Today marks the 1-year anniversary of my grandma's death, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to write about her. I'll intersperse some of her own words found in her journals. Grandma was born in 1918 and grew up in Manistee during the Great Depression. Her dad was a jeweler and the family struggled to make ends meet.
After high school, she moved to Detroit and later met Herbie.
When Herbie asked her to marry him, she made him promise that he would allow her to finish college after they were married. This was, of course, quite unusual for women at that time. He agreed and they eloped to New Orleans in 1941. Based on her own childhood, she was not expecting much out of marriage. But she was pleasantly surprised to have found herself married to a very decent man.
"Believe me, it helps to choose a husband who is mature, not macho, and fair-minded. It helps a lot if he is genuinely in love with the real you. That you haven’t been sugar-coating your courtship. That he knows exactly what to expect from marriage -- and vice-versa."
She graduated from Wayne State with a degree in psychology after the birth of her children. Herbie became a successful businessman in the trucking industry.
"I knew he was ambitious. He kept saying he wanted to be “successful” for me. I told him - I tried very very hard to make it clear that I loved him exactly as he was. I didn’t crave money. In fact, thrift was one of my strongest characteristics. As a Norwegian Lutheran I had been brought up to believe thrift and morality were synonymous."
They were very active in the Detroit community and had full social lives. At the same time, she was the ideal 50's housewife. Her family was featured in McCall's magazine as the 1959 All-American family of the year.
“A chance phrase said in my presence when I was a only a child was the slogan I lived by as a wife....If you want your husband to come home, then home has to be the pleasantest place to be...This may seem naive on my part, but it was tremendously important to me."
I honestly have no idea how she did it all, but I know that she worked very hard.
"It’s quite a shock to learn as a young - and perhaps self-centered wife - that suddenly you’re tired tired tired. Your privacy is gone. Endless diapers, a hobby you might not have chosen. Endless sterilizing. And twenty-four hour duty."
My grandma had always loved Lake Michigan, and spent childhood summer days hiking to the Lake, picnicking under her favorite basswood tree, and swimming. In 1960, my grandparents purchased that very property and built a summer cottage. The basswood tree still stands. Since 1977, grandma lived there year-round, despite the fact that only a small part of the home was heated.
"[I'm thankful] that I am here and that I don’t have to leave for anywhere. Florida? travel?... No. My cup runneth over."
Herbie died of lung cancer in 1965, so I never met him, but grandma, widowed at age 45, preserved his memory for the rest of her life, remembering his birthday and anniversary each year.
"A truism, odd as it seems, is that the happiest wife will be the happiest widow because in marriage or in widowhood the one person you live with forever and ever is yourself."
Financially, she lived off of the interest of his life insurance policy until her death, not a lot of money by today's standards, but, having grown up during the depression, she was very frugal.
"I'm thankful for the beauty of wealth – enough – not too much – but all my needs are met. No wealth is greater. Yes. Thank you for material things. For use and comfort. Not Status. Enough always."
She loved reading, swimming in the lake, and apparently writing, although I didn't know how prolific she was until after she died. Her reading was mostly non-fiction, and mostly about politics. Environmental issues were most important to her. For this reason, she often sided with the democrats, and subscribed, among many publications, to a periodical called "The Liberal Opinion".
"I never feel my time is wasted when I’m alone. Is that strange? No. I do have excitement in sharing ideas and opinions with my favorite magazines. I used to feel a friendship with the Saturday Review, but we’ve become strangers."
Her magazines were filled with her own notations. She would retrieve significant articles from various places around the house when related discussion arose. Wouldn't she have loved Google?
"Now my life is full of reward – the reward of reading – breaks during the day. What a rich privilege. So so grateful and gratifying. Ideas. Constant thoughts to share."
She was intelligent and thoughtful regarding politics. Once in her 80's, she informed my husband that she had read an article about immigration that morning and she had changed her opinion. I can't remember the details, but I remember being impressed that her opinion could be thoughtfully changed even after all those years.
She also joked that if you ever wanted to stop a conversation in its tracks, talk about religion or politics. Now I wish that we had spent more time on those subjects. I think she would have enjoyed it as well, and that we would have found much common ground.
One funny memory of grandma and her books occurred when I was in elementary school. Grandma babysat my siblings and me for a week while my parents vacationed. She decided that we should go to the park and play tennis, but because she couldn't remember the rules, she brought the "T" encyclopedia to the tennis court so that we could properly keep score.
Growing up, I spent many weeks at her cottage every summer with my mom, aunt, and siblings and cousins. It was quite the estrogen-filled place. I'm amazed to think that my grandma was cooking 3 meals a day for us. Perhaps because of how busy she must have been and how many little kids were underfoot, I didn't become very close to her until I was in my 20's.
Sometime in college or early marriage, I found that despite the fact that we hadn't shared much of our lives, we had very similar personalities. We shared a love of reading, swimming, nature, beauty, and staying up late. But my favorite discovery was that we found humor in the same places and could always make each other laugh. It was very special to arrive at that place in life and discover a kindred spirit who had been there all along. Reading her journals now, I find that our kindred spirits ran even deeper than I knew.
Her loss has meant many changes. In her quiet, contemplative life, she was the glue that held everything together for her children. And although I have the luxury of being one generation removed from the turmoil, her death brought loss on so many levels that it's difficult to sort out all my feelings. But do I know that I miss her.
"You bet I would love to have my husband right here bodily beside me, handling the million problems he always handled -- problems I’m stuck with amateurishly learning to cope.
But what every widow knows, spiritually he is right here beside me...No regrets. Just love. And although physically I’m a widow - I like and appreciate the friendship that still exists between us. The love that fills my life is the same as the love I feel for my children who are very much alive."
Love you, grandma!
~
The celebration was rounded out by the presence of my sister and her family who are preparing to move to Tanzania. My kids love their cousins and time with them always feels precious now.
But the other two look good enough to eat, I think!
