What My Grandma Taught Me

Some of the best times in my life were spent at my Grandma Irene’s house in NC. She was the quintessential grandmother with her short curly white hair and matronly figure, pantsuit or dress with stockings, and pumps with a 1-inch heel or Easy Spirit sneakers.


When I was seventeen, Grandma came to stay with us over the summer. She wanted to go walking at my high school’s track at six in the morning! So, I took her to walk in what felt to me like 90 degree weather. She wore a blouse, hose under her polyester pants, and those 1-inch pumps. While I sweated and complained and plodded along, Grandma walked—fast—and left me in the dust! In fact, she got up early to walk every morning until she was in her eighties. She was active all of her life. She was always bending over to prove she was still flexible enough to touch the floor and speed walking if we were walking too slowly in the mall.

Grandma always got up early in the morning to make breakfast, water her flowers, and tend to her garden. When I was little I loved getting to hold the hose to water her roses. I particularly remember her huge hydrangea bushes, which I called pom-pom bushes. To this day, hydrangeas are my favorite flower and seeing them reminds me of Grandma.
 

Grandma Irene was a fabulous cook. Having a serious sweet tooth, I seem to remember her strawberry preserves, pound cake, chocolate pie, pineapple upside down cake, and fruit cake the most. Actually, she was accomplished in many ways. She gardened, canned vegetables, sewed quilts from scrap fabric, crocheted afghans, crafted waste baskets out of recycled egg cartons, and made lace doilies, dolls, ceramic figures, and toilet paper covers.

Grandma Irene was fun to be around too. She loved to tell stories from her life. Sometimes I’d hear the same story so often that I’d tune it out, which was a mistake because, every now and then, Grandma would add some detail or tell a new story I’d never heard before. Besides telling stories, Grandma loved to tell jokes. No matter how many times I heard them, she was still able to trip me up! She liked to play dominos, rook, and rummy. Oh, yeah, and she was a cheat! I know because I was usually her partner. When she wasn’t scratching the backs of cards to mark them, she was winking at me or kicking me under the table to signal a play!

Caught Napping.  Again!

Grandma loved to be on the go. She was just as happy going on a ride out in the country as she was going on a trip out of town. She went with my family on many trips including once to a zoo where she rode an elephant when she was in her seventies! Even when she wasn’t feeling well, she would get dressed, put her ear bobs on, and she was ready to go. She’d always say, “I can feel bad out as good as I can at home.”

Grandma was a positive and happy person. She lived through two World Wars and numerous smaller ones; the Spanish Flu; the Great Depression; the advent of talkies, Technicolor, cordless phones, cell phones, and the internet; the sexual revolution; the deaths of her husband and daughter; and a double mastectomy. When I’d ask about farm life and living through the Great Depression, she’d always say, “We didn’t have much but we lived on a farm so we always had food to eat and a roof over our head.” Ask Grandma about her life and she would always say, “I’ve had a good life, a happy life”.


Grandma Irene passed away in 2003 at the age of 98. She was a great lady, a wonderful influence in my life, and an inspiration. I learned many things from her but I guess what I learned the most is to keep doing, learning, going, trying, believing, moving, enduring, appreciating, laughing, and loving!