Memories of a Grandmother (Part Two)

Click here to read the beginning ....

I loved my Grandma Imo. To a little girl who was in awe of this woman, that brought gifts and stories and lots of love from far away .... getting to visit her, and have her to myself was the best thing in the world to me.

The summer I was eleven, for two weeks, I stayed with my Grandmother in Peoria. It was so exciting, and I remember looking forward to it for at least a month before I got to go.

It was right after the 4th of July, she came home to visit, and I went back with her. It's funny because I remember the trip as well as the entire visit. Right outside of Bartonville, where she lived, was a bridge. This wasn't just any ordinary bridge .... but a bridge that arched across a wide river, and one that lifted in the middle to let barges travel down the river. I was so amazed with a bridge that had stop lights and raised itself up in the middle. I remember being mesmerized watching the slow moving barge pass under us. It was as if I was in another world.

As we got close to Grandma's house, I remember watching the street signs. Watching for Pershing Avenue. Just a little street that curved around to another street. Not very long, and not many neighbors. Just a small little white house that sat back off the street. I know I'd been there before, but my memory doesn't let me go beyond that year I was eleven. As we pulled into her driveway, I felt so happy to be there.

The little things are so clear. Meaningless little things that tickled me as a child. I remember how clever it was to have a little rubber ball on a string hanging from the ceiling of the garage, so that when she pulled in, and the ball hit the window .... she was "home," in far enough, and could safely close the garage door. I remember her slowly inching towards that ball like it was yesterday. Forty years ago.

As we walked into her house, everything was just like I had pictured. She had talked so much about her house that I knew what I would see. She had pictures of her Grandchildren everywhere, and all the things she had made. The same things she had made for us, and my Mother, and my Aunts and cousins. Her refrigerator held all the little magnets she made. I was in awe of those magnets. I moved them everywhere and I grouped them together. Just like the ones I had at home.

That summer I learned to sew. She taught me how to work her sewing machine. How to thread a needle, and how to embroidery. I was eleven, and I absorbed everything she had to teach me, as if I were a sponge. She showed me how she made her own patterns. In my youth, I thought she was way beyond other Grandmothers. She was so talented, and so crafty, and I wanted to be just like her. There was nothing that she couldn't make ... and everything was so beautiful.

I learned to string beads, and I learned the difference in polyester fabric, and I played in her fabrics and put colors together and we made little doll quilts. She made my Barbie doll clothes, and put them together on little cards with shoes and little Barbie purses with ribbons.

It was a summer to remember .... one that I always will. As I grew up, she taught me more, and her craftiness never slowed down, until she could no longer go. When I was grown, she gave me her sewing machine, the one she taught me to sew on when I was eleven. I cherish that machine. She gave me her patterns that she made my barbie doll clothes with, and she gave me the pattern that she made the dress that my first daughter wore home from the hospital. Those old hand drawn patterns mean the world to me.

She crocheted little hats for Joey to wear in the hospital since he was so small. She worried about his little head getting cold. One of the treasures that I love the most is a dress that she crocheted for Juli from rose colored thread. I know much love went into making that dress for her Great Grand-daughter. This Spring, I'll take Megan's picture in that same dress.

My Grandmother went to Heaven almost ten years ago, but not before my children got to know her well. She followed the same traditions with my kids that she did as I was growing up. I still have the monkey socks she made and all the little toys and dolls she crocheted for my kids. She gave them a quarter when she came to visit, and when she stayed the night with us .... we sat up until the wee hours of the morning .... playing Yahtzee and Scrabble and talking about old times.

Her birthday would have been last week, and I've thought a lot about here lately. I was so lucky to have had a Grandmother like her.

Life is wonderful when you have someone that you love ....

Be Blessed.

Memories of a Grandmother (Part One)

One summer when I was eleven, I went to visit my Grandmother in Peoria, Illinois. I got to go by myself, without any sisters or my brother. Just me and my Grandma. I thought I was special, and I learned a lot of things in that two week period. Things that molded me and things I'll carry with me all of my life.

I loved my Grandma Imo. To a little girl who was in awe of this woman, that brought gifts and stories and lots of love from far away .... getting to visit her, and have her to myself was the best thing in the world to me.

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When we were growing up, in a small town in Illinois, a visit from Grandma Imo was a rare treat. She would stay a night with us, and a night with our cousin's. She would make hot Tea for us, with cream, and we would stay up in the wee hours of the night talking and playing Scrabble and Yahtzee. She was funny. She laughed so good, and she was timeless. She never changed.

Every visit came with a quarter from her. It was her signature. Beautiful shiny quarters that were special because they came from a Bank in Peoria ... and they were so special. We never saved them. It became tradition to run around the corner to a little grocery store and buy a Lemon. I remember she taught us to put salt on them, and squeeze a little juice, just a little at a time. We would make our Lemons last all day.

She always came with her suitcase, and an overnight case that held treasures, that only a little girl would love. My sisters and I would stand behind her in the bathroom as she got ready for the day, and gingerly touch all the wondrous bottles she had in her case. She would make something as simple as spraying her hair, a huge ordeal ... and we would giggle and duck, so we didn't get sprayed. We watched every stroke of her hand as she put on makeup, and we loved the perfume we watched her dabble onto her neck, for we knew that we too ,would smell like Grandma that day.

In the very bottom of her makeup case, she would always have a little bitty container that we coveted. It held the most prized possessions in the world. As her long fingernails would break, she would save them in a little glass container, and one of us would be Queen for the day. She would bring her own special tape, and a bottle of the most beautiful Red fingernail polish, and she would tape her very own fingernail to our finger and paint it Red. She would gently blow it, until it dried, and then she would play with us, and call us, "Dahling!" It was glorious to be the winner of that old broken fingernail. .... and she never forgot who's turn it was when she came back to visit.

We knew that the trunk of her car held things that only she could bring. As I look back in my childhood memories and laugh, I know that the gifts she brought us were out of pure love.

Grandma had a variety of jobs in her life. She once worked in a plastic factory, and she would tell us stories of eating lunch with her friends. We knew them, each and every one by name, and she made them sound special. She would bring us plastic "globs" from when the colors were changed in the machines. We were such lucky kids to have one of these rainbow swirled globs of hardened plastic. They were treasures in our eyes. Brought only for us. By a woman that loved us from the bottom of her heart.

In between visits, she would write us letters, and tell of what she was bringing. I savored her letters. She would write to me in "Pig Latin" that summer. I still have those letters from forty years ago. She used her time making us handmade toys and sewing us dolls and dresses and monkey's and barefoot sandals. Each and every item was to be squealed over and treasured.

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So for me to have the honor of spending two whole weeks with her .... was the highlight of my life up to that point. I have never forgotten each and every day that I spent with that woman, and I'll always cherish the things she taught me. Come back to read Part Two of my memories.

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What are the dearest memories you have of your Grandmothers? What did they teach you? Do you want to instill their qualities in your own children? Are they still with you? If so, you're blessed.