Lyn’s Grandmother-Dee Dee
Today is my day to share another family story. My mother’s mother Louise who was called Dee Dee (a popular nickname in my family) passed away when I was in first grade. I remember my mom coming to my classroom to get me at Glen Flora School in Waukegan IL, sad image in my mind. My main memory of my grandma was that often when I would visit her house, she would say, “Look in the oven. There’s something for you.” I would peer inside and there would be a miniature apple pie! Just for me.
My grandmother lived in a time when a woman had little control over how many children she had. She gave birth to my eldest aunt Alyce in 1912 and then didn’t have any more children for nine years after she had an operation to remove benign fibroid tumors. Then she started having a baby every other year until she was 43. So she had a total of 7 live children and one late miscarriage. The miscarriage occurred after she mixed cement BY HAND with her husband to put the sidewalks in around their house at the corner of Washington Park and Lloyd. So there was a four year gap between my mother Catherine and her sister Louise my aunt Dee Dee (I told you it was a popular nickname!)
My grandmother was tireless in her efforts to raise good children and be a good housewife in the bargain. And I honor her for this since she did it without hot running water, a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, convenience meals, pizza delivery (for those nights when she was too tired to cook) and any other modern convenience that we take for granted.
Life used to be more physically demanding and men and women used to literally work themselves into early graves. In spite of all her work, she never lost the zest for fun. When my mother was a child, every Halloween, my grandma would make their house a fun house for her and the neighborhood kids–bobbing for apples in the laundry tub on the back porch. Making popcorn balls at the kitchen table. The haunted house in the parlor. In the summers at the end of long hot days, she would pop popcorn till she filled the same laundry tub and then she would tell her children to go bring a friend. She often suggested they bring the poor “only” children like my unofficial aunt Audrey who lived behind my mom. The children would sit around the kitchen table, eating the laundry tub of popcorn and my grandmother’s home-brewed and bottled sarsaparilla.
I’ve attached a photo my dh snapped a few weeks ago of my grandparent’s house, which looks newly sided. My grandfather built the house himself. A carpenter was building his house a few blocks away and my grandfather would go to him and ask how to do something and then he’d go back and do. When he was all done, someone explained to him what a carpenter’s level was! So the house may be a bit off-kilter but it’s still standing!
And my memories of my grandmother though few are still fresh in my mind!