Second Attempt

Maternal Grandparents

Both of my maternal grandparents were born in Germany in the year of 1864. They were first cousins and rode in the baby carriage together.

My great-grandfather was a Master Carpenter. That meant he was entitled to wear the leather trousers of the Carpenters’ Guild, draw blue prints, and do all the carpentry work on a house. He passed this knowledge down to his son. I do not have the date they immigrated, but my grandfather and grandmother did correspond when possible.

I've left out the trauma suffered by my grandmother as a child and as a teen in respect for the rest of the family. Later Grandfather paid for my Grandmother’s passage to this country. She had a three-year-old daughter and wore Widow’s Weeds and a gold ring with a black mark on it. No, she had not been married or widowed.

She went to work in this country and the child was left in the care of my Great-grandmother. She infected the child with tuberculosis. Grandmother looked out the window of the room she was cleaning and saw her child walking in the snow coming toward her. Grandmother collapsed on the stairs. This is where they found her when my Grandfather arrived with the sad news. He took her home with him, paid for the funeral and grave plot and planted a sapling at the head of the grave. He and grandmother were married shortly afterward.

I’ll save the much longer history for another time. My Mother was the middle child of their marriage. She was independent enough to leave home and attend nursing school. That is where she met my father. He was there with his father who they said had lung problems, a dangerous condition in 1918.

My father’s home was two hundred miles from the town where Mama had lived. My grandparents did visit the farm periodically, but that was before I was born. They visited once when I was a baby. We rarely traveled the two hundred miles. Mother told me that Grandfather loved me, and called me “fiddlesticks” for the finger games he would play with me. Mama did take my youngest brother and I that distance when Grandfather was dying.

On his deathbed, Grandfather insisted on seeing the baby. My youngest brother was the only one still considered a baby and he was taken into the bedroom.

“No, no, the baby,” my grandfather insisted.

Next they took in my youngest cousin who was eighteen months older than I on the theory this was the baby of the household. Once again, the same result. My other cousin was led into his room and Grandpa insisted of seeing, “the baby.”

I was thirteen months old at the time, so Mama carried me into him (I was walking at the age, but not rapidly). Grandfather beamed and held out his arms. Did he know I was going to marry a carpenter? I've always wondered.

He died that month and was buried in the same plot he and his father had purchased so long ago. Mama always insisted that a storm of thunder and lightening erupted that evening and took down the huge tree he planted as a sapling so long ago.

My Grandmother remained in my Aunt’s home. I really do not remember her as a healthy woman interacting with the family. I had to rely on the tales my older brothers would relate such as Grandmother claiming she was so blind she couldn't see them, yet could look across the street and call their dog home.

When Grandmother became ill, my Aunt put out a call for help to my Mother. This was the norm. Mama was the nurse of the family. She was known for her skills and for her ability to “make” people feel better. She took my younger brother and I to the big city to help my Aunt. This was in the fall of 1944 and World War II was still raging. Grandmother was so ill that children were not allowed into the room. By this time, Grandmother was almost blind and could not recognize or remember who the children were. It was too upsetting for her.

There was one good development in that visit. My youngest brother and I were able to attend the same parochial school as my cousin. They expected us to read from real books. I was overjoyed! I hated the Dick and Jane series and didn't know how to tell my teacher at the school I attended that I was reading my brothers’ books at home.

Our sojourn was cut short as my youngest brother became ill after two months. The doctors told Mama that he could not tolerate the water and that she must take him home. We stayed long enough for them to transfer Grandmother to a nursing home. That is what a care facility was called back then. My Aunt was not strong enough to care for Grandmother by herself as her husband, a railroad man, was gone most of the week.

Grandmother died the next spring. I've always regretted never knowing that side of my family.