Happy Birthday, Elsie!

We should all have one person who knows how to bless us despite the evidence, Grandmother was that person to me.  

          ~Phyllis Theroux

     Today is my Grandma Elsie's 116th birthday. She was my mother's mother, and had a major impact on my life growing up. I have written about my paternal grandmother, Ruth, but wanted today to pay tribute to my other grandmother. She was of another time, and even when I was a kid seemed hopelessly old fashioned. Now that I am a grandmother, I find myself wondering if it was being old fashioned or was it a lifetime dedication to some very basic ideals that we sometimes forget.

     Elsie was the youngest of 5 children, born to a second generation German piano cabinet maker and his wife. She was reared in a home where German was spoken, but went to school and played with friends who spoke English. Her family lived in the city, and was not poor. But they were not wealthy either. They were the product of the American dream-- that ideal that says America welcomes anyone who comes here that is willing to work hard. Buffalo was full of German immigrant families just like hers. They were the foundation of an industrial economy that thrived there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

     Elsie graduated from high school, which was considered an achievement, especially for a girl back then. She went to work in an office at the JD Larkin Company, a soap manufacturer and company that started the concept of putting "premiums" (or coupons) in their products that could be redeemed for other products such as dishes, toiletries and even light fixtures and furniture. Her position was a source of pride for her because she supervised the work of other women in an office. Her office building, now gone, was one of Frank Lloyd Wright's early designs.  She worked there, lived at home, and enjoyed a busy social life well into her 20's.

     When she met my grandfather and married him, she stopped working and immediately set about the work of maintaining a home. My grandfather was an only child, whose widowed mother depended on him for her support, and she moved in with them right after they came home from their honeymoon. This woman was a burden for Elsie -- a highly critical mother-in-law who doted on her only child and resented this new wife who had "taken him away" from her. But Elsie, who was an incredible peacemaker, learned to live with this and raise her family amidst it.  She had two children, my mother and a son, Donald.

     Elsie was active in the women's groups at the local Methodist Church, and was famous for the stuff she sent in for bake sales and such. My uncle's boy scout troop looked forward to her donuts when they had bake sales too-- they always ensured a big profit. Elsie was a homemaker who kept not only a clean, tidy house, and served delicious food, but who excelled in handicrafts. She helped me learn to knit and sew. She did copper work, made jewelry, did embroidery.

     I used to love to visit she and my grandfather when I was a kid. We lived about an hour apart-- just far enough that it felt like a journey to a little kid. And when I was invited to spend a week there, either with my sister or alone, I was excited for weeks before hand. Watching her do her usual chores around the house was fun-- she had a "system" for doing dishes that involved using the sink and a tub of rinse water. I loved the glasses and plates and silverware she had-- it was "old" and way more beautiful to my young tastes than the everyday dishes my mother had. Her kitchen was tiny-- yet out of it came delicious food in abundance.  We always ate at the dining room table with a linen table cloth and linen napkins that were held in decorative silver napkin rings. She had this little device that she used to sweep up crumbs from the table after each meal that fascinated me-- I fought my sister to get to use it.

     Laundry day was great fun. Early in the morning she would gather the dirty clothes upstairs, including bedding, and I would help her send them from the second floor to the basement via a laundry chute in the upstairs hall floor. The sheets were the most fun-- I'd hold on to one end and let the other end fall as far as it would go, then drop it and watch from above. Her washing machine was "automatic" but it had a wringer attached to it. Grandma would load soap into the wash tub and fill it with hot water, let it run through a wash cycle, then she would take the clothes and put them through the wringer over to the second rinse tub by hand (imagine how heavy the sheets were!).  Then she would start the rinse cycle. When it finished she would put the clothes back through the wringer, and either load them into the laundry basket to take outside to dry or put them through another rinse. Then the clothes went outside on a clothesline that stretched from the house to the garage. When they were dry, we'd take them down, fold them into the laundry basket and put them in the kitchen where she would get out the sprinkling can. Most items required ironing, and most were made of 100% cotton (very little man made fabrics back then...) that ironed better if they were a little moist. So, each item got spread out on the table, sprinkled , then rolled up and placed back in the basket. The logic of drying items until they were stiff and then sprinkling them with water still makes no sense to me, but it worked well enough that Elsie did it that way all her life. Anyway, ironing was done the next day and was not nearly as fun.

     My grandmother was not a slave to fashion. She never once, in the 83 years of her life, had her hair cut. She wore it in braids looped up and over her head, very German style for years. When her hair thinned too much to do that, she pulled it back in a bun. She wore hair nets. She wore "old lady shoes". She wore house dresses and aprons. I thought she was hopelessly old fashioned but still beautiful! She never worried about diets either. I sorely miss hearing her extol me to "eat, Barbara, eat!" and when I spoke of being too fat she would snort and say, "You are JUST RIGHT!" Ironically, it is her body shape and tendency to gain weight in certain "problem areas" below the waist that I inherited. That never bothered her-- and I sure wish it didn't bother me...

My beloved maternal grandparents as I will always remember them-- elderly but smiling and together!

     Elsie died three days after my first son was born. I was here in Indiana at the time and not allowed to travel, so I never really said my goodbyes to her. She was a wonderful woman, from whom I learned about the importance of creating a warm, loving home environment. I learned from her about self-sacrifice for one's family, and also about expressing oneself creatively with the "home arts". I can still hear her wonderful laugh and her little German twang that would sneak out once in awhile.  I was tremendously lucky to have had her in my life, and she provided me (as did her daughter!) with a wonderful example of how to be a grandmother to my own grandchildren.

     Happy Birthday, Elsie!