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Note: N4956 MEMORIES of Carl and Sithone:
August, 1999
When I think about Grandpa and Grandma, memories rise like incense.The memories are comforting, like sitting in my favorite chair. How fun to remember summer eveings catching fireflies in Mason Jars with my cousins, aunts and uncles on the front lawn of our grandparents home.
Sunday family dinners at the round dining room table were usually roast beef or fried chicken; that was the good part. The not so good part was washing dishes in Grandma's kitchen; Grandma boiled the dish and rinse water, too. About the time the water got comfortable so you could stand to grab a dish or a piece of silverware out of the rinse water, she would grab the kettle ofboiling water and scald the dishes once again. Grandma was not satisfied to rinse dishes once; no, she rinsed twice with scalding hot water.
Perhaps the most vivid memory of my grandparents was living with them for three months when we moved back to Iowa from Dunsmuir, California. I was a four or maybe five years old with a new baby sister, Bonnie Sue. She slept with mom downstairs in the living room, while I got to sleep upstairs with dad. The memory was powerful because it was winter; bitterly cold; I could never get warm enough. Dad and I slept upstairs. in a room with a register gril in the floor to allow heat to rise up to the second floor. Dad and I piled blankets on top of us - including one blanket we called the itchyblanket, made of horse hide. Dad said the blanket was old, used out on the farm where it was really cold. Hah! He must not have noticed the cold in my grandparents house to believe that there could possibly be someplace or time colder. But, I noticed the cold, all right. Dad found this very funny; he laughed as he told people that I curled up in a tiny ball under all of the blankets. When we woke up in the morning, the windows were covered with ice and my grandpa said,"Jack Frost was here last night. He painted all the windows."
Was it always winter and cold in Iowa? It seemed so. Despite a plaid wool scarf tied around my mouth and nose, the icy wind bit my face. Add heavy, red snow pants and boots, to complete the picture; I looked like a short, fat duck waddling the streets and snow drifts to grandma’s house. Often the wind whipped the snow so hard I thought my eyelids would glue my eyelashes shut tight against my cheeks. One poignant memory was watching for movement in the lace curtains of the living room windows to catch grandma watching for me. Many days I walked to their home after school to write letters for them to my aunts and uncles in St. Paul and Minneapolis because neither one wrote in English. Once into the porch, the inner door would open, I would be grabbed inside to stand by the stove, the boots would fly off, and they would rub my hands while taking off my outer wear. That was treat time: milk and big, thick, sugar cookies.
Most afternoons Grandma would listen to the soap opera stories on the radio. Her favorites were Helen Trent and Stella Dallas. While Grandma listened to the radio she would take down her long hair and let me comb it. After it was all long and smooth, she would braid it all back upagain in a crown on her head. I would hand her the over-size brown bobby-pins to hold it together.
Life at my grandparents revolved around food. They were alwaysconcerned that it was time to eat. Or, it was time to cook or bake. It was great fun when Grandma made lefse on the large, black cook stove heated by wood. When the weather was warm, Grandpa and I would pick raspberries to eat; sometimes we picked enough we had plenty to bring into the house; mostly we ate the berries right from the bushes. if we weren't full from eating them as they were picked, we poured them into a bowl with sugar and cream . Sore fingers from raspberry thorns often necessitated a trip to the bedroom for the Watkins salve that sat on top of the dresser.
Grandpa and Grandpa were not cuddlers - we did not sit on laps; but they always took time to listen to me. They seemed genuinely interested in all my prattle about school lessens. Most certainly,they seemed proud that I could write letters for them. And when it was time to leave, winter or summer, they would send me off with thewords, "See you next summer on the ice" watching and waving until I was out of sight.
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