Welcome to the em space, a staff writer's commentary page with reflections – sometimes serious, sometimes light – on life experiences in Logan County and beyond. Thank you for reading.

- Mary Krallmann

What "grandma" means to me

Two of my grandparents died before I was born and another before I was 6 years old. So my personal experience with having a grandparent is based on my mother’s mother. I knew her as Grandma Johnson. The anniversary of her birth is April 24th.

I thought of my grandmother as an older, somewhat melancholy person. Naturally, grandparents are older than their grandchildren, but Grandma Johnson was 69 when I was born. She was a widow by then, and her son (my uncle) also died before she did.

While I was growing up in another state, she lived a long day’s trip away by car or train. Her house stood across a busy street from the railroad station in Alton, a city across the river from St. Louis. Occasional visits during the hot, humid summers were a major event.

I remember Grandma’s house in general; the front porch; the enclosed back porch with many plants and two child-sized chairs; her white, wooden kitchen chairs; the pantry; the long table and other dining room furniture; the family photographs in the front room. Grandma told me once that her family pictures meant a lot to her. She said that in case of fire, she’d want to grab those first.

Unlike our house, all the bedrooms and the bathroom at Grandma’s house were upstairs, along with an additional, small kitchen.

Her back yard was not grass, like ours at home. It was almost all a flower garden, with some paths for walking. Mom says that at one time there was also a lily pond with fish in it. My mom encouraged me to have Grandma show me her back yard and tell about her flowers.

Besides working with plants, Grandma was good at needlework. My mom wrote me recently, “One of the things I remember about her was her skill in darning socks. She spent many an evening doing that. She could weave thread into the hole so that it was very pretty––so neat and exact. She did a lot of knitting and crocheting and embroidery work, too.”

She reportedly did her “heavy work” with her left hand, and she ate left-handed.

Over the years, Mom and my grandma kept in touch through weekly letters. I remember Grandma’s as handwritten with a blue pen on unlined paper. Her return address was 3319 College Ave. At birthdays and at Christmas, some of the presents had her name on the tag.

By the time I was in high school, Grandma was no longer taking care of everyday household duties. Her eyesight was poor, but she was in reasonably good health otherwise. Eventually she came to live with us. She ate, slept and spent many of her days sitting and stroking her forehead and arm. Her hair remained thick into old age.

In later years, after a hip fracture, she stayed in sheltered care or nursing home facilities. She lived to be almost 92. When she died, I was living in another state and didn’t come back for the funeral, but I had made the dress in which she was buried. A couple of summers before, my mom had asked me to do that. It was a dark blue dress with white trim.

The person that my grandmother was in her most active years, I know mostly through my mother. Grandma worked hard and must have had a strong sense of duty. Times were difficult financially and without many modern conveniences. Regular household tasks such as washing and ironing were major chores. Grandma cared for her own mother at home for 17 years.

I know Grandma’s principles through her favorite sayings, which my mother recalls from time to time.

 

  • If a task is first begun, do not leave it ’til it’s done.
  • “Can’t” never did anything.
  • Hard work never hurt anyone.
  • Pretty is as pretty does.
  • If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
  • Whatever you do, do with your might.
    Things done by halves are never done right.

I have some of the family pictures Grandma treasured and several samples of her china and glassware, given to me by my aunt, who was her daughter-in-law. Aunt Marion wrote little notes to explain the items. For example: “The first of Grandma’s vegetable soup I ate was served from this bowl, with the ladle.” Another note says, “Chocolate pudding with whipped cream. Yummy!”

Lessons and mementos such as these, in addition to one-fourth of my genetic makeup, are part of my legacy from Grandma Johnson, but surely she gave me the most in the person of her daughter, my mother.

 

[Mary Krallmann]

Yellow circles and squares

Lately my life has been marked with yellow circles and squares.

On the way to and from work, I see dandelions all around. Sometimes they’re wide open to the sun and sometimes closed into tighter, smaller circles with yellow peeking out. Each one is unique.

When I arrive at work, I see familiar stacks of yellow squares waiting on my desk. The little papers with adhesive on the back often come in packages with 100 sheets all alike. I use mostly 2⅞-inch squares from the 3M company or similar kinds in other brands.

Actually, 3M has related products in 27 sizes, 56 shapes and around 30 color choices, from pastels to neons, from grass green to periwinkle. By contrast, I haven’t yet seen a dandelion in millennium blue or even orange. If yellow is enough color choice for dandelions, I can get along with ordinary yellow note squares, too.

I often bring a few yellow notes from home to work and vice versa. They’re scrawled with reminders about things I need to do. If my mind is cluttered with many tasks, I sometimes need more than one square to write everything down, so I use the adhesive on the back to stick notes together like links in a chain.

I’ve made chains with dandelion stems, too. It’s been awhile, though. One of these days I might have to practice. I’ll have to watch for promising stems on my walks back and forth. Maybe I should make a note of that on one of my yellow squares.

Once in a while I do put a yellow note into my pocket before I leave for lunch. There might be a phone call to make, an errand to do or an item to bring back to work in the afternoon.

I like to finish the lists on the squares before I go home, but during a busy spell they sometimes lie around for several days, simultaneously annoying me and freeing my mind to focus on other matters.

With all the scrap paper available at no extra cost, I wouldn’t need to use special pre-cut squares with adhesive on the back, but they’re handy. At about a penny apiece, or even half a penny for brands other than Post-it®, they’re not a major extravagance. Sometimes my frugality raises an eyebrow if I write only one item per square or when I don’t use the back. Still, there are plenty more empty squares for times to come.

The dandelions are like that, too, with enough and many to spare. I like them best as they are now – yellow among the green grass of spring. To me, it’s entirely appropriate for them to be there. However, my encyclopedia says that dandelions are usually considered to be a “troublesome weed, difficult to control.”

Yellow squares can be hard to control, too. I make a note of an address, a phone number, a computer code, a correction; and before long, I have yellow papers all around. I try to arrange them in groups sometimes, but I don’t necessarily know how or when I’m going to handle them anyway. I don’t want my desk to look as though I can’t remember anything without a yellow square.

I began to wonder recently if my proliferating notes were a danger signal. After all, if I turn a yellow square 45 degrees, it’s a yellow diamond, similar to traffic warning signs for curves and intersections ahead. I thought maybe all my notes indicated things were getting out of control in my life, but perhaps the yellow papers are a solution instead of a problem.

Curious about the squares themselves, I took time to read about how they were developed. I noticed a comment that yellow is a color of hope. That spoiled the whole philosophical angle I’d been working on. I remarked to myself that the only hopefulness I’d connect with yellow note squares would be along the lines of “I hope I get all these things done someday.”

I like yellow note squares well enough, but yellow dandelions have a stronger symbolism for me. They’re a bright example of the hopefulness of spring, blossoming with as much success through a crack in the sidewalk as from a fertile lawn. With their taproots deep in the soil, dandelions can be stepped on, mowed over, have their leaves pulled off and still keep coming back. Now that’s an example to inspire hope and strength and persistence. Anyone who has tugged away at a dandelion will understand. The experience sticks with you. You can remember it without writing it down on a little square of yellow paper.

 

[Mary Krallmann]

 

Note: Readers who want to learn more about the development of removable, self-stick notes can find interesting accounts at these sites:

http://www.3m.ns.ca/Post-it/artslab

http://mustang.coled.umn.edu/inventing/Postit.html