Today, 100 years ago, on August 18th, 1913, my father's mother was born.
(This was her in 1983, aged 70, when she got her brand new dentures, hence the big, white smile!)
My grandma did not have an easy life. She was an only child. He father built the house they lived in and soon thereafter, he was killed when working in the factory, a boiler he was standing next to blew up. My grandmother was 5 years old. She was then left to be raised by her mother alone.
When she was just 16 years old, she became pregnant, and she ended up marring the 15 year old father, my grandfather. But the baby was stillborn. Then, five years later, she became pregnant again, but this time, the baby was strangled by his own umbilical cord while being born. Then, five years after that, in 1939, she became pregnant again and gave birth to my father.
My grandparents had a very tumultuous marriage. They were young, of course, that didnt help. I believe I remember hearing they lived with my great-grandmother. That could not have been pleasant either, because I've heard that she was a physically large (not fat, just big) woman with a very overbearing, rigid and uncompromising personality. She was also of the fire-and -brimstone religious persuasion, probably akin to what we'd today call evangelical. So being two teenagers who had engaged in fornication and being forced to live with her would obviously not have been an easy thing.
But in addition, I have heard there were instances of alcoholism and physical abuse between the married couple. What I know for sure is, a few months before my father was born they divorced. My grandmother kept my grandfather away from my father, they would in fact not meet until my dad was in his late teens.
My grandmother and my dad also had to care for my great-grandmother when she was ill and dying from some kind of cancer, and from my dad said, it was not pretty. Having to do that, in her home, while raising her son and working in a shoe factory in town could NOT have been easy on her.
Grandma lived through the Great Depression. She showed me ration books from WWII she still had, and told me never to trust a bank, they were all crooks. When we sold her home we found over $1000 in bills $20 and under stuffed under her mattress. We had no idea how long they had been there, but some of the bills dated from the 1960s (we sold the house in the last 80s).
From my earlier memory, she had a man living in the house with her, Arthur. I never really saw them as husband and wife, since they weren't. As a kid I always saw him as a boarder, since he had his own bedroom. But he too was an alcoholic, and that wasn't good for her. I never saw my grandmother drink alcohol, but I know she did in the past, because I remember hearing stories of dad, as a kid, doing his homework in a local bar or pub in the back booth while grandma was sitting at the bar drinking and having a good time.
I have no specific knowledge of Arthur being abusive, but somehow, even as I kid, I always thought grandma was very meek and subservient towards him, exceptionally so. So there might have been. Then Arthur got hit with cancer, had a colostomy bag for a while, went into the V.A. hospital in DC, and died. I vividly remember all this happening.
My grandmother was always a worried, she stressed over everything, anything, and nothing at all. Dad was too, but to a much lesser extent. But she also apparently suffereed from extreme depression. I dont know the circumstances behind it, but I know in the 60's grandma was committed to a local insane asylum, as they called them back then. And as was the practice at the time, was given electroshock therapy. Several times. Mom said she was never the same person after that. I obviously never knew her before that.
After Arthur's death in the mid to late 80's, Grandma lived alone, still in the house her father had built, until her Alzheimer's symptoms got too bad. We got a call at 3 in the morning one time during a cold streak in February that Grandmas was outside, in just her nightgown and no shoes, in the snow and cold, banging on neighbors' doors demanding to be let back in. After that incident, we moved her into our home for a few months until we could get her into the local old folks home.
I think it was 1989 when we got her in there. My parents visited her every Sunday afternoon. I visited less so, but stopped going altogether one Sunday after seeing her in a wheelchair, with a tray strapped across it, leaning forward onto it, her hair disheveled, her teeth not in, chattering away making non-sensical sounds to herself and drooling onto her nightgown. I just couldn't see her like that anymore.
She died in February of 1995. She was 82 years old.
As I said, she did not have an easy life. But what I remember of my Grandma is going out to her house every Sunday, sitting at her old wooden dining room table (which is currently MY dining room table), sitting on her old rocker (which is currently in my bedroom), next to that huge floor model radio of old, with the clock atop it that chimed every 15 minutes (it's on top of a set of shelves in my dining room, but I keep it unplugged, the chimes are too loud and too often), read a book, or talking to us while I colored or drew on a pad of paper she always had there. And she and I would both eat Saltine crackers together while drinking some Pepsi. She was short, stout, dark complected, with a small pointy nose, and for some reason, I think greasy skin.
But her laugh, it was loud, boisterous and contagious. And when I was young, I remember her laughing a lot, not so much as I got older.
As I said, she didn't have an easy life, but she did raise my dad, who wasn't a great father (because he had no male role model), but was a decent man with a good heart who always provided for his family. And without her, I, of course, wouldn't be here without her.
So here's to Grandma. Happy 100th Birthday!
POLT
