“You’re just like your grandmother,” Roderick used to say to me when I was a child. And considering how much Roderick hated my grandmother, I figured fairly early on this was not intended as a compliment.
My grandmother lived with us from time to time, periods that were guaranteed to be colourful and explosive. For my father and my grandmother hated one another with an intensity rarely rivalled in the annals of son-in-law/ mother-in-law relations. She loathed him from the day she laid eyes on him, considering him all wrong for Polly (and she probably had a point about that). I was told she wailed and sobbed right through their wedding, and refused to wave them off on their honeymoon.
Every year or so some north wind would blow her in from the United Kingdom, and there she’d be on the doorstep, wearing that fur coat she wore whatever the weather, and one of those old fashioned fancy hats with lace and bows. Beside her there’d be one of those massive old-world travelling trunks.
She’d take up residence in the spare bedroom, immediately declare herself unwell, and there she’d take to her bed for three months, arising only once or twice a day to have a row with Roderick.
We children loved her dramatic arrivals, because that trunk was always a treasure trove of toys, books and sweets, and besides, we liked our generous grandmother. Not so Roderick: her arrival would throw him into the foullest mood imaginable. and life in the vicarage, never harmonious at the best of times, would go steadily down hill thereafter. Eventually there’d be that great flaming cataclysmic row that had started building the day she arrived and Roderick would order her to pack her trunk and leave. Then we’d all have to go down to the harbour where she’d be put on on the next boat back to the United Kingdom.
The months between these dramatic arrivals and departures consisted of a series of rows, slammed doors, shouting matches, and references to ‘that dreadful man’ or ‘that dreadful woman.’ My grandmother considered my father a very poor example of a clergyman and would regularly threaten to expose him to the powers-that-be. “I shall write to the Bishop, Mr Whibley,” she’d say, “about the whiskey you consume secretly in your study.”
“Go ahead, Mrs James,” he’d shout back before storming from the room. “You old hypochondriac. There’s bugger all wrong with you.” Then he’d slam the lounge door behind him, retire to his study, slam that door for good measure, and presumably consume some more whiskey.
Calling him Mr Whibley was a calculated insult, of course, because his official title was Reverend and not Mister. In effect she was defrocking him years before the church got round to it. In retaliation he called her Mrs James to her face, and ‘that bloody woman’ behind her back.
Poor Polly was caught in the middle of all this, reluctantly taking upon herself the role of peacekeeper. But it was hopeless, of course. It would have been easier to make peace between two small warring middle eastern nations than between those two.
She was ultimately a a tragic figure though, was Hannah, for she died all alone in an old folk’s home in the UK. That unhappy state of affairs came about because in her latter years she succumbed to a form of senile dementia that took a violent turn. Her fiery temper, never really under control even when she still had all her marbles, became completely unmanageable once she’d lost them.
And while Polly tried to have her live with us a few times towards the end of her life, this proved impossible. My grandmother was now downright dangerous. I have an clear memory of a vase of flowers sent flying at my head, narrowly missing me and smashing the window behind. And I have an even clearer and more disturbing image of the carving knife she pulled on Polly in a moment of true madness. After that it was the old folk’s home for Hannah, and from there there was no escape.
She did try and escape once. She ran away and turned up at the gates of the RAF barracks where my oldest brother was serving as a young recruit, dressed to kill in her fur coat, fancy hat, and accompanied by her massive trunk.
“I’ve come to live with my grandson,” she informed the startled sentry. “Go and fetch him for me.”
“I’ve come to live with you,” she informed my horrified brother, summoned to the gate to deal with this truly unprecedented problem.
The story is quite funny in the retelling, but really it isn’t. I only realize that now. Now that I am 52, I realize with a great pang of sadness what a terrible way it was to die, all alone, separated from her family, at the mercy of strangers.
Anyway DB, remembering my grandmother has now made me laugh and cry, so I shall hand over to you now, and your memories of your grandparents.
M,
Since we have decided to blog about our grandmothers this week, I will present to you Vera Langdon and Emma Cooper, in a bit that I will call: "The Tale of Two Grandmothers." But first, a disclaimer: My memories are often vivid in the way they affected me emotionally while I experienced them, but silly little things like facts and accuracy elude me at times (it was nearly five decades ago). Some of my family members occasionally read my blog, so I ask for forgiveness and grace if I don't get everything right.
Both of my grandmothers went out of my life when we moved to California at the age of sixteen. My father's mother, Emma Cooper, left this world soon after. Sadly, I never knew her that well. Our visits to her house were few and infrequent. When we lived in Illinois, she lived in the city of Peoria, which was an hour away. This was an ungodly amount of driving in my parents’ minds. With such an exhausting drive ahead of us, we would only visit her on the weekends, when the weather was perfect, and the planets were aligned just so. (I make light of this now, having lived in California, where people will drive over an hour just to get a cup of coffee and a scone.)
My clearest memories of Grandma Cooper came early in life, before we moved to 'the farm' and all the bad influences that followed. I'm sure my parents continued to visit her, but I was probably too stoned or self-absorbed to remember.
Emma Cooper was a boisterous woman with a hardy laugh and a tenacious grip on life, who always insisted on being the center of attention. She had a frail, weathered look about her, but you could never accuse her of being weak. She raised five children mostly on her own during the great American depression. Her three husbands all met untimely deaths and left her holding the bag (full of hungry kids). My father and his brother both spent time in orphanages because she was too poor to feed them. I know this contributed to the harshness of my father, and has helped me to forgive his actions.
One thing I will never forget is meal time with Grandma Cooper. We would sit around a large table that was set with her best china. There would be a table cloth, cloth napkins, candles, matching silverware and crystal stemware. This was strange enough, coming from a family that ate mostly off of paper-plates, but what I remember most was what happened after the meal was finished. Grandma would gather all of the bones (typically chicken or pork) onto her plate and then proceed to pick them clean for the next half-hour. She'd extract every hint of fat or gristle and gobble it down, leaving a pile of bones that looked as though they had set out in the sun for a week. It wasn't that she had experienced such lack of food during the depression that she couldn't throw anything away, but it was the because of the depression that she developed a love for fat and gristle.
Vera Langdon was the antithesis of Emma Cooper. Quiet and reserved, my mom's mom preferred to blend into the background at family gatherings. She lived with my grandfather, Ed, only a few miles from my house (pre-farm days), which meant that we would visit often. A large portion of the Langdon clan lived in Galesburg in those days and we often gathered at Grandma and Grandpa's house for dinner. While everyone else sat and ate at the well-groomed table, (table cloth and napkins - the china was reserved for Christmas and Easter) Grandma Langdon's seat was mostly vacant. Calls for Vera to "please sit down and eat some food" would go unheeded, as she scurried about making sure the gravy boat was full and that we all had enough to drink in our cups. Her servant's heart kept her active long after my Grandfather's heart attack took him from her, (which nearly killed her too - they were very much in love) as she worked as a waitress well beyond retirement age. She too has gone on to be with her beloved Ed. We miss you greatly, Grandma Vera.
A memory that brings a smile to my face even to this day is one that was often repeated when I would go over their house by myself in the middle of the day. We always entered their house by the side door, which put you smack-dab in the middle of Grandma's favorite abode: the kitchen. She would always greet me the same way: "Hi Donnie, are you hungry?" On the rare occasion that I wasn't, she would not accept "no" as an answer. The conversation would go something like this:
"Are you sure? I've got a slice of apple pie in the refrigerator just waiting to be eaten."
"No, Grandma. I had a seven course meal before I got here and ate until I threw-up."
"I have cookies!"
"I had three desserts. I couldn't eat another bite."
"We have fruit too, if you want that. Or I could fix you a sandwich."
"Really, Grandma, I'm fine. Thanks for offering, but I'll have to pass today."
"It's really no bother. Let me fix you a sandwich. We have chips too. Would you like chocolate chip or oatmeal cookies with that?"
"Okay, Grandma, you win. I'll take an apple."
"Oh, honey, an apple's not enough food for a growing boy. Let me fix you a sandwich too."
"Chocolate chip..."
The only way that Grandma Langdon was like Grandma Cooper was her obsession to keep everything in pristine condition. Thick plastic sheets ran the length of the hallways and the stairwells in their home. Fortunately, this didn't extend to the furniture (thank God we didn't have to sit on plastic). But you better not think about bouncing, putting your feet up, or rough-housing on the couch. An old-school ass-whooping would be served for dessert. (Actually, neither of my grandmothers ever touched a hair on my head; they didn't have to. My father would offer-up his services long before it got to that.)
I've often thought about how that generation seemed to protect and take-care of 'stuff' a little better than the three that have followed. I suppose it was because it took a great deal of hard work to acquire it. If it took an entire year's wages to get something as extravagant as 'new carpeting', I too might think about laying down plastic sheeting in the high traffic areas.
A note to our regular readers: We will do a Christmas blog sometime next week (how's that for non-committal!) and then we will take a week off before returning for the second week of 2015.
My grandmother lived with us from time to time, periods that were guaranteed to be colourful and explosive. For my father and my grandmother hated one another with an intensity rarely rivalled in the annals of son-in-law/ mother-in-law relations. She loathed him from the day she laid eyes on him, considering him all wrong for Polly (and she probably had a point about that). I was told she wailed and sobbed right through their wedding, and refused to wave them off on their honeymoon.
Every year or so some north wind would blow her in from the United Kingdom, and there she’d be on the doorstep, wearing that fur coat she wore whatever the weather, and one of those old fashioned fancy hats with lace and bows. Beside her there’d be one of those massive old-world travelling trunks.
She’d take up residence in the spare bedroom, immediately declare herself unwell, and there she’d take to her bed for three months, arising only once or twice a day to have a row with Roderick.
We children loved her dramatic arrivals, because that trunk was always a treasure trove of toys, books and sweets, and besides, we liked our generous grandmother. Not so Roderick: her arrival would throw him into the foullest mood imaginable. and life in the vicarage, never harmonious at the best of times, would go steadily down hill thereafter. Eventually there’d be that great flaming cataclysmic row that had started building the day she arrived and Roderick would order her to pack her trunk and leave. Then we’d all have to go down to the harbour where she’d be put on on the next boat back to the United Kingdom.
The months between these dramatic arrivals and departures consisted of a series of rows, slammed doors, shouting matches, and references to ‘that dreadful man’ or ‘that dreadful woman.’ My grandmother considered my father a very poor example of a clergyman and would regularly threaten to expose him to the powers-that-be. “I shall write to the Bishop, Mr Whibley,” she’d say, “about the whiskey you consume secretly in your study.”
“Go ahead, Mrs James,” he’d shout back before storming from the room. “You old hypochondriac. There’s bugger all wrong with you.” Then he’d slam the lounge door behind him, retire to his study, slam that door for good measure, and presumably consume some more whiskey.
Calling him Mr Whibley was a calculated insult, of course, because his official title was Reverend and not Mister. In effect she was defrocking him years before the church got round to it. In retaliation he called her Mrs James to her face, and ‘that bloody woman’ behind her back.
Poor Polly was caught in the middle of all this, reluctantly taking upon herself the role of peacekeeper. But it was hopeless, of course. It would have been easier to make peace between two small warring middle eastern nations than between those two.
She was ultimately a a tragic figure though, was Hannah, for she died all alone in an old folk’s home in the UK. That unhappy state of affairs came about because in her latter years she succumbed to a form of senile dementia that took a violent turn. Her fiery temper, never really under control even when she still had all her marbles, became completely unmanageable once she’d lost them.
And while Polly tried to have her live with us a few times towards the end of her life, this proved impossible. My grandmother was now downright dangerous. I have an clear memory of a vase of flowers sent flying at my head, narrowly missing me and smashing the window behind. And I have an even clearer and more disturbing image of the carving knife she pulled on Polly in a moment of true madness. After that it was the old folk’s home for Hannah, and from there there was no escape.
She did try and escape once. She ran away and turned up at the gates of the RAF barracks where my oldest brother was serving as a young recruit, dressed to kill in her fur coat, fancy hat, and accompanied by her massive trunk.
“I’ve come to live with my grandson,” she informed the startled sentry. “Go and fetch him for me.”
“I’ve come to live with you,” she informed my horrified brother, summoned to the gate to deal with this truly unprecedented problem.
The story is quite funny in the retelling, but really it isn’t. I only realize that now. Now that I am 52, I realize with a great pang of sadness what a terrible way it was to die, all alone, separated from her family, at the mercy of strangers.
Anyway DB, remembering my grandmother has now made me laugh and cry, so I shall hand over to you now, and your memories of your grandparents.
M,
Since we have decided to blog about our grandmothers this week, I will present to you Vera Langdon and Emma Cooper, in a bit that I will call: "The Tale of Two Grandmothers." But first, a disclaimer: My memories are often vivid in the way they affected me emotionally while I experienced them, but silly little things like facts and accuracy elude me at times (it was nearly five decades ago). Some of my family members occasionally read my blog, so I ask for forgiveness and grace if I don't get everything right.
Both of my grandmothers went out of my life when we moved to California at the age of sixteen. My father's mother, Emma Cooper, left this world soon after. Sadly, I never knew her that well. Our visits to her house were few and infrequent. When we lived in Illinois, she lived in the city of Peoria, which was an hour away. This was an ungodly amount of driving in my parents’ minds. With such an exhausting drive ahead of us, we would only visit her on the weekends, when the weather was perfect, and the planets were aligned just so. (I make light of this now, having lived in California, where people will drive over an hour just to get a cup of coffee and a scone.)
My clearest memories of Grandma Cooper came early in life, before we moved to 'the farm' and all the bad influences that followed. I'm sure my parents continued to visit her, but I was probably too stoned or self-absorbed to remember.
Emma Cooper was a boisterous woman with a hardy laugh and a tenacious grip on life, who always insisted on being the center of attention. She had a frail, weathered look about her, but you could never accuse her of being weak. She raised five children mostly on her own during the great American depression. Her three husbands all met untimely deaths and left her holding the bag (full of hungry kids). My father and his brother both spent time in orphanages because she was too poor to feed them. I know this contributed to the harshness of my father, and has helped me to forgive his actions.
One thing I will never forget is meal time with Grandma Cooper. We would sit around a large table that was set with her best china. There would be a table cloth, cloth napkins, candles, matching silverware and crystal stemware. This was strange enough, coming from a family that ate mostly off of paper-plates, but what I remember most was what happened after the meal was finished. Grandma would gather all of the bones (typically chicken or pork) onto her plate and then proceed to pick them clean for the next half-hour. She'd extract every hint of fat or gristle and gobble it down, leaving a pile of bones that looked as though they had set out in the sun for a week. It wasn't that she had experienced such lack of food during the depression that she couldn't throw anything away, but it was the because of the depression that she developed a love for fat and gristle.
Vera Langdon was the antithesis of Emma Cooper. Quiet and reserved, my mom's mom preferred to blend into the background at family gatherings. She lived with my grandfather, Ed, only a few miles from my house (pre-farm days), which meant that we would visit often. A large portion of the Langdon clan lived in Galesburg in those days and we often gathered at Grandma and Grandpa's house for dinner. While everyone else sat and ate at the well-groomed table, (table cloth and napkins - the china was reserved for Christmas and Easter) Grandma Langdon's seat was mostly vacant. Calls for Vera to "please sit down and eat some food" would go unheeded, as she scurried about making sure the gravy boat was full and that we all had enough to drink in our cups. Her servant's heart kept her active long after my Grandfather's heart attack took him from her, (which nearly killed her too - they were very much in love) as she worked as a waitress well beyond retirement age. She too has gone on to be with her beloved Ed. We miss you greatly, Grandma Vera.
A memory that brings a smile to my face even to this day is one that was often repeated when I would go over their house by myself in the middle of the day. We always entered their house by the side door, which put you smack-dab in the middle of Grandma's favorite abode: the kitchen. She would always greet me the same way: "Hi Donnie, are you hungry?" On the rare occasion that I wasn't, she would not accept "no" as an answer. The conversation would go something like this:
"Are you sure? I've got a slice of apple pie in the refrigerator just waiting to be eaten."
"No, Grandma. I had a seven course meal before I got here and ate until I threw-up."
"I have cookies!"
"I had three desserts. I couldn't eat another bite."
"We have fruit too, if you want that. Or I could fix you a sandwich."
"Really, Grandma, I'm fine. Thanks for offering, but I'll have to pass today."
"It's really no bother. Let me fix you a sandwich. We have chips too. Would you like chocolate chip or oatmeal cookies with that?"
"Okay, Grandma, you win. I'll take an apple."
"Oh, honey, an apple's not enough food for a growing boy. Let me fix you a sandwich too."
"Chocolate chip..."
The only way that Grandma Langdon was like Grandma Cooper was her obsession to keep everything in pristine condition. Thick plastic sheets ran the length of the hallways and the stairwells in their home. Fortunately, this didn't extend to the furniture (thank God we didn't have to sit on plastic). But you better not think about bouncing, putting your feet up, or rough-housing on the couch. An old-school ass-whooping would be served for dessert. (Actually, neither of my grandmothers ever touched a hair on my head; they didn't have to. My father would offer-up his services long before it got to that.)
I've often thought about how that generation seemed to protect and take-care of 'stuff' a little better than the three that have followed. I suppose it was because it took a great deal of hard work to acquire it. If it took an entire year's wages to get something as extravagant as 'new carpeting', I too might think about laying down plastic sheeting in the high traffic areas.
A note to our regular readers: We will do a Christmas blog sometime next week (how's that for non-committal!) and then we will take a week off before returning for the second week of 2015.