I have no digital pictures of my grandparents so this will have to suffice. I remember saying this week that I used to watch the Harlem Globetrotters with my grandfather. I only had one set of grandparents and he died when I was twelve.
If I have one childhood memory of a joint activity with my grandmother (who lived until I was in my mid-forties) it was of her making doll clothes for my Ginny dolls. She made them by hand and they were gorgeous. I sat at her feet and watch the dresses take shape. She even managed a cowgirl outfit when I wanted her to ride horses.
What memory do you have of something you did with a grandparent (if you were lucky enough to spend time with the,)
PS: NEAW is NEW for the new way the TMNT are now drawn.
13 comments:
Patti - Isn't grandparenting the best?! I love it. I'm so glad you got some Kevin time and I love those pictures.
Me, too. He is beginning to get some movement in them!
Jackie is very impressed with the Ginny doll story! She had one herself and said she used to dress it in various outfits.
My mother's father died years before I was born but I had my other three grandparents as well as three great grandparents as a child. My mother's grandfather lived until just before we got married. I took my mother to visit him at the hospital when he was 94 and had decided he'd had enough and was ready to die. He was quite a character. He scared my father to death by insisting on crossing the major avenue where we lived by himself to go to the small synagogue three doors down from us(he lived with my great aunt, across the street from us) even at night in the dark.
Another memory is of Jackie and I meeting my father's father for dinner in the Pennsylvania Hotel across from Madison Square Garden and having him regale us with stories of his fur dyeing business and trips to Canada he'd made 50 years earlier, in vivid detail. My sharp memory probably comes from that side of the family.
But the most vivid memory from my childhood was of Sunday afternoons. My father would drive to Queens to pick up my grandparents and his Aunt Gussie and bring them back to Brooklyn for the afternoon and Sunday dinners which would usually end with a card game while my grandfather escaped for a long walk o smoke his smelly cigars.
Jeff M.
Sundays dinners with grandparents were a big thing for us too. Always a roast, potatoes, and some dully cooked frozen vegetables. Oh, and dinner rolls. And a great dessert bought from a nearby bakery. The menu rarely varied. And leftovers the next day.
My grandmother used to make chicken soup every Sunday when we visited her. It was the best chicken soup I've ever tasted.
My mother's mother was a great cook. She made fabulous pot roast with kasha and wonderful thick mushroom and barley soup, among other goodies. It was real stick to your ribs food.
I don't remember my other grandmother's cooking in particular but apparently she was a wonderful baker. We have an 8 mm. movie of my first birthday featuring the cake she made.
Jeff M.
My grandparents were all gone except one grandfather, who lived with us and didn't much like his two grandkids and avoided us most of the time. All I remember of him is that he was really a grump and shooed me away when I wanted to hang out with him, the few times I tried to. I also remember he had an immaculate workbench in the garage with tools hanging up and their outlines on the pegboard with their names. "A place for everything and everything and everything in it's place" was one of his favorite sayings, and woe be unto me if I used but didn't put away, carefully cleaned and oiled, any of the tools.
Not much of a memory...
My parents's parents couldn't have been more different. My mother's parents were kind, loving, and patient, possessing all the virtues we associate with good grandparents. Even though they had close to 20 grandchildren and limited means, there was always a little gift or coin or candy when we visited. Sadly, they both died before I was out of my teens.
On the other hand, my father's patents fought constantly. They were married for over 60 years and hated every minute of it. My Dad always said the lesson he took from his childhood was he didn't want a marriage like his parents had--and he didn't! Like Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine, my father's parents kept hanging on, neither one wanting to give the other the satisfaction of outliving the other. My grandmother was done in by a broken hip at 85. My grandfather--from whom I remember not a single kind word or gesture--lived to be 95.
I'm glad to say my parents have given my chdren examples of loving, caring grandparents.
Rick-That is so sad. I am really sorry you were deprived of having one good grandparental experience.
And I am glad Deb had at least one.
My father was one of nine and I never made an accurate count of how many cousins I have. My memories of him were basically from large Fourth of July family gatherings at his house (and that he had a two-seater outhouse in the shed; couldn't blame him with all those kids)and Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners every year at our house. My father's mother died before I was born. My grandfather remarried only when he realized that his two youngest daughters would not marry and leave him alone in the house; his second wife was a nice, albeit innocuous, woman, but she was enough that my aunts did not feel guilty when they married. My father often remarked that his maternal grandmother (who had lived with him when young) was an absolute tartar.
My mother's father died in an accident when she was seven and she was raised by her grandmother. (Her mother took the baby sister and headed to Florida.) I never met my maternal grandmother and met my mother's sister only once, when I was five or six. My great-grandmother lived until I was in high school and was a great influence on me.
Kitty's mother was orphaned by the time she was nine and was raised by and uncle who was a gambler and just a slight bit shady. Kitty (and I) loved him. His wife was a nice lady who was burdened by a manic-depressive disorder. Kitty's paternal grandfather died early from (I believe) the Irish virus, and she was sheltered from her paternal grandmother by her mother (who never met a grudge she didn't like). A shame, really, because Kitty's grandmother was a strong and remarkable woman.
We truly enjoy being the grandparents we never really had and only wish that two of our grandchildren were not 500 miles away.
And Ginny dolls! As a girl, Kitty loved her Ginny dolls and has always regretted that her mother had thrown hers out. I recently tried to buy her one but the prices on-line are exhorbitant.
I made the mistake of letting my kids play with my Ginny dolls when they were far too young to be careful. Soon they were bald and most of their clothes and furniture was ruined. One of my biggest regrets because I loved them so much.
My father was very close with his first clousins. A whole lot of them grew up together in a small area of Brooklyn. Our generation rarely saw (or sees) each other.
Jackie's most memorable recollections of her grandparents: driving to Levittown, Pennsylvania to visit her uncle's family in her grandfather's mustard and white Chevy with the windows rolled up and her grandfather smoking cigars.
Years later (she was 16) visiting her grandparents in Florida, her grandfather somehow got his car stuck on the divider of Biscayne Boulevard (or some other similar street) and having to call a tow truck to get the car off it.
As for how well they got along, one of Jackie's friends thought her grandfather's name was "Sam you Bastard" as that's what she always called him.
Jeff M.
We lived on the third floor of my maternal grandparents large home when I was small so I remember them well. Most mornings I would have breakfast with my grandfather and I even remember what he ate every morning. He had come out from Ireland when he was 14 and worked for the Canadian Pacific Railway for 51 years. My paternal grandparents lived in a town about 60 miles away and at the time it was a big deal to visit them. My grandparents had come from Wales and were staunch members of the Baptist Church. Their sitting room was off limits except for the minister. My grandfather used to take my sister and me for a walk down the main street and proudly tell people, and he seemed to know everyone as he had been a policeman, that were his grandchildren who were visiting him and my grandmother. I'm lucky that I have so many great memories of my grandparents
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