Grandma Part 1: Tatted Memories

Grandma was a wonderful grandmother. When my parents weren’t around, she let me climb the apple tree, play in the lilac bushes, and she braided my waist-length hair.

My father’s mother came with her parents and siblings to the United States from Russia. They weren't wealthy by any means, but very excited to be in the States. Everything they needed to survive by, they grew, raised, built, or canned. In her senior years, my grandmother still grew much of her food, canned what she could spare, and baked her own bread.

At the age of about three, I was devastated to learn I was not the only apple of her eye. I hadn’t realized my cousins were her grandchildren, too! In a very short time, the extra children added to the fun that, along with many aspects of going to visit my grandmother, we simply called, Grandma’s House.

On occasion, I was by myself at Grandma’s house, whenever my mother needed to do what it is mother’s do when they don’t want their children tagging along. I loved those days. After my parents sat with Grandma for a few moments, they would say it was time to go, so she and I would stand solemnly on the porch as their big heavy red Hudson backed out of the narrow driveway and onto the road. As soon as the car disappeared from sight, my stay with Grandma turned into wonderment as we stepped through her doorway and into another time and place.

We always began by sitting on the twin bed in Grandma’s bedroom. There were two twin beds in her bedroom, but we never sat on Grandma’s bed because of the delicate crocheted and tatted bedspread that covered it. Grandma carefully covered her bedspread with a linen tablecloth and then she pulled her trinket drawer from a tall chest and set it atop the cover.

Grandma carefully lifted trinkets of all shapes and sizes from the drawer and as she handed each one to me, she recounted its special history. Much of her words are lost to me now, but I will not forget the look on her face, her voice, or her slightly tear-fill eyes as she spoke to me. The lacy tatted handkerchiefs, old cracked photos, never worn earrings, and the weight of heavy foreign coins also remain securely tatted into my memory, woven there as tightly and as beautiful as the picots and loops of her tatted coverlet.

Next week: Grandma Part 2: Frozen Doughnuts

Pinxter