As soon as I could I would dash outside and down the blue painted cracked steps outside the kitchen to the basement level and run down the hill as fast as I could to the creek. Grandma's house had a HUGE back yard, a woodshed, a workshop, a cellar, a basement, a wagon to roll down the hills with, a green pond, a willow tree, a massive creek, a huge garden, a field next to their house, snapping turtles, rabbits, snakes that made me scream my daylights out. It was heaven. In fact when I was little and I used to think about heaven, it was grandma's house that always came to mind. I didn't mind if my sister's didn't come outside and play with me. I was so content playing alone. I imagined friends and wilderness scenarios. I made root teas, and pools in the creek by damming the trickle of water up. One summer my cousin Ben and I tied up branches under some pine trees and made the coolest fort known to mankind. I lived in that fort. It's a miracle I wasn't infested with ticks at the end of the summer. At lunch time I would always hear my name being called and grandma would ask me to set the table. She always had sandwiches or left overs and was hard at work fixing dinner or working on sewing coats and jackets for cousins, wedding dresses for the neighbors, mending the local soldier's military uniform, sewing up all my clothes that I had ripped that year. Grandma could sew anything out of nothing. She had two huge rooms in her basement full of fabric, ribbon, sewing machines, scraps... and she would save the scraps for me. On rainy days we would get out the bag of scraps. Sometimes it was just shreds but grandma knew how much I loved to pretend to sew. I would patch all the pieces together. One time I had a pathetic patchwork of mismatched fabrics and I thought it would be sooo cool if I got cardboard, and cut out the pattern of my feet and put it in between fabric and sew a flap over it to make slippers. So I did. I made two matching slippers and I wore them all over. Outside, in my fort, everywhere. I loved those slippers. I made clothes for my dolls, but grandma... she made exquisite clothes for my American girl doll. I remember bringing those clothes home and all the girls wanted to borrow the clothes my grandma had made because they were so different and prettier than their doll's clothes!
My grandmother was German Mennonite, from Canada. She spoke low German and would often fix German food for us. I remember coming in early for lunch from playing in my imaginary world to find "raw kookin". Honestly I have no idea what it was called for real in German, that's just what I heard, and what I called it. She would stir up some dough from scratch and deep fry it, put powdered sugar on top and we would eat it with watermelon outside. Oh it was the best ever! So good!
The last summer that I spent with my grandmother was when she was sick with cancer. I had just finished 6th grade and went up with my aunt and uncle and stayed two months. She was so weak and so tired but she wanted to make doughnuts one last time for us. My grandmother made the absolute BEST donuts in the world. I've never tasted anyone's donuts that melted in your mouth like hers. That last time tasting her donuts will forever stick in my memory.
Catatonk Baptist Church. That's where my grandma and grandpa went to church. Grandma played the piano and Mrs. Henry played the organ. My grandma taught herself note by note to play the piano. She owned an old horridly out of tune piano that someone had given to her. It was right inside the door when you stepped into the house behind the sofa. It had everyone's wedding pictures on top of it and lots of memorabilia from Ethiopia on top of it. I don't think I've ever heard a piano that was worse off in my entire life, but when grandma played it, it was beautiful! That piano was precious and priceless because of the way grandma played it. She would sing and then smile that amazing smile by pinching her lips together. At Christmas she sang Schtill Nacht in German. I still can't sing Silent Night today without getting choked up.
After bed time when mom had sent us to bed, grandma would sneak into our room, read us a story and then sneak us out of the room. She brought out the Nesquick hot chocolate, marshmallows, chocolate bars, and graham crackers. Then she would turn the gas stove on. It crackled and popped and then came to life. Smores over the stove. This was her way of making a fire for us without taking us outside and getting us into deep trouble. We would hover next to the stove with metal hangers and marshmallows dripping off the ends, as we tried to roast them over the gas stove.
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| Helen and Floyd at my Aunt and Uncle's wedding |
