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Grandparents and Immortality
My friend’s grandmother just died. She was well into her nineties. My friend is in her fifties. I admit to a tinge of jealousy. I never really had grandparents. To me, it seems a great luxury to have a grandparent well into one’s middle age.
By the time I was born, only two of my grandparents were still alive. My mother’s parents were in their forties when she was born. Her father died when she was fourteen, ten years before I was born. I suspect I would have liked him very much.
Mother has many stories about him. For example, she told me, usually my grandmother took the family car to go shopping while my grandfather took the bus to work and back. The bus driver knew my grandfather fairly well. One day, though, my grandmother took the bus. When she got on, the us driver asked her, “Why do you let your husband go around with a snake in his pocket?”
“Don’t be ridiculous!” she said. “He does no such thing.”
When she got home, she mentioned the encounter. “George, you don’t go around with a snake in your pocket, do you?”
He pulled his pet garter snake out of his pocket and said, “Do you mean this one?”
He was said to have been a very funny man. I would have loved to have known him.
My father’s mother passed before I was born, too. Her daughter-in-law, my mother, certainly loved her. She considered her a saint for everything she had done for her and for her young family. In some ways, my grandmother might have done too much for my father. He was more than a bit on the spoiled side. But I can see why she would have spoiled him.
My grandfather was a difficult person, and his mother was much more difficult still. My grandmother was a schoolteacher during the Depression, when my grandfather wasn’t working. Knowing that her first birth might be difficult, owing to her family history, she put money aside to have her baby in the hospital in the nearest city.
But when the time came, her mother-in-law — my great-grandmother — declared it a waste of money to go to the hospital, and insisted my grandmother have the baby at home. The birth was problematic: The doctor had to use forceps, and wound up piercing the baby’s brain. The child died three days later. So in her second pregnancy, my grandmother got her way and had her baby in a hospital. She could have no more children after that. My father was her only child.
When he was eight, he had polio. He made it through thanks to an iron lung and her iron will to ensure he would walk again, despite what the doctors said. Dad went on to join the army, and later had a career as a police officer, both requiring considerable physical ability. So if she spoiled her only child, who lived to adulthood, who could blame her? She was a loving mother, mother-in-law, and grandmother. She died a little more than a year before I was born. That left me with only two living grandparents at birth.
My paternal grandfather, as I mentioned, could be difficult. When my mother had a medical emergency and my father asked his father to watch us while he took her to the hospital, my grandfather’s reply was, “I raised my children.”
But he could be charming and entertaining when he wanted to be. After he retired early, for health reasons, he grew a beard, and entertained us by parting his beard in the middle and putting it into amusing configurations. I remember visiting them when I was three. They had a picture of my grandfather at the same age, one of those big oval photographs, maybe a foot by a foot-and-a-half. They all thought I looked just like him, and hoped my nose would be smaller when I grew up. That may have been the day I tried hiding under the kitchen table so I could stay behind and keep having fun there, but he pulled me out and gave me a good spanking.
I also remember visiting and having to be quiet because he was resting. He had had his first heart attack at thirty-seven; by the time he was nearing sixty, he was under orders to get lots of rest and not stress himself. I remember walking with him down the driveway to his garage. His whole yard was covered in roses and other flowers. The vegetable garden was in back of the garage. He died when I was six. Those are all the memories I have of him. He was only sixty years old.
I grew up in Illinois. My mother grew up in Georgia. I never really knew my maternal grandmother. We visited a few times. All I remember is a wheezy old woman who spoke in a deep Southern dialect. She was already in her forties when my mother was born. She had never enjoyed robust health, and as she got older, it was worse. Emphysema was one of her biggest complaints. Yet she was the grandparent who lived the longest into my life.
She too was a difficult person. But whenever my family could afford it, my mother would pack us up and we would go down to Georgia for vacation. My mother wanted to keep in touch with her family no matter how difficult they were. Still, seeing someone for only a few days every few years isn’t enough time really to get to know that person. So I envy my cousins who lived in the same city in Georgia and were able to see her more often.
She died just before I turned fourteen.
My brother is over fifty. He recently married a woman in her thirties, and they had a daughter last February. I suspect that she will know her grandmother on her father’s side. My mother is in good health and may be around for decades to come. But she probably won’t get to know her paternal grandfather. He’s over eighty and ailing; he has post-polio syndrome, and he’s smoked for more than sixty years. He may yet live longer than his grandfather, who made it to the age of 88, but barring some wild scientific breakthrough, I don’t expect him to see that child graduate from high school.
Still, medical knowledge is increasing and technology marches on. Some believe that the first person who will live to a thousand years has already been born. What will it be like for that person’s grandchildren, and their great-great-great-grandchildren, to have such a remote ancestor still living and in good health? I would have loved to have known some of my great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents. What will it be like for those we would consider to be nearly immortal? How many generations might they know?
So, for my friend whose grandmother died, yes, condolences on your loss. But look at what you had. You had a grandparent you loved and who loved you in return, and you had her for more than fifty years. Keep those memories. Hold them close to you always. They are something that many of us, maybe most of us, will never have. Even with your loss, you are wealthier in memories than some of us can ever be.
Published in General
Keeping Quilt, Pink and Say, or both of them? I can’t wait to get more of her books, they are so beautiful.
My grandparents all were born between 1877 and 1883 and had their children in their twenties. They all lived long lives. My parents had their children in their late twenties, so I knew all my grandparents.
My paternal grandmother Isabella, told me stories of going to balls in carriages with beaus who brought her corsages, and being the Belle of the Ball! My other grandmother, Elizabeth, shared my love of books and cats. She gave me a copy of Aristotle’s Ethics, along with many other books. I read many Victorian melodramas, thanks to her, and still remember crying over them. She also gave me my first ginger kitten.
My paternal grandfather, William, loved to recite poetry, and I can still see him standing up straight and delivering Dangerous Dan McGrew by Robert W. Service, and also The Cremation of Sam McGee. My other grandfather had been gassed in the First World War, but lived to be 71. Cut off short, my mother said, as a result of that gassing. He had a beautiful singing voice, in spite of the gassing.
My mother’s mother lived until 85. My father’s mother lived until 92. My mother’s father was cut off short at 71, as I’ve said, and my father’s father lived until 85. This is what had given my mother the idea that anyone who dies at 70, instead of having lived a good long life, has been deprived of lots more years.
That is sort of like my great-grandparents. Most of them lived well into their eighties. Then my grandparents died at 53, 60, 60, and a few weeks shy of 80. Go figure. I think the only great-grandparent who didn’t make his eighties was one who died from lead poisoning (AKA a bullet wound). But his father lived to be 85 and lived to see great-grandchildren, such as my father.
My father’s parents died when I was six, within three months of each other. As one of almost fifty grandchildren, I didn’t spend much one-on-one time with them and have only vague memories.
The only grandfather I’ve ever known and been close to is my maternal step-grandpa. He’s a lovely person with whom I have always adored spending time.
My maternal grandmother is an interesting and difficult person. There is a scene from the TV show “Friends” that reminds me of her. Phoebe is speaking of her deceased grandmother and says she is sure her grandmother is looking up at them and smiling. The others suggest she means looking down, to which Phoebe replies with something along the order of, “Oh no, she’s definitely in hell. My grandma was wonderful to me, but she was a terrible person.”
I am my grandma’s favorite, and I have many wonderful memories of her spending time with me, as opposed to my sister and brother who don’t, and they have a difficult relationship with her. (She calls my sister “cheeky” and has always refused to call my brother by his name because she didn’t like his father – my step-father. She has always called him “Scooter.”) It’s a very awkward position to be in. Her health has declined quite a bit over the last few years, but I sometimes wonder if she’s just too ornery to die.
As the old saying goes, “Heaven won’t have her, and the Devil’s afraid of her, so has closed the gates of Hell.”
I find a stiff one improves one’s outlook many a time.
This reminds me of something else. One often hears of couples passing on near the same time. But I have also noticed where it happens with other close relationships. My paternal grandmother died shortly after her father. My paternal grandfather died shortly after his mother. Science has shown that grief really can have effects on the heart and that people can literally die of a broken heart.
Hey, my father used to recite Robert Service! Those two, in fact. “There are strange things done in the midnight sun….” He also recited The Walrus and the Carpenter. Frequently.
But my mother didn’t go to balls in carriages.
My grandmother was devoutly religious woman who died from complications from diabetes. My grandfather was a wild alcoholic. (My grandmother did not drink or cut her hair.) She was his rock. His official cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver three months later.
Pink and Say
Another side of things is that because my husband made a career of the Navy, we did not ever live close to family when my children were young. As a result, my kids don’t really have a close relationship with any of their grandparents. It’s definitely something I consider a downside of the military life. My husband is not particularly close to his family and it has never bothered him to live far away, but I am very close to mine and make an effort to remain close. It makes me a bit sad that my kids aren’t closer to their extended family, grandparents especially.
My whole family has had foot itch and horizon fever for generations, so I know what you mean. We didn’t grow up near very many relatives, and they had died by the time I was six. My brothers and I have done no better, living in three different and non-contiguous states.
Thanks for this post.
My parents were separated and divorced when I was 5 years old and my sister was 3. So my mother worked outside the home and she, my sister and I lived with her parents until I was in my teens and my mother married again. The influence of my grandparents in my life is really immeasurable.
Now, I’m grandfather to seven, four next door here in Utah and three in Arizona that my wife and I try to spend time with at least twice a year. These are the very best years of my life.
I guess I’m the drifter in my family. I’ve done a lot of family history research and every surname line for my four grandparents (Thompson, Epps, Crowder and Haynie) goes back in Georgia for more than two hundred years. That doesn’t mean that others have not left, but the roots and the leaves of the trees are still strong in Georgia. I grew up on the outskirts of Atlanta and have lots of kin in and around Cobb and Cherokee counties. And my paternal grandparents were from Madison and Clarke counties around Athens and I have loads of Thompson and Epps relatives there. And I’m still in touch with some of them.
Bob,
My mother grew up in Columbus, but her parents were from Alabama. They traced back through North Carolina to Pennsylvania to England.
On my father’s side, they came from Warwickshire to Virginia to North Carolina to Kentucky to Central Illinois to Northern Illinois. There were plenty who stayed behind, but it was not our branch.
One of my favorite family pictures is of Grandpap and I. I was less than a year in. He had less than a year to go. He’s holding me over his chest underneath my arms, and the two of us are roaring in laughter at one another. When I asked my grandmother how we would have gotten along, she’d smile and say “you two would have tickled each other.”
I was ridiculously lucky in being the second-oldest of two eldest children.
Fishing, card games, road trips, reunions, I got to know my grandparents when they were vibrant, involved, and running the show, and they and most of my great-aunts and uncles all survived well past my 40th birthday. (At which point, I took a long, sober look at the longevity on both sides of the family tree and decided I should get serious about long-term financial planning.)
I also knew one great-grandmother, on my mom’s side. “Mama Dear” as we called her, moved to Oklahoma when it was still Indian Territory and used to tell us stories of growing up on the oil lands. A modest woman, though – I only discovered from old clippings, after her death, that she was once voted “The Most Beautiful Woman in Tulsa.” (And oh, judging by the picture, which I wish I could find a copy of now – – did she ever deserve the title!) She passed away when I was in junior high. The last of my four grandparents died just a few years ago.
All that time I got. And yet, when I reflect on those last years, when I was moving around a lot, working crazy hours and sometimes multiple jobs, I do regret the visits I missed, the letters I didn’t write, the calls I didn’t make.
You can have all the time in the world with them, and still wish you’d spent more time with them.
The great-grandfather for whom I am named was supposedly a Sooner. He later came back to Illinois, though, and married and had his children there. He married a school teacher. They were both thirty-five at the time, and still had three children.
Understood. Still you have the memories from your early years. You could have made more, but you got more than some of us even could have gotten.
Like – – an ACTUAL Sooner? One of the guys for whom the phrase was coined? That would be cool!
Another story “Babe” (Mama Dear’s nickname when she was younger) did not share with me herself: Apparently, she ran off with a devastatingly handsome young roughneck to New York City, stopping by City Hall, at some point, to make things legit, whereupon my great, GREAT grandparents tracked them down and marched them into Saint Patrick’s Cathedral to make it legit in their eyes then dragged them both back home.
Handsome Harold turned out to be a rake indeed, and Mama Dear eventually divorced him – a gutsy move, in those days. He ran off to see if he could parlay his good looks into a Hollywood career and died in a car crash with a young starlet one night, on Mulholland Drive, while Mama Dear found a job, raised her daughter, and was eventually courted by a handsome Colonel, who married her after the war.
I so want to turn this into a movie.
My husband and I inherited a lot of things, relics, from both of our families. I have no clue at all what to do with it. I can’t part with it though.
My father-in-law left an iron rake behind, and every time I hold it in my hand, it feels like he is right there with me. And my mother’s handwritten cookbook does the same thing.
And holding my grandparents’ and in-laws and other relatives’ handwritten letters in my hand–the feeling is indescribable. It just feels like they are right there.
Great post and comments. My grandparents were all dead before I was six.
Hey all you oldsters; which characteristics do you associate with genetics based on yourself and what you know of your kin and culture?
I think my paternal grandfather was sharp/smart (owned neighborhood fruit/vegetable all through depression). I consider my father smart although he only took college classes after serving in WWII. His sister, my aunt, became a nun; she seemed smart but she was a nun so how can you tell? I think I’m much smarter than any empirical evidence would suggest. I blame genetics.
I’m also lazy. I’m pretty sure I built that.
This story isn’t about an actual relative, but …
My husband and I bought our house in 1987 – it had been built in 1918. All we knew was that we were the third owners – one family had lived in it for two generations, then another family for 10 years.
For a brief moment in the 90s we considered moving to save my husband his awful commute and put the house on the market. One afternoon a woman came knocking at the door. She introduced herself as the daughter-in-law of the original owner. She wanted to see the house, having not been in it for years.
She told me the story: Our house was designed and built by a woman by the name of Prairie Walker. Prairie Walker’s father had been an Indian Agent in Oklahoma and she was the first white person born in OK. She did a tour of Europe before WWI (which explained our crazy windows and a few other design idiosyncrasies), and settled in Monrovia CA. She raised her family here, then her son did the same.
I have no idea if it’s true. But when my husband came home from work I told him the story he said: take the sign down. We’re supposed to stay here.
Being the child of immigrants and having been born in another state, I never felt connected to Cali until then.
We’re planning a big party in 2018 for our house’s 100th birthday.
I lost my first grandparent – paternal grandmother – in 1986 when I was 26. I think she was 83. The other 3 all passed away in 1999, all in their 90’s. Good news — very high “good” cholesterol. Bad news — bad back. So I have several decades of debilitating pain to look forward to!
I wouldn’t say I was really close with any of them. One set moved to Mesa and one to Tucson when I was in grade school. And upon reflection, I don’t think they were particularly warm or easy to get to know. I know my own parents were better parents than theirs were. But with one glaring exception, I have only happy memories of them.
My paternal grandmother had 6 brothers. Most of them stayed in the Spokane area. I remember family gatherings in my grandparents’ backyard – all the great-aunts and great-uncles sitting in those mesh lawn chairs. They seemed so old. The funny thing is – now my sisters and I are the great-aunts sitting in circle in my sister Karen’s backyard! Karen is Grandma, I’m Aunt Mable, Cheri is Aunt Jane, Anne-Marie is Aunt Mildred — and Mom is Great-Grandma Evans! Bwahahaha!
For they last 5 years Mrs. Thompson and I have lived next door to our daughter and her family. They have four children, two are in college and working(both), one is in high school, and the youngest is our eight year old granddaughter. She is a major reason we are in this house next door. Our daughter and her husband have their own business and it’s all related to real estate, several different aspects of that business, but it keeps them really busy.
So, in 2009, when residential real estate had crashed, our daughter suggested we buy this place so we could help with the three year-old. Of course, we sometimes helped with transporting the older children since they were not legally driving yet. In Utah, there is much transporting of young people required. In any event, we have been busy with the youngest.
What prompted this comment was a remark from the granddaughter this weekend. My wife does many holiday craft works with her and when she showed up Saturday, while the parents and brother went off to the BYU football game, first thing she saw was Halloween decorations including a 3-ft tall paper and cardboard scarecrow she made here last year and she was excited and surprised. She said ‘at my house, they would throw that out’.
That it was here made her feel good and that she saw some value that we kept it made us feel good.
Major anonymous and his son, anonymous, Jr., are famous names in the history of Cherokee Indian removal.
There is a compilation, Eastern Cherokee Walkers: claims of people by the name Walker intermarried with the Cherokee Indians, that you can read at archive.org.
I didn’t find the name Prairie Walker in a quick search, but the OCR job on that book is not very good (perhaps cannot be very good). And maybe what you’d really need to know is the name of the father.
The woman identified as white, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t have Cherokee or some other Indian ancestry. To Indians, being Indian was more of a matter of upbringing than DNA. Among some groups, it still is.
When I hear stories like this I like to check them out, cuz who knows what else one will run into. That’s how I come up with some of my bicycling destinations.
Here, for example, is a news clipping about a Walker who was an Indian agent in Oklahoma in 1951 (which I’m guessing might be the right time period for your story).
It’s from the Stillwell Democrat-Journal of Stillwell, Oklahoma, 22 Feb 1951, by way of newspapers.com.
hmmm … any mention of how old he was? For that Walker to have been the father of Prairie Walker (who built my house in 1918) he would have been a good age when the accident happened in 1951.
You’ve inspired me – I’m going to visit our building department and see what I can find out.
I suspect that’s not the right person, then. But I also suspect that there was more than one Walker (probably related to the others) who had served as Indian agent. I found another article in an Indian newspaper that says Johnny Walker was transferred to a different district in Oklahoma later in that same year. It would have been nice if the newspaper article had told a little about Walker’s age and family, as such newspaper articles sometimes did at that time. But it didn’t.
Here is one from 1898. Note the “Major.” I’m not sure if “Major” of the famous Major anonymous was the man’s name or a military rank. Either is possible, though if it’s not a military rank I don’t think that in this case it was a name given at birth.
This item is from the Guthrie Daily Leader, 25 Oct 1898, by way of newspapers.com.