by Helen V. Lundt
There was a time in my life, a happy time, when I was young and lived with my grandmother.
She was a tall sturdy woman; she wore a cotton dress with a clean apron every day. I remember the orange cotton stockings and black tie-up shoes, with thick heels. Her hair was gray and pulled back in a bun, where the rest of it showed some waves throughout, as though rebelling.
She had a good sense of humor when she wasn’t busy, but that wasn’t very often. She taught me to crochet and the part I disliked was the yarn winding. Old sweaters were pulled apart, their wool re-wound to use in making mittens and hats. I hated winding the yarn. It was so boring. Soon she let me crochet chains with it and I finally got them all to look the same. Wow, what a feat! Then came single crochet, followed by the rest of the stitches that I will not bore you with here.
Mama came once in a while and she had a funny smell about her. I thought she walked crooked and almost fell down but laughed as she caught the table and righted herself. Coffee was perking but Mama went to the old refrigerator with the round thing on top and took out a bottle of beer. She did like beer. She wore high heeled shoes and pretty clothes. Men came to see her and take her to the hotel. I wouldn’t see her again that night.
So Grandma worked, washing clothes, fixing meals and I followed her around, watching.
I remember when it was winter, snow was falling. Mama called someone and said it was my father. Come here, Helen, tell your father you need money for new shoes. I obeyed. Soon there came, in the mail, $6.00 for a new pair of shoes. Mama took it for something she needed and I wore my older sisters shoes, with newspaper tucked in the toes to keep them on.
In the back room, which was full of furniture and boxes of clothes and just about anything that wasn’t used anymore, was my playroom. I snooped into boxes and tried on clothes and old hats. I was about five years old. No one really watched me, as Mothers do today. And it was kind of fun that way. I remember that room, and one day while there, I saw a stuffed toys leg sticking out from under an old dresser. I pushed with all my might because I thought I knew what this toy was. Then, pulling the toy a little, it came loose and there it was, my old friend, Andy Panda. My father had given this toy to me when I was real little, probably three or four. I just loved my Panda Bear and always wondered what had happened to him. I felt a little like crying, though, because my Andy Panda was torn, an eye hanging loose, stuffing coming out of him and he felt damp, even smelled funny. I think I did cry for him, for me, for life. My father was gone to find work and had been gone for a long time. I was lonely.
But there were fun times too. My great tall uncles came for the Christmas Holidays with their wives. They always made a lot of me. They filled my stocking with wonderful tangerines and walnuts. What a wonderful Christmas. Oh, and candy canes, too. There was a great deal of laughter in the house and Mama stayed home a lot more. Don’t bother me, Helen. Go play; color a book or something. Poor lady, she didn’t know how to be a mother.
My sisters stayed with my aunt and uncle on the farm. They were both prettier than me, smarter than me. I always knew that. But they came for Christmas. We put on a show, with songs, for the adults. I don’t remember too much about that. The food Grandma fixed was so good. All except the vegetables. I hid them under the rim of my plate so I could have a piece of pie. (What a naughty girl.) So I grew up and here I am, none the worse for having had a rough time of it. There are those who have had it much worse.
It is getting late and I must go to bed soon. I remember the attic at the top of the stairs at grandmas house. I knew there was someone hiding in there. I was always afraid to go near it and hurried past it on my way to bed. Years later my sister and aunt were talking about the ghost in Grandmas house. Wow, Scared me so. They said this ghost never hurt anyone in the family or friends of the family. That’s all I knew about it. Then, more years passed, when everyone had died and the house was taken over by my nephew. There was major repair work to be done. The stone chimney that my grandfather had built was taken down, walls redone, some pulled out, everything done over. Then, as all this was underway, the house was empty. Driving by, my nephew saw an old sailor in the window, looking out at him. He stopped the car and went inside, looked throughout the house and found nothing. But he was convinced that it was a ghost. I’m glad I didn’t see it.
Well, as I said, I have to go to bed. Hope this has been an interesting read. Perhaps I’ll continue tomorrow.
Goodnight.
Hello again. There was a great deal of fun at my grandmothers house. We (my older sister and I) helped make cookies at Christmas time. We put the raisins in the middle of the sugar cookies and sprinkled them with a little sugar. When they came out of the oven they were so good. We had a cookie at bedtime or if there weren’t any made, we had bread broken up into pieces, with milk and sugar on it. MMMmm good. It filled up little tummies, too.
I don’t remember ever having a birthday cake. It was during the war, and some foods were scarce.
Once my uncles were there in the summertime. I remember them driving an old truck way in back of Grandmas house, to the huge apple tree. The men laughed, climbed the tree and shook the branches hard. Down came the apples and we all ran, laughing, to get out of the way. Ouch, someone would cry out and we all would laugh. Baskets were passed around and the apples picked up. Grandma and Aunt Bea made applesauce out of them, canning it for winter. They canned a lot of food from the garden, also. Beets, carrots, and green beans, especially. Potatoes were stored in the cellar. As I was small, the pile of potatoes looked huge to me. When I got in the way sometimes, grandma sent me down into the cellar to pick the eyes off the potatoes. It was cool and damp down there, with a dirt floor. I didn’t like that job. My sister helped me, if she was around. We saw a snake down there once and ran, screaming upstairs.
In back of the big old apple tree was a shallow creek. Oh, it was glorious to run through that creek bare-footed on hot summer days. The bottom was like clay; slippery. My sister and cousin and I would run back there with a sandwich for lunch and play in the creek. Down we’d go, but it didn’t matter. Our little dresses and panties dried quickly when we got out. We chased each other until one of us slipped and went down with a big splash. Laughing, we all went down. What fun!
I remember pink and white roses. They grew all along the yard where there was a white picket fence. In the middle of the fence was a white trellis, with more roses all around that. I used to pretend I was a bride and walk very solemnly through the trellis, the petals of the roses falling upon my hair. There never was a groom back then, but I did think the older boy next door was very nice. He let me use his swing, which hung way down from a huge tree branch way up high. It had a wooden seat and I loved to go there and swing. One time a girl about my age was riding down the sidewalk in her new little toy car. Oh, did I want to have a toy car, but we didn’t have that much money for toys, so I looked the other way and sang songs as I swung higher and higher. I just knew she wanted me to be jealous. I guess I was, but I wasn’t going to show her that I was.
I spent about two years with my grandmother. I remember starting first grade when I was five years old. My older sister was very smart, as I said before, so I had a lot to keep up with. But my mind didn’t work the way hers did. I learned to read while very young, but arithmetic was hard for me. I could draw, though, and sing pretty good, where she couldn’t. So I guess were all made a little differently.
Later, I was about six years old, I went to live with my father and stepmother. And that’s another story.
Copyright Helen V Lundt
Published in U. S. Legacies Magazine August 2005
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