Day Two Hundred Fifty

Tripping Over Myself Down Memory Lane

My trip down Memory Lane yesterday got me thinking about my grandmother - my maternal one. My cousin and I are the same age - born a few months apart - and when we get together we laugh a lot about our crazy family. At just under five feet tall, Grandma was the High Priestess of the clan.

 

A picture of Grandma in April,1952
I guess she was giving Tweety some fresh air

Katherine Schmidt was only seventeen years old when she boarded a ship to escape Hitler's Germany - alone - bound for America. It had to take grit to do such a thing. Waiting for her here were cousins she had never met. At some point, she met and married our grandfather, Henry, who was twenty years her senior. Throughout their marriage, he served as her husband, father and entertainer. Nobody laughed harder or louder at his silliness than Grandma.

From left to right -
me, (being a brat,) Grandpa, cousin Deb
and Grandma with a cig in her hand

She was a hot mess. Grandma loved betting - bingo and poker. There was always a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and she was quite adept at dealing cards or dispensing "bennies" (pennies not pills) at the kitchen table all the while puffing away on that smoke. And, like the caricature of the Army cook, I'm pretty sure she dropped more than a few ashes into Sunday dinner. 

And her mouth! She was like the love child of Mae West and Lenny Bruce. She loved a good (dirty) joke and would have told them herself had she ever mastered the English language. She lived into her nineties and never lost her thick German accent few could understand. 

Every family member's name was prefaced with "our" as in - "you belong to us." My mother, the oldest child, was "Our Margit." That her name was Mar-ga-ret didn't matter. Then there was, "Our Dad" (grandpa.) Aunt Kathleen was, "Our Katleen." I never quite understood why she named her children names she couldn't pronounce. Like Raymond. Her version of that was, "Laymon." Maybe in her head it sounded right. That, or the rest of us were clueless. Maybe their names really were Margit, Haddy (Harry,) Laymon, Leon and Katleen. We'll never know...



Deb and I on Easter Sunday, 1958
Wish I had that car today...

Our grandmother had five children - all born at home - and ten grandchildren. She outlived one of her sons and never quite recovered. Grandma always favored the youngest, so my cousin and I, as the oldest, were practically outcasts. I was fine with that because, for awhile, I had my other grandmother living next door. It's only now, in my old age, I realize how deeply she loved her family.

Every Sunday she prepared a family meal which consisted of either a pot roast or a pork roast, knaedels, mashed potatoes, spinach or Brussels sprouts and a salad. She fed up to twenty people on one small roast. Knaedels, in case you are unfamiliar, are grated potato, onion and bread dough balls which are boiled and served with gravy. They are vile. As were the vegetables she overcooked and mixed with a roux. I hated that awful, gray sauce. To this day I cringe at the sight of cooked spinach. I did, however, like her salad because she made a sweet and sour dressing with lots of sugar.

As a kid, I hated her cooking. Oddly enough, three things she made have come back to taunt me in my old age: her salad dressing, spaetzles and herring salad. I never cook with a cigarette hanging out of my mouth, so my food doesn't have that distinctive smoky flavor, but I've managed to adapt the recipes to my liking. My son has asked me how to make all but the herring salad. I'm afraid that family delicacy will die with me. It may actually kill me because I've been living on my version of low carb (sans potatoes) herring salad the entire month of December.

This entry has nothing to do with animals, other than this grandmother did not like them. The grandmother I was closer to, my father's mother, loved animals and I loved her, so I guess I picked up on her preferences. Her dog, Belle, was a cherished member of the family. The aforementioned grandmother did not think dogs belonged in the house. Poor Puddles only got to come in when the grandkids begged her to let him join us.

l-r Me, Puddles, Cousin Jeff and Deb

I am a lot like my father in that I prefer animals to most people. And, my own granddaughter is well on her way to carrying on that family trait. I'm still working on my grandson, who thinks animals are okay, but Legos are much better.