Meeting Mary

My grandmother and her second husband, my grandfather holding my dad.

My grandma Mary was not really my grandmother at all, not by blood anyway.
I did not know this until I was a teenager. Once she found out I knew she explained to me that love knows no bloodline, and that I was her granddaughter. Afterwards, she never brought it up again.

My grandma looked like she had just stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting. She wore her long hair up in a bun, a modest dress below her knees, old-time leg stockings and black buttoned shoes.

Her life had not been easy. Abandoned by her father as a child, she had to grow up fast and help her mother to raise her siblings. There were no child labor laws in the early 1900's, so she worked with her mother at anything they could find. She cleaned, cooked and did laundry for other families and got her education a little at a time. As a child once I asked her what her favorite toys when she was little. I was shocked to hear her reply that she  hadn't had any and never had much time to play. To me, a child of the 60s with a room full of toys and even my own record player I could not imagine never having time to play and no toys. I’ll never forget either the smile or faraway look she got in her eyes as she told me that once her mother had made her a doll from  corn-husks and given her broken pieces of dishes. She told me she had a tea party with those broken dishes with her doll as a guest and for a moment in time she wasn't a hardworking poor little girl but a rich princess serving tea and cake.

As life went on my grandma got married. They were happy from what I understand and in love. They had a little boy, and a little girl and then tragedy struck. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer. Back then most cancers were an automatic death sentence, and this was no different. He soon passed away leaving her once again as her own mother had been, struggling to keep a roof above and food in the bellies of her children.
I’m not sure how long afterwards but as most women of that time, she remarried again, not for love
but for security. He was considerably older she told me but a good man and provided well for their needs. Over time, she came to love him, although her son, and he never did get along and eventually as a teen, the son left home for the service. Before those years though my father was born, the first of four children she had with her second husband.

They raised these six children, two, hers and four theirs and created a life and a farm together. I entered that life and met my dad and his siblings and grandparents when I was three years old. My parents dated and married when I was five. Of course, I don’t remember this, but it was the start of a life that brought this wonderful loving but no-nonsense woman into mine. I’ll be remembering our journey together, her life, the farm, etc. through this blog. I’ll also be posting some from her diary during those years which I inherited when my parents passed on. You are invited to join me in this journey back to a time when life was slower and country life was a large part of the fabric that makes up this country.