Grandma's house

My mom's family believed in getting together often. When Cliff and I first married, he couldn't believe how often.

My maternal grandma, the only grandmother I ever knew, had already passed on by then, so he never really got to know the charm of "Grandma's house". That's where the best gatherings were held.

It wasn't a big house, and the rooms were small. It used to amaze me to think that five children had been raised in the confines of that little cottage. By the time I came along, it was just "Grandma's house"; she lived there alone, a widow.


Here are two of my uncles in front of that house, before Grandma ever thought of being a grandmother.

That's Grandma with her firstborn child, Ruby, and her first grandson, Gerald.


That's my sister.

I won't name all these for you... it's Grandma, her kids, and her grandkids. And that's the barn at Grandma's house, behind them.

Ah, now we're getting little Donna in the picture: That's me in the middle, and the dog is one of many "Tippies" Grandma owned. She named every dog she ever had "Tippy"; it saved her from having to memorize a different name for each new dog.

I took this picture a couple of years before Grandma died. Notice a different Tippy by her side, eating the table scraps she'd just fed him.

I regret the fact that there are no pictures, as far as I know, of Grandma's kitchen, because that was the heart of her home. I don't think anyone in the family had flash attachments on their cameras until the late fifties or early sixties, which is why we have so many outdoor photographs. But I can shut my eyes even now and mentally walk through that house and recall exactly where every item was placed.

Still, I wish I had some inside shots: For instance, Grandma in her rocking chair, crocheting, while listening to "One Man's Family" on the radio; Grandma sitting on her tall stool at the cabinet making noodles (I've wondered lately if she had arthritic knees like mine, because she always sat on that stool instead of standing, as she worked in the kitchen); Grandma upstairs working on a quilt.

Thank God for the sharpness and clarity of the photographs in my mind.