JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Congratulate me, everyone, I’m a
grandmother! Little Paulie* arrived last week, a full ten days before his due
date, throwing us all into confusion. He must get this from my
daughter-in-law’s side of the family, because I guarantee you no one on the
Hugo-Vidal camp has ever arrived that early to anything.
*He looks just like Paul Sorvino in Goodfellas
Right now, my grandmotherly duties are keeping the new parent’s two dogs, which, if you’re keeping score at home, makes for four dogs and two cats, one of which is my younger daughter’s $15,000 guy. It feels as if my house had been invaded by needy toddlers, which, I suppose, is a good preview of the future.
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| Like this, but bald, no cigar, and in a onesie |
I’m excited about this new stage in my life, in part because my own grandmothers played such an important role in my life. I was lucky to have three: Grandmother Spencer, a loving fluffy bisquit of a Southern woman, Grandma Fleming, who magically always had fresh-baked cookies when I stopped at her house on my way home from high school, and Grandma Greuling, a no-nonsense Adirondacker who let me help in her antique shop and told me stories about my family going back to the 1600s.
None of my grandmothers took me on vacations or showered me with expensive gifts. They let me be with them while they sewed, gardened, baked, refinished furniture. They loved me for who I was and listened to me no matter what. What a gift for any child!
Reds, what do you remember about your own grandmothers?
HALLIE EPHRON: I remember my grandmother was very old and wrinkly and spoke very little English and with a thick accent. She always had a coin or two in her pocket for me.
She lived in an apartment nearby and came to our house once
a week and cooked. She made the world’s best thin, crisp cinnamon cookies which
I’ve never been able to duplicate. I got to cut them out and brush them with
butter and sprinkle on cinnamon.
She also made the world’s best chopped liver. Don’t groan, it’s delicious.
She’d start by rendering chicken fat from chicken skin (I stood by the stove
hoping to grab off some of the crispy bits). And end by chopping sauteed
livers and onions that had been cooked in the chicken fat, seasoning with
plenty of salt and pepper, and chopping in a massive wooden bowl which I still
have, it’s bottom cross-hatched with cut marks.
I never got a chance to ask her what life had been like in
Russia, how she and others in her family managed to flee, what it was like to
go through Ellis Island….
If you have a living grandparent, ASK while you can still get answers!
HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: My father’s mother was elegant
and gorgeous, beautiful with icy white hair and the best clothes, and a
wonderful cook who made lemon pancakes in the shape of our initials and dusted
with powdered sugar. She made amazing chicken soup, and kreplach, and matzo
ball soup, and a wine cake that no one could ever duplicate–and she had
written out recipe cards with NO quantities, so no one could
possibly make her dishes again. She gave me a typewriter, when I was
about 9, which was so life changing. (It came in a little suitcase.)
I did ask her about leaving Russia, and she started talking about what a lovely village her family had lived in and what lovely soldiers came to town, and I soon realized she was about to tell me her own fairy tale, and I’d never know the real story. I did ask her to write it down--she typed it on my typewriter! And it is still somewhere.
My mother's mother was very..quirky. Ethereal, and fragile.
From another time, it really felt. I have no memory of her ever saying a word
to me.
When my parents were divorced, I also had my step-father’s mother. She once said to me, when I was 10, maybe: “I love you as much as I would love a real grandchild.”
LUCY BURDETTE: My mother’s mother was Lucille Burdette–she
was a painter, very kind and gentle. Sadly, she died when I was about seven so
I don’t have lots of memories.
My father’s mother was little and fierce–we still tell stories about how she bossed my grandfather around. My mother was afraid of her, and my uncle didn’t have too much good to say either. Even so, I admired her sturdy toughness and John fears I’ve inherited too much of her:).
I feel like grandmothers of today seem much younger and more active. Congratulations Julia!
RHYS BOWEN: Congratulations from me too, Julia. You’ll love this stage of life.
My mother’s mother raised me while my mother worked (female
teachers were required during the war), then came to live with us when my
grandfather died, so she was always a huge part of my life. She was tiny and
gentle. I don’t ever remember her raising her voice. She showed endless
patience and kindness to me, which was great because my mother was always
overworked and stressed and had no time for me. She lived to 91 and ate like a
sparrow.
I didn’t know my father’s mother as well. We went to visit her frequently but it was always a formal visit, not playing with her as with my other grandmother. But she was a wonderful cook. I remember her sausage pie with her homemade red cabbage pickles. Still drooling! And when she died, when I had just got engaged, she left me her wedding ring, which I had melted into my own ring.
I am blessed to have been part of my grandchildren’s lives since the day they were born. When they were little II had to make up fantastic stories for them. Also chased them over climbing equipment, Such happy memories.
DEBORAH CROMBIE: I only knew one grandmother, Lillian, known
as Nanny, my mother’s mother. A widowed school teacher (I knew neither of my
grandfathers) she came to live with us when I was born. We shared a room until
I was about six, when my parents built an addition on to the house for her so
that she could have her own space. She was the gentlest person I’ve ever known,
although she must have been really tough to have raised four kids mostly on her
own during the Depression. She was unfailingly kind and encouraging to me and a
good buffer between me and my mother, who was a much more demanding
personality. She taught me to read and to be interested in the world and we had
many adventures together. She died at 86 and I still miss her.
JULIA: How about you, dear readers? What are your memories of a grandmother - or grandfather?
Julia, much love to you, your daughter and daughter-in-law, and Paul…who like all wonderful grandchildren will soon outgrow “little Paulie” (it is true that all grandchildren grow much faster than we believe they will.) Grammy was always a safe haven…cookies in the cookie jar, broiling steaks in the coal stove, letting my cousin and I set the table in her 1812 home with all the china and silver that had been there since 1812…even the finger bowls, teaching me to sew, wallpapering and painting her home, and teaching my mother to wallpaper hers. And always being a cheerful pitstop on my way home from college, when my bladder would not have survived the 15 minutes to get home. Elisabeth
ReplyDeleteMazel tov, Julia!! May little Paulie live a long, happy and healthy life! Congratulations to Victoria and her partner, too. How lovely for them to make a family together.
ReplyDeleteYou will so love being a grandmother, especially with them living so close by. I was Zak's only babysitter for many years, and we still have such a special bond.
My dad's mother was strict, and cranky, and not maternal in any way. But I was very close to my mom's mother and dad, and lived with them for a time when I was in second grade. Grandma raised ten kids--her own nine, plus a foster kid for awhile--and she had love in her heart for everyone. Unconditional love is a powerful thing, and it helped overcome a lot.
Her mother-in-law, my great grandmother Charlotte, or Lottie, we called Little Grandma because she was tiny. And elegant, with close-cropped white, marcelled hair, and a trim figure. She was an amazing baker, and brilliant seamstress who lived in a tiny house with a big yard full of peonies. Aunt Dodie, whose house we went to after school to wait for Mother to get home from work, was a nurse with Wednesdays off. She would bring Little Grandma to her house and they would bake, and we would smell the aroma of the bread fresh out of the oven a block away and start running for a slice of warm bread dripping with butter.
I have a photo of my two grandmothers and Little Grandma with my younger sister on her First Communion day, in 1961. I am about the age my great grandmother was then, and my grandmothers were both in their late 50's. It is shocking how much older they all look than we do today at the same ages!
Congratulations Julia.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, I never knew either of my grandmothers. My father’s mother died before I was born.
I was born on my mother’s mother’s birthday and she did have a chance to hold me, but passed away several months later at what would be considered a young age. Today she would have been able to have a much longer life with the medical treatment that is available.
I did know about her though. My mother told many stories so I knew a lot about her. She married my grandfather when she was about fifteen. It was an arranged marriage and my grandparents only met shortly before the wedding and didn’t know anything about each other. Fortunately it was a very happy marriage. They were married for fifty years and very much in love with each other.My grandmother would always make dishes she knew were favorites of my grandfather. My mother
would often see them holding hands.
My mother regretted that she couldn’t duplicate some of the recipes her mother made because nothing was ever measured, it was a little of this or that. It was how something looked or tasted.
I always appreciated when my mother told me I was like one of my grandparents in some way because I knew it was a compliment.
Oh Julia!! Congratulations to the new family and to the new grandma! So great that you are close enough to be more than a holiday grandmother. I was lucky enough to know both of my grandmothers and my Grandma Thompson's mother too! My Grandma Thompson raised 12 children and had 36 grandchildren. Of course, she had her favorites--like my cousin Dale, who she raised until he was six years old, but she had enough love for all of us. She was the postmaster of a one-room post office which sat on the corner of their property, a wonderful cook, no-nonsense, and I loved her dearly. My Grandma Church was a sweet person, cowed by a domineering husband, but she told stories of my dad as a child. Long after her death, her daughter-in-law gave us "Homer's Box." Homer was my dad and the box was filled with clippings from my dad's time in the service, a telegram he'd sent saying he was coming home, and letters commending his unit's service from the general in command. It was such a vivid reminder of her love for him.
ReplyDeleteYou are going to be such a wonderful grandma, Julia!!
Congratulations, Julia! You are going to love being a grandmother. I wish you and your family all the good health and happiness in the world!
ReplyDeleteI was very close to my mother's mother who used to take the train to New London to come and stay for weeks at a time. I can still picture her coming out of the station carrying her little yellow suitcase.
Grandma was born in New York as were most of her dozen siblings. We would go to NYC to visit her on school vacations. Every Wednesday, her sisters would come by to play cards and the apartment would ring with their loud conversations and laughter. She always took us to see the Christmas show at Radio City.
She baked great cakes and pies and cookies. I know how everyone feels about lost recipes. Her sugar cookies were divine.
The apartment I grew up in was just steps from my father's mother's grocery store. The market was very popular because my grandfather had a slaughterhouse and the store's tiny meat department with the walk-in refrigerator and my dad behind the counter bantering with all the locals while he prepared their exact orders, was more than most small grocery stores could offer. Grandma was always busy in the store, or busy in her kitchen at home. I probably spent as much of my childhood in her back yard as I did in mine. She didn't have as much time to fuss with me as my grandma from NY, and her English wasn't as good, but she knew that I liked my mashed potatoes with chicken fat and salt and that I'd try anything she cooked or baked.
I am glad that I knew both of my grandmothers. It's just too bad that now I can't ask them more about their lives. I have questions.
I never met either of my grandmothers; one was long dead before I came along, the other had basically abandoned my moother when she was seven. I do have fond memories of my great-grandmother (who raised my mother), a schoolteacher who became one of the first female school board members in the state. She was born shortly after the Civil War ended, which gave me a link further into the past than most of my friends had. I remember her wood stove and her home-made biscuits, with the ever-present jar of honey on the kitchen table. One of her projects was to read the HARVARD FIVE-FOOT SHELF OF CLASSICS from start to finish, borrowing each volume one at a time. Her curiosity never ended, lasting until her death at age 96. My maternal grandfather had also died in an exposion when my mother was very young. My father's father was a hardworking Yankee with a great sense of humor who wouild read mystery books in his spare time. He worked many jobs but was basically a truck farmer. My father was one of nine children and I had well over thirty cousins, so the time I spent with my grandfather was limited, but visiting my grandfather was always a treat.
ReplyDelete(I suspect that Kitty felt she was a wonderful grandmother because she wanted to give our grandkids something that she never had. In truth, Kitty was a great grandmother because she was at heart a loving, caring, and compassionate person who could communicate with children with respect and at a level they could appreciate and understand.)