 Being aware of that fact has caused me to think about my own
grandmothers. They were both very special ladies, and I consider
myself fortunate to have known them. Both of them lived to a ripe
old age which, I hope, is something they will have passed down to
me.My paternal grandmother, Elsie, was a pill, but she had no
problem getting her point across. She had six children, my father
being the oldest boy, so she learned to be strict. Elsie was a big
woman. She never wore a dress, contrary to the fashion of her day.
That's probably because wearing a dress made her look like a ship
under full sail. In fact, the only time I ever saw my grandmother
wear a dress was on my wedding day. Then, it was purple. She didn't
know what a "red-hatter" was, but she wore a purple dress with
scarlet red nail polish and lipstick to match. With her slightly
bluish hair, she was a sight to behold.
Though Elsie hated to wear dresses, she always painted her nails.
She also used to make costume jewelry with those perfectly manicured
hands. She had so much costume jewelry left over when she went out
of business that everyone got a pair of earrings or a brooch each
Christmas for years afterward. Many times my dad wondered when he
would ever have an opportunity to wear that pink and yellow brooch
in the shape of a fish. Maybe on Fridays during Lent?
I remember where my grandparents lived when I was growing up. We
used to go there every weekend so that my mother could wash diapers
in my grandmother's washing machine. Elsie probably wasn't too
thrilled about that. Her pride and joy was the dryer that my father
had found for 50 cents. After he tore it apart and fixed it, he
installed it in my grandmother's house because we didn't have room
for it. He had fixed the machine, only to learn that it would sing a
couple of choruses of "How Dry I Am" during every cycle. If it
wasn't for the fact that she was the only one in the family who had
a dryer, her family might have used her dryer's vocal skills as a
point of levity. As it was, no one dared.
[to top of second column]
 |
 My maternal grandmother, Bertha -- I'm not kidding -- was German.
Though she lived in the United States for almost 50 years, she kept
her German accent until the day she died. The most important thing I
learned from Grandma was that "the bananas, they make you regular."
She was slightly touched in the head, but in an endearing sort of
way.
She never learned to drive, so when my sister and I would visit,
we'd walk everywhere or take a bus. If we were about to cross paths
with a man about her age, she'd stop and ask us if her hearing aid
was showing.
Every Thanksgiving she brought a "kuchen," and every Christmas
she brought hand-knitted slippers for everyone. Then, each year I
would snag my slippers on the first nail I came across that happened
to be more than a 16th of an inch above the floorboards.
One summer when we were kids, my sister and I went to visit
Grandma for a whole week. She didn't have a bathtub, only a shower,
so she decided to wash our waist-length hair in her kitchen sink.
She sent us to look for shampoo, and we were very surprised to find
about six cases of toilet paper jammed into her linen closet, but
not a single bottle of shampoo. That's because she had her hair
regularly maintained at the beauty parlor. No need for shampoo. As
for the massive quantities of toilet paper -- I don't have a clue.
She eventually decided that the next best thing to shampoo was
Palmolive dish detergent… We couldn't get a brush through our hair
for two full weeks.
My grandmothers may not have known how to wash waist-length hair
or keep a dryer from belting out an aria, but they had a lot of
character. I miss them very much.
[By LAURA SNYDER]
You can reach the writer at
lsnyder@lauraonlife.com
Or visit www.lauraonlife.com
for more columns and info about her books.
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