I wish my grandmother had been less senile and healthier in her later years. I have a few things I would like to talk to her about because I think she'd understand because she had the life experience of living through the Great Depression as a child. There were stories she told that I still adore even though they speak of untold hardship, being very poor, and self reliance.
1. My grandmother was a very, very skinny child. Then her mother wormed all the kids with tobacco (just like they did the horses!) there on out, my grandmother became pudgy. So apparently she did have worms.
2. My grandmother's family also had the whole head lice thing happen while in elementary school (most of them never actually graduated...went until 8th grade and quit). Instead of the nice shampoos and ect we have now, her mother soaked all their heads in kerosene lamp oil and boiled all the laundry in lye soap. I for one can not even fathom having kerosene in my hair, the way it must have smelled or felt...and how on earth would it ever wash out? It probably didn't wash out for a long, long time.
3. She lived on a family farm, so they were fairly lucky and rarely went hungry; however, they did eat all manner of things including ground hog, rabbit, duck, deer, you name it, if it was free, someone was eating it.
4. After she married; my grandmother, along with my grandfather, were migrant workers locally at times to make ends meet. If someone was making hay, picking corn, or something that needed done; they were there; sometimes bartering time for things they needed, sometimes being paid since they were too poor to afford their own land and rented houses for years and years.
5. My dad lived in a small closet on the third floor of a rental house with no heat, quite large cracks in the walls, layers beyond layers of blankets and no indoor toilet for a good portion of his childhood. This was in the 50's and 60's...the heat was provided by the cook stove in the kitchen...most of the rooms were unheated.
6. She was rarely idle. She was always cooking and canning, washing laundry in her old fashioned ringer washer, and hanging laundry outside on the line. (Yes, she did have a dryer, but she liked to smell the sunshine!) She was always telling stories, teaching her grandkids (me!) something and singing in her off key too high pitched singing voice. She crocheted, sewed, quilted and made all manner of crafts, including reupholstering furniture. She donated many many things she had made to local nursing homes. (In her later years when someone who had hoards of yarn or caches of fabric died, it was generally given to my grandmother...she then made blankets and afghans and donated it to someone who would find some comfort in it.)
Whenever I think of complaining I think of her. She never did complain. Not once. Not about something that couldn't be helped. If it could be helped, she'd do something about it.
I miss you Grandma. I always get to missing you this time of year. Even though you left us just 6 years ago I feel I've lived a lifetime since then. School of hard knocks or something, having always been kind of spoiled because my parents made enough and worked enough that we never worried where food or clothes came from...and now I sometimes have wondered where food or clothes would come from. You died nearer Thanksgiving, but I always think of you in mid October when I moved into your little yellow mobile home and it seemed so empty there without you. You wanted me there, I wanted to be there, but turns out it was pretty lonely with no other people, no animals, and no one relentlessly baking pies and bread. In some ways I wish I'd stayed. But hindsight's 20/20 and there's no telling if I would have been better or worse off.
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