Grandma's letter

Last night at knit night one of the women brought some old knitting magazines and cards she'd been given. Seeing as I didn't know what to write today, I thought I'd dig out one of the old needlecraft magazines in my possession. I was thinking that I held onto it when they were cleaning out my grandmother's possessions, but now I believe it must have been something my mom gave me when they last moved.

I was going to post a couple pictures from the spring/summer 1979 issue of Good Housekeeping Needlecraft, but then I opened up Crochet from Sunset Books and found something that stopped me dead in my chair. It wasn't the ditto or xerox copies in between the pages but a handwritten letter.

Maybe it seems silly, but I wasn't sure if I should read the letter since it was addressed to my mother. Still, knowing that I had this in my possession and that it very well could have been written thirty years ago by my grandmother, how could I not read it? My heart beat faster as I began reading, not because I was finding or expecting to find something traumatic but because the chances of seeing something like this are so small.

The letter is two pages with writing on both sides, although at least one more page must have gone with it. (The letter ends without what a natural conclusion or signature.) I was confused by what I was reading and set it aside. I was trying to understand why my grandmother would be starting the correspondence mentioning how she had been worried about not getting my mom's letter until it arrived on Friday. (This letter is "dated" Sunday night.) I was becoming a little more nervous about reading this and set it aside.

Then I realized that the letter wasn't from my paternal grandmother, who lived in the same small town as my family, but my maternal grandma. She died in 1982, I think. Suddenly this letter went from being a big find to a bigger find. My mom's mom lived a couple hours away from us and died when I was in second grade, if memory serves. While I remember her, I didn't know her as well.

Obviously I had to continue reading. From clues in the letter it must have been sent in late January/early February 1979. Apparently I had been sick and missing school, which she mentions knowing that I hated. She talked about the weather. It had been snowing a lot.

She also wrote about not taking her pain pills for a week and deciding to do her laundry rather than having her sister coming over to do it. What she wrote says a lot about her and, I think, a lot about my family:

"I can't sit here in this rocker the rest of my life. So thought I would see if I could manage. I hurt afterwards but then I hurt anyway so might as well have a reason for hurting."

She wrote about crocheting little toys for us kids and that it sounded like my mom was crocheting a lot. The latter portion of the letter is her writing directions for some crochet project from a book or magazine as best as she could remember.

I imagine if I hadn't started knitting that this would have ended up in the trash. If I didn't knit, I'd have no reason to have this paperback crochet book in my possession. I think I've had this for at least a couple years and hadn't ever looked through it, thus tonight's discovery. I'm still kind of dazed by getting this glimpse of my grandmother so many years later.

The secret ingredient

I've been wanting to bake something for awhile, but it wasn't until tonight that I fired up the mixer. I have to give a hat tip to Jenn for bringing my attention to this cupcake recipe. I followed her slightly modified version and also excluded (yikes) the whipped cream and doughnut on top. I used a large muffin pan and the regular chocolate chips I had on hand. I made a glaze, but I don't think that it's needed. One of these hot from the oven is terrific.

Baking reminds me of my paternal grandmother Lova, and it's not just because I have her KitchenAid mixer. She cooked a lot, whether it was making cookies and pies that my brothers and I would enjoy after school or preparing meals every Tuesday night for the Rotary meetings at church. I can remember the homemade noodles laid out to dry on almost every surface in her tiny kitchen and in another room. Returning to college or where I lived post-college almost always meant being sent off with an individual sized pie or a small pan of apple dumplings. She was not a talkative woman. She best expressed her love with what she produced from her oven and how she doted on us boys.

She lived a small town block from us in the home her husband built. The white house with the red and white aluminum awning was across the street from the grain elevator, the family business that my grandfather also built. I assume she was actively involved in the business when he was living. I know she was after he died some time in the 1960s. Even into her 70s she was doing the books, waiting on customers, and carrying feed bags to their cars and trucks.

I never knew either of my grandfathers--both had passed before my parents met--and my maternal grandmother Ruth died when I was in second grade, I think. I can remember her, but she lived a couple hours away. Obviously I didn't see my mom's mother as often as my dad's, who was the only babysitter we ever had and someone I probably saw on a daily basis.

My brothers and I spent plenty of time at her house. We would hide in the basement pantry where jars of home canned items lined the shelves and knock pool balls around on the pool table with fallen cushions. In the wood paneled attic we would flip through The New Book of Knowledge collection and my dad's old Bowman baseball cards. And of course we would raid the kitchen for whatever she made or the red hots tucked away in a cabinet.

She was a quilter. I can clearly picture her sitting in the basement under a naked light bulb working on a quilt, something I imagine she spent many evenings doing. I don't remember ever seeing her knit, but in my own knitting I feel a connection to her as a fellow crafter. I feel like I understand what it must have meant to her to make quilts for my brothers and me, her only grandchildren. I'm sure that she would have been surprised that I enjoy knitting. I expect it would have tickled her too.

Thanks to Donna for the remembrance of her grandmother and inspiring this post. This turned out to be a lot harder to write than I anticipated. Memories are powerful things. She's been gone for three years, and it's in writing this that I realize how much I still miss her.