Waffles with Grandma Leora

When my sister and I were little, several summers during the 1950s, we farm girls spent a week with Grandma Leora Wilson in Guthrie Center. Grandma would have been in her sixties.

Great Grandmother Goff, Leora’s mother, was still living then, maybe visiting her Omaha sons and their families because Gloria and I both remember sleeping in Great Grandmother’s room.

The house at 505 North 4th Street had only two bedrooms. There was also a bed in the open basement, but we children never slept down there.

One year when Mom and Dad came after us, I decided I wanted to stay another week. Oh, I wish Grandma had kept a diary in those days because I don’t remember how she kept me busy. I was crocheting by then, so I bet she helped me make a doily or other project. She had plenty of doilies and antimacassars in the living room.

Grandma never learned to drive so I suppose we walked downtown for her many errands. We probably visited Blanche Fell next door, or Lena Rumelhart, whose name was fun to say, the way it rolled around in my mouth.

I do know that one morning Grandma made me a waffle, all of my own. Mom made waffles at home in a big square waffle iron. They broke into four smaller ones. But Grandma’s waffle baker was round. The delicacy just fit my plate and I got to eat the whole thing. Not only that, but her syrup was in the cutest Log Cabin tin. Even better, I used a small red-handled fork to eat it with. Talk about feeling special!

I still have those little red-handled utensils, two forks and two spoons.

I sat on this end of that little table at the left. The round plaque above the refrigerator, has fruit on it. On the back: “Happy Birthday, Mom! from Warren, Doris, & Joy,” evidently for Grandma Leora’s 1945 birthday. Yes, I still have that as well.On the back: “Happy Birthday, Mom! from Warren, Doris, & Joy,” evidently for Grandma Leora’s 1945 birthday, since my sister hadn’t been born yet.

Do you have memories from childhood, one on one, with one of your grandparents?