Guest column: Remembering Amy Grandma

Isn’t it interesting what divergent memories children from the same family can have, especially of their elderly relatives?

My sisters, both older than me, fill in a much fuller picture of my father’s mother, Amy Grandma, than I have, since she died when I was quite young.

Their most vivid memories are from visiting our grandparents’ summer cabin in the Colorado mountains. Sister Barbara tells of the oatmeal Grandma would start the night before, resulting in a sticky, creamy cereal. And then, there were the fish that my grandfather loved to catch but didn’t care to eat. So, Grandma would cook them for the rest of the family, telling the children to be sure and eat the cheeks of the fish as they were nice, fleshy morsels without bones.

This gets me thinking, Grandma wasn’t just fixing food and feeding people. She was nurturing the children. I have seen pictures of her from this period, ample and smiling, warm and welcoming.

Sister Caroline remembers the oatmeal, but not fondly. But then she brightens and says, “She would take us out in the side yard with a pan of water and some peas to shell, and she showed us how to make the pea pods into tiny canoes, using pine needles for the crossbars.”

Once Grandma and Caroline were taking some old cookies out to feed the chipmunks. Little Caroline wanted to just eat the cookies, but was reprimanded that they were for the chipmunks. We chuckled at how stale those cookies must have been for our frugal grandmother to feed them to the wild animals.

“But mostly,” says Caroline, “she made you feel that you were wonderful. You know, children really need that, from their parents, too.”

That connects with how warmly my father used to speak of his mother. He was so thankful that she had treated him like a person, not just a child, and how they would read rather advanced books together because that’s what interested him. “She did right by me,” he said, into his latest years.

More poignantly, Caroline remembers visiting Grandma when she was failing toward the end of her life. We had found some clay by a stream and had brought it home and made little pots and bowls, and then brought them along to show Grandma. She was gracious and appreciative, even though her illness made her seem more distant. “The warmth was there, but it felt different,” Caroline remembers wistfully.

This brings us to my sole memory of Amy Grandma. We stopped by their home when traveling through, and were standing in the kitchen. She was frail, thin, drawn by the cancer that was taking her life. She had set a teakettle on the stove, and as it came to a boil and she was moving toward the stove to get it, my father protectively rushed ahead of her, with uncharacteristic solicitude, asserting, “I’ll get it, Mother!” I suddenly saw him as her boy, not my authoritarian father, and I was struck by his intense concern for her.

It may be only one memory, but it’s a powerful one.

Winifred Hoffman, of Earlville is a farmer, breeder of dual-purpose cattle and a student of life. She can be reached at newsroom@mywebtimes.com .