself. Maybe it is the family thing.

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  10. After reading this post, Emma, and the comments that followed, I would have to say that you are to be admired for loving your grandmother even if you didn't like her. These really are two different emotions and it is unfortunate that both could have applied to her. She must have had a very hard life.

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    1. It is not admiration to love my grandmother. She was Grandma. I did not like her most of the time though.

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