I sit down to conduct a phone interview with Nana—my last grandmother—on a Sunday afternoon. I’m curious about her relationship with her own grandmother, Alma. The two were very close. I ask Nana how she remembers Alma.
Nana says, “She was a good storyteller. She would tell us things that happened in her life, her memories from being a little girl: her mother dying when she was so young. Living with her grandmother. Going to school.”
And then, “She would tell us what her school was like. They didn’t do their work on paper; she had a slate. She would get that out and let us write on it. I have it; it’s very old. But that’s a memory I have, because that’s something she told me about.”
Nana continues, “She was a spunky, short little lady. She didn’t back down from any confrontation, if you know what I mean.”
I know exactly what she means. I knew my pluck came from somewhere.
Nana continues, “She took up for the teachers when the kids were rowdy. The boys wouldn’t listen, and they would threaten the teacher. My grandmother said one day she stood up in front of her teacher and said, ‘If you’re gonna do it to her, you’ll have to do it to me first.’ She said to me, ‘I’m not sure whether I thought that would actually stop them from doing anything.’” Nana laughs.
But it worked. The boys backed down.
Alma’s courage wasn’t her only strength. Nana shares another of Alma’s traits: generosity.
“She didn’t have much,” Nana says, “But if she had it, and I needed it, it was mine.” Nana tells me of the wedding gifts that Alma gave to her—dishes and cookware from her own kitchen. “She didn’t have a lot to give, but she gave what she could.”
Nana adds that, more importantly than dishes or cookware, Alma gave up her time. “Sometimes I say she missed her calling,” Nana says. “She had no training as a nurse, but she did a lot of nursing. She took care of sick people in the community. She was known for that. People would call her to take care of others. It’s just another thing she was good at.” Nana pauses. “But her life was full of heartache.”
Nana recalls other qualities that Alma had. “She was a woman of many talents. She loved flowers, and she loved pretty dishes. She loved having company. She lived in the day when if someone comes to your house, you cooked a meal for them. They came to visit and stayed the day, and you cooked and visited.”
She elaborates, “I remember driving to my grandma’s house to take her to the grocery store. Before we left that morning, a distant family member came (a cousin), so she wouldn’t leave and go to the grocery store. She made lunch for her cousin, and we stayed right there and entertained him, because that’s what you do. I was so aggravated. I thought, ‘I’ve come a long way to take you to the grocery store, but you won’t go.’ And she said, ‘Oh, no—won’t take me long to stir up lunch.’”
The images keep coming.
“I have good memories of my grandmother at breakfast. I can remember waking up to hearing her sing when she was busy in the morning. She would fix breakfast early, even if we didn’t wake up. She would cook homemade biscuits every morning; she’d butter and put sugar on a biscuit for me to have when I woke up. You talk about a good biscuit! It’s the same recipe your mom uses.”
I hadn’t known!
I mention Alma’s marriage to her second husband. “I like the part of the story where she finally met Jack,” I say.
“Jack had never been married before,” Nana explains, “And they never had children.”
Nana remembers something else. “Grandma lost children, too. One baby died at birth. And the little girl was named Rosalie; she didn’t live to be two. But it’s another one of those things—when she took sick, she died. It was just a stomach virus, but they called it consumption. She was less than two.”
I wonder aloud at how Alma was able to deal with the all heartbreak in her life.
Nana echoes my sentiments. “Grandma said the morning Rosalie died, she was playing. And then she got sick, and then you know. . . . It just hurts my heart. I can’t imagine that. A mother, a sister, two husbands, two children—and eventually her daddy.”
Of course Alma didn’t just “deal” with the heartache. She was admitted to a mental hospital shortly after her marriage to Jack. I ask Nana what happened.
She says, “Jack took her there, and they really didn’t think that she would ever be okay. It was the strain of raising a child, being left alone—it was just a hard, hard life. I think she just . . . lost it.”
Thankfully, Alma did recover. But this doesn’t surprise me.
I tell Nana why I am interviewing her. In the wake of my other grandmother’s death, my grandparents’ stories have become dear to me. “I don’t know,” I say, “I guess I’m asking you about your grandmother as a way of remembering mine.”
“I’m sure you are,” Nana says, empathy in her voice. “There are things I never wrote down that I wish I had.”
So here I am, writing about my grandmother, and her grandmother. Trying to be better.
Nana continues, “We think we have a messed up life. I think some times, ‘How did any of us end up sane?’” She laughs. But even she had her share of hardship.
“Nana,” I ask, “weren’t you young when your father died?”
“I was twenty-two when my daddy died,” she says. “I thought my life was ruined forever.” She pauses. “And it was, for a long time.”
Grief rears his ugly head at last. We share the feeling together for a brief moment.
“Nana,” I say, “I’m turning twenty-two this year.”
The reality is heavy for us both.
“You’re growing too fast,” Nana tells me, and for a while she talks about each of her grandchildren in turn. I’m struck by how good of a grandmother I have, and how I’ve come from a long line of tenacious women. It’s a blessing I’m only starting to comprehend. I hardly feel worthy. But if telling my grandmothers’ stories can preserve their legacies, I’m going to do it.
Before I end the call, Nana says to me, “I’m proud of you.”