Cherrie was her first name, and I never thought of the word alone. She was my grandma, mother of my mother. Today would be her birthday, born in 1895. She had three children, Gordon who died on the beach at Normandy, my mother who died at the age of 41, and Jack, who died at the age of 60. There were eight grandchildren, and they were the focus of her life.
I never knew Grandma to have a home. She lived out of the trunk of her car, a very independent woman. By the time I came around, she was making a living as a live-in companion to the elderly, and I would stay with her sometimes in the family’s home. Between jobs, she would stay with a member of her own family, always pulling from the back of her car, anything she needed to get by. She came bearing bags of groceries, knitted slippers, new “leggins” to keep us warm, and children’s workbooks. She taught me every game of solitaire that she knew, and had me help her with the Daily Jumble in the paper. Cultivation of the mind, staying warm, and staying fed, were very important to her.
I remember riding in the back of her car to Naples and back, sitting up on a little red stool, so I could look out the windows. There were no seat belts or warnings back then. We would do a word search on the way, finding something out the window to go with every letter of the alphabet. To this day, I think of one house in Geneva as the Knob house. I used its doorknob to come up with the letter K, and she praised me heartily for that. Every summer, she would take a car load of grandchildren on vacation with her. I was one of the youngest, so when my turn came, it was just me and my cousin, Scott, and off we went to the Thousand Islands. She was proud to show us off, but we had to mind our manners, and speak up when spoken to.
My mother died when I was eight, and Grandma came to stay with us for a time. She had just put my sister, Kathy, and me to bed, when she was back at our bedside, telling us to get up, and come see a new television program. This was so unusual, to be invited back out to the livingroom after bedtime. The show was The Flintstones, and it tickled her, and she wanted to share it with us. Around that time, too, we stayed with her at our cousin’s cottage on Canandaigua Lake, and I remember her calling us all from our beds, to come out to the beach and watch a satellite pass over. She seemed to want us to know and experience as much as we could.
When I was in high school, I caught the Greyhound bus to Rochester over winter break, to stay with her at a home in the city. She was taking care of an elderly woman, so it was a quiet time, but comforting, to be snowed in at a cozy house, with Grandma, a deck of cards, and quiet conversation. I remember how beautiful the city streets looked from our second story bay window, and that evening we sat together and watched Ben-Hur as the snow fell.
After I was married, Grandma would send care packages now and then. She sent me recipes, odds and ends of kitchen utensils, a new iron. I think an idea would hit her, and it would go in a box, and sent on its way. I enjoyed writing letters to her, and she would always write me back. A favorite time, was meeting her in Naples in the fall, and having chicken dinner at Bob and Ruth’s in the park. After we ate, she would take us around town, to visit with her homebound friends.
It was hard to watch Grandma lose her independence in her later years. She had fallen on the job, broken a hip, and never really bounced back. After she entered the nursing home, she was found to have cancer, and it eventually took her life just a few weeks before her 94th birthday.
Grandma Cherrie had such an impact on my life. She seemed fearless to me, and showed true grit and perserverance in her life. I have missed her all these nineteen years that she has been gone, but she left a wonderful collection of memories that will never leave me.
George, Rebecca, and Grandma Cherrie during a visit to Naples, 1978
Posted: August 12th, 2008 under celebrations, nostalgia, family.
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