Grandmas, those women who
love you no matter what. Both my
grandmas were strong women who made their own way in the world. They did not choose careers in male dominated
areas, they did not make breakthrough discoveries, they did not travel the sea
and go through Ellis Island to become American.
They did make their own way on their own. They raised families. They told stories.
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| Grandma Moss as a Young Woman |
My father’s mother told me
the story of how she became a nurse. I
was four when she told me and remember sitting on the coach beside her, my feet
sticking straight out in front of me enraptured by her adventure. In a nutshell, here’s her story.
When she was 11 or 12
Elsie Mae was delegated, by default, the task of taking care of her sick family
as well as the threshers. (For those of
you who may not know back in the days of Elsie Mae’s youth when it was your
farm’s turn to house and feed the threshers in return for the threshing of your
grains, it was your turn and it had to be done.) But when she expressed her desire to become a
nurse, her family frowned and told her to become a teacher. So Elsie Mae learned how to teach and taught
only long enough to make enough money to put herself through nursing school. She forsook the thought of marriage for that
of career … Until she met the son of the woman she was caring for. At the age of 30 Elsie Mae and Will married
under the firm understanding that she was not an unpaid nursemaid for his
mother and that she would have a career.
Grandma was 70 when I was
born and left this world at 75. The
snippets I remember of our time together are strong.
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| Grandma and Grandpa Fisher 50th Wedding Anniversary |
My mother’s mother spent
seven years of her young life living on a homestead in Nebraska where her
father eked out a living until their farm was wiped out either by grasshoppers
or locusts. She told stories of playing
hide the thimble (until it became irretrievably lost) and making chickens
talk. They came back to Iowa when she
was eight. The boys were born and her
mother died. Laura went to live with the
German aunts back in Germany until her father remarried and gathered all the
children again except Willis the youngest who didn’t remember any of his
family. The new mother was, in Laura’s
words, a drunkard. The girls did all the
work and one by one left the family during their early teens. Laura wanted to finish school, but needed
help with math. A handsome young
engineer who ate lunch at the restaurant where she worked came to the
rescue. He tutored her in math and
eventually asked her to marry him. Laura
consented. They lived with her in-laws
for awhile until in a fit of fury her mother-in-law threw a pair of scissors at
her while she was nursing her first born.
Laura and Ed left and never lived with his parents again. Laura raised five children in various houses
throughout the Davenport/Muscatine areas in Iowa. She dedicated her life to family.
Grandma’s house was a safe
place to spend two weeks every summer.
In fact most of my summertime memories are from the Farm where my
grandparents lived out their lives.
I'm a grandma myself now and hope that I am making an impression on my grandsons.
How did your grandma(s) shape you?
