Around Our Tables
My maternal grandmother was born in 1897 and went to college in Maine back in the early 20th century when colleges for teachers were called Normal Schools. She eloped with the son of French Canadians because her Scots parents would not approve. Then she settled into married life and teaching in rural Maine for the decades during and between WWI and WWII. Her elopement and adventures in teaching made me see her and teachers as brave guides acting on the basis of love and facing everything from students with frozen toes to conducting one-room education for ages 6 to 16. Books, television shows, and movies like Christy and Little House on the Prairie had adventures in teaching and community that I had heard about from my grandmother. Because she had married my grandfather, a man of French descent, we called her Grandmere.
Amidst her years of teaching in the cold harsh beauty near Mt. Katahdin, she had four children. One who did not survive past infancy even though Grandmere went to the small local hospital. Besides teaching and raising her children, she helped her husband manage the 3-story apartment building he had inherited from his father. Though Grandpere had no interest in religion, Grandmere helped establish an Assembly of God church in the area between their small town and a large papermill where Grandpere worked.
Grandmere read every day, with me and to me. She gave me books for Christmas and birthdays and told vivid stories. She loved history and had traced one of her ancestors back to the Mayflower. I admired her learning and courage. I spent a lot of time with this grandmother; she was a fluent and lively communicator in words and songs even though she wasn’t free with hugs and kisses. Grandpere outlived Grandmere by three years.
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In contrast, my paternal grandmother, an Italian immigrant born in 1898, landed on Ellis Island after WWI. She rarely talked to her grandchildren who knew little Italian, or to my mom and a couple of aunts who knew no Italian. Grandpa had come to the United States ahead of Grandma to get a job and find a place for them to live. Grandma had to come on her own with the immigrants that could afford no special comforts or cabins. She went through the immigration processing and rejoined the husband she had not seen for nearly two years
As a teenager, I found it amazing that she had 11 children; only 8 survived past infancy. Grandma and Grandpa never had enough of anything for their large family, but when a young boy was living homeless on their street, they took him in as a member of their family. Grandpa only went to church on holidays and for weddings and funerals. Grandma got up before her household every day and walked to the neighborhood church that had a mass at dawn. When all her children were in school, she got a job in a nearby factory working in the cafeteria for the workers.
Grandma and Grandpa lived in an Italian neighborhood all their lives. My dad said he and his siblings didn’t learn English until they went to school. By the time I was old enough to pay attention to Grandma’s short sentences and thick accent, she had been a widow for years. I never saw her read a book or magazine, but she did look at newspapers. Mostly, when no one paid attention to her, she watched television or napped in a chair.
When we visited Grandma, she showed her love by always offering food she had baked and cooked. She enthusiastically hugged and kissed us when we arrived and when we left. Her life in an Italian community from the time she arrived as an immigrant seemed insular and restricted for opportunities, but full because of her children and neighbors. Grandma had her children at home with just the local midwife. Surprisingly, it was she, not Grandmere, who brought up the topic of birth control with me in the month before I got married. When there weren’t any other relatives near us, she took my arm.
“Virginia, I’ma wanna talka to you.”
“What is it Grandma?”
She came close to me. “You knowa I hada elevena kids. Not alla lived.”
“Yes. I know that, Grandma. Dad has us pray for them every morning, Joey, Sammy, Jerry, Louie, Sal, Vee, Phillie, their wives their husbands and their children.”
“Alla my babies seemed to geta more bigga. The lasta one, Sal, he so bigga almost a killa me. I shoulda told my husband go sleepa on da couch. You speaka you minda to you husband. You can tella him, you sleepa on the couch.”
“Umm, yes, okay Grandma.”
“That’sa good. You speaka you mind.” And she kissed me and went into the living room to watch tv.
I had dozens of holidays with these grandmothers and with many other older relatives, though we did have to alternate since mom’s side of the family was in Maine and Dad’s family was all in northern New Jersey never far from where Grandma and Grandpa had entered the country. Some of their sons bought houses on the street where they grew up and lived on that street their entire lives even though they could have afforded to buy houses in other nicer suburban neighborhoods. Grandma outlived Grandpa by 43 years.
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Grandmere and Grandma’s stories did not come through like reading a biography. I had to listen and ask questions. I had to learn of events in scattered chunks and piece them together. Now I wish I had asked more and learned more about their lives and all of my older relatives. We belong to our histories even if we don’t know them. We’ve been formed by some amazing individuals.
This Thanksgiving and holiday season, I hope more people can appreciate the courage of elders and express thankfulness to these loved ones, grandparents, grandaunts, granduncles, great-grands, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and friends who seem like family. If the older generation has passed from your life, but you know stories about them, share those with the next generation so they can recognize the courage that so often goes unappreciated. We need to learn how we have come to belong in the places and with the people who fill our days and holidays.
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