Yesterday, my thoughts travelled to memories of my maternal grandmother. I seem to think about her more on September 13th as it was her birthday. Grandma isn’t alive, if she was, she’d have turned 121, having been born in 1896. She died in November 1995 during her 100th year.
This isn’t a picture of grandma, it’s a picture that reminds me of her personality. If you had met her, you would have met a very quiet seemingly shy lady who rarely spoke around strangers.
That was not her temperament around her family. She was quiet and somewhat reserved until something caught her notice and then we’d see the mischief maker she could be and it would bring smiles to our faces.
Grandma was born in Nottingham, England and brought to Canada as a child. She grew up in Toronto and spent much of her adult life there other than a period of time after the family was grown up when my grandparents owned a piece of land not far from where I currently live.
Many of her attitudes to life and people were shaped by not only culture but by the events of the 20th century that she lived through and that touched her life.
While she came to Canada before either war, there were family still there who lived through the blitzkrieg of WW2. Her ideas on catholicism were shaped by her late 19th century British culture. She held a strong dislike for Germans and catholics, well she didn’t really trust them. Rarely spoken of, but surfaced at times.
The Memories
I’m going to share some of the funny stories I remember about her.
Christmas was always a hoot around Grandma. Most of the time us kids were better about leaving the gifts alone than grandma was, she would ‘sneak’ to the tree when she thought no one was noticing and would examine the gifts trying to figure out what they were. This look of childlike anticipation would cross her face and we couldn’t help but smile.
The “Catholic” Girlfriend
When my eldest brother was going with his eventual wife, she was invited to dinner when grandma was visiting. For some reason, my mother decided to tell grandma that she was a catholic.
So, here we are seated at dinner, my grandma to my left on one side of the table, the girlfriend seated beside my brother on the other side of the table. We were having spaghetti which is not necessarily the easiest meal for someone just meeting the boyfriend’s family.
All through the dinner, I could see out of the corner of one eye, grandma staring at the girlfriend and out of the other I was trying to discretely watch the girlfriend’s reaction which was becoming increasingly nervous as she struggled to eat the spaghetti with dignity.
As dinner drew to a close and dessert was about to be served my grandmother leaned over to my mother and whispered “she doesn’t look catholic”.
Now, you need to know, grandma by then was a bit hard of hearing, so her whispers were actually louder than she thought.
The table erupted with laughter as my brother’s girlfriend went beet red and stuttered.. “I don’t even go to any church! Why did you think I was catholic?!”
My mother suddenly had to go to the kitchen to get dessert.
The Gambling Granny
Grandma often enjoyed playing games with the family when she visited. She was game to try just about any game that the whole family could take part in. So, we taught her the gambling with dice game we played.
The game is played with three dice. You roll as often as you want but you must get either a one, a five or three of a kind on each roll or you lose your accumulated score for that turn. If you get three of a kind, you must roll again and get a one or a five.
The game ends when a person reaches the agreed upon total score exactly. So, if you’re fifty away and get one hundred, you wait until the next turn to try again.
Here we are, gathered around the dining room table, grandma sitting quietly with her evening tea by her hand. The first few times the dice go around the table she’s pretty quiet. She’s getting her head around the game.
The score starts to get close and grandma is close but a couple of us are ahead of her. Appears grandma had a competitive streak.
Her shaking the dice became a tad more enthusiastic. She tried blowing on the dice before throwing them. Then she threw them a tad harder, right off the table at times.
In frustration at the dice not giving her the scores she wanted to move ahead of the leading scores we suddenly heard, “You sons of Bs!!”.
Eyebrows went up around the table and laughter broke out. Mild mannered grandma had almost cussed in a loud voice. It was shocking from this sweet little lady who rarely raised her voice.
Realizing what she had said she laughed and covered her mouth in surprise. We laughed some more.
Larcenous Granny
Grandma loved her plants. Grandpa had a greenhouse to grow his plants when they lived in the country. So, she always enjoyed when mom would visit a nursery in the spring to buy plants for her gardens.
But, grandma was getting older and plant nurseries are not smooth floors to walk on. This day we visited mom asked me to stay with grandma to make sure she was okay. So, I walked through with her, pausing as she paused to look at plants.
Not really being into plants, I was rather bored so, while I stopped patiently with grandma, I often looked around looking for something to catch my interest.
Little did I know, when I was looking away, my grandmother was up to no good.
We returned to the car and I opened the door for grandma to get in. As she stepped up to the door she took her hand out of her pocket and handed me a handful of plant leaves, asking me to hold them for her.
My jaw dropped. I asked her where she got them. With not even a flicker she told me they had fallen on the ground.
I was gobsmacked. I may have been looking around, but had grandma in the corner of my eye. Had she bent over, I’d have caught the movement and checked she wasn’t falling.
My larcenous granny had nipped leaves off of plants so she could start new plants without buying seedlings. She had lived through the depression, you never wasted money.
And Finally “She’ll Have It Easier Than Me”
There are many stories I could share about grandma but I’m going to end on a sort of serious but how times change note.
My mother phoned me one morning, telling me she needed to see me right away. We needed to have a private talk. She informed me that one of my sisters was pregnant and not married.
For my mother this was a big deal, it wasn’t to me. There were a lot of single mothers around in those days. What she wanted was me to go into grandma’s with her because she dreaded breaking the news to her.
So, off we went to Toronto. We spent the afternoon visiting with her, mother obviously avoiding telling her the news. Finally, as rush hour was approaching, I informed mother that she either needed to say what she came to say or we were taking grandma out for dinner cause I wasn’t driving in rush hour traffic.
With some himming and hawing, she finally blurted out that my sister was pregnant and not married. Grandma sat quietly for a few moments, studying her toes for all I could see before quietly stating, “Well, she’ll have it easier than me.”
As the words registered, I cracked up laughing. Looking at the stunned looks on both of their faces I finally gained enough control to explain my laughter. Looking at my mother I said, “You didn’t want to come here to tell grandma and she’s been there, done that and got the T-shirt.”
Being born in 1896, grandma was a young woman during WW1. She was also a pregnant woman having found out she was pregnant after my grandfather had gone off to war. For some reason, she didn’t tell him while he was away.
Her father however, had kicked her out of the house for the shame she brought on the family. When my grandfather returned to Canada he found her in a home for unwed mothers and insisted on them being married.
They kept the fact my aunt was older than their marriage from their children. It just wasn’t talked about. The easiest way to do that was to not share how long they had been married.
The thing is, children grow up and eventually they not only ask questions but they seek their own answers. My aunt visited city hall to get a copy of the grandparents marriage certificate and the story was out there.
I remember my mother telling me the story as if it was some deep dark family secret. I remember shrugging it off, to me it wasn’t a big deal.
Grandma not only wasn’t upset about have a grandchild who was a single parent, she embraced her great-granddaughter with love. The two of them adored each other.
And, as you can tell, I adored grandma. Happy 121st to your spirit that lives on.
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