Community Chat

[sfnative]

I was shipped back to the farm in Michigan to spend many summers on my maternal grandparents farm. Being a city girl, this sure was a 180 experience and to say I learned a lot is an understatement.

My Grandma Grace, amongst other things, was in charge of the chickens and the coup. The first summer I spent with them as a 7 year old, she taught me how to be stealthy around the hens. She told me to approach them in their roost as if I hadn't a care in the world, then very slowly raise my hand, place it under the hen with the top side of my hand up, move my hand forward til I touched the egg, move very slowly to grasp the egg and then pull back my hand and step away slowly. I was warned that the hen may peck at my hand if I wasn't too careful.

All these years that lesson has stayed with me and I haven't been near a chicken since we no long stayed on their farm. Great lesson, though.

[croemer]

I did not get to spend much time with my mother's mother( she lived across the country)...though I know many stories about how hard life was for her for most of her life. She was an awesome cook and while she would visit in her later years I had her help me with some of my favorite recipes...like fried chicken and gravy...two of my favs.

[hckynut]

Only had a maternal grandmother and what I learned from her is not flattering to her. While I loved her because she was the mother of my mom, the way she treated my mother/my sisters, and myself was very sad. She pretty much disowned my mother because of her choice of a spouse, and us kids pretty much were collateral damage. Money/ wealth and expensive "things" seemed more important to her than family, and when she allowed us children to visit her, she made this very apparent with her "house rules". Don't touch this/don't step on this rug/ don'tbsit on that chair and so on. Needless to say none of us were too eager to visit her in her home. Since we lived in "Public Housing Projects" no way she would be seen in that part of town. Maybe that is why money was not or is not that important to me and how I treat others happens to be. Not an uplifting story for sure, but I never the less thought I would share it.

[Irshgrl31201]

Wow, SFnative, that sounds great. I think the lessons you would learn on a farm would be very beneficial in other aspects of life.

I didn't really see my mothers mom a whole lot when I was growing up. My maternal grandparents lived in Oklahoma and while my mother was pretty close to her father, she wasn't with her mother. She was never really happy and wasn't very nice to be around. She blamed everyone for her problems and did nothing to improve her situation. She thought it was up to my grandfather to make her happy. My grandparents were originally from Buffalo, NY but my grandfather worked for the post office and wanted to be transferred to CA and got a transfer to OKC and took it thinking he would later wait and receive another transfer to CA but they just stayed there. My grandfather was a great man, full of energy and a very hard worker. He was a Golden Gloves boxing champion who was an extremely hard worker who always saw the positive side of things. My grandmother literally taught me nothing except for maybe happiness isn't going to drop in your lap, you have to go out there and make your own happiness because it isn't going to drop in your lap.

I was very close with my dads mom. She lived in Miami where my dad grew up. She was definitely the fun grandma. Her name was Della and we called her Disco Della. She was the kindest woman you could ever meet. I honestly never heard her say a bad word about anyone. My mother was closer to her than she was her own mother. My grandmother was born in the Bahamas and met my dads father when he was there visiting. Her family was very poor my dads father treated her terribly. He divorced her and got custody of my father but she kept fighting for him and when my dads father remarried, he didn't to be weighed down by my father. My grandmother wasn't very sophisticated or worldly but she had a heart of gold. She was an excellent cook and I do mean excellent. She would come to visit with us and stay for the whole summer. We weren't allowed junk food growing up but when she came up to visit us she would bring a whole grocery bag full of candy bars and other candy and my mom would lets us have those. That is exciting stuff to a 6 yr old kid. When she would come to visit she would let me cook with her. We would spend the whole day in the kitchen cooking up big dinners. She taught me how to play poker and gin rummy and other card games. She enjoyed her drinks and when I was around 8 she taught me how to make her drinks and each night she would have 2 drinks and I would make them and she tipped me $5 for every drink.

I miss her very much. She taught me what I wanted to emulate when I became a grandmother. No, I probably won't have my grandson mix my alcoholic beverages but that was a different time. When I think of my grandmother, I have the best memories of our closeness. How we shared a room when she came to visit and at night we would lay in bed and she would tell me stories about when she was growing up. It is all so positive and I hope more than anything that when my grandson grows up, he has 1/2 the good memories of me like I have with her.

My grandmother wasn't rich at all. My maternal grandparents did come to have money and they bought me nice and extravagant gifts while my paternal grandmother could not afford that stuff at all. What she gave me was so much more valuable than an expensive present. She made me feel important because she spent so much time with me and she really liked to be with me. She has been dead for 25 yrs now and I miss her so much.

I hope so much that my grandson will feel this way about me. She was a great woman and taught me so how much influence a grandparent can have on a grandchild just by simply being there and paying attention.

[raven-blackbird]

I was raised by grandparents and we lived on a farm........so that was everyday stuff to us.......the one thing my grandmother taught me was something she felt strongly about.........and that was.........no matter, what anyone says, you can do anything you put your mind to.........she raised five girls......in a time where there were "men" jobs.....and "women" jobs..........she never raised a single one of us with the notion that separation existed........some of us girls like outside stuff, so we worked the farm......and the others like "inside" stuff, so they helped with the washing, cleaning........and that was find with grandma...........you were allowed to find your niche and explore it.......................................raven

[Preds]

I learned that I didn't want to be like my grandmothers. I loved them, but they were very selfish, cold, spiteful women.

[Still Raining]

My paternal grandmother never came downstairs until she was perfectly dressed and made up. Lipstick, heels, stockings, slip, dress, and perm in place. Such a challenge for me.

[Marienkaefer2]

My grandmother was a hard worker. My grandparents came to the US from Italy. My grandmother was a maid and nanny, janitor, and factory worker, most of the time working two jobs at once. My grandfather worked in restaurant kitchens. When the US entered WWII, my grandfather wasn't eligible for service because his left hand was missing a finger (result of playing with discarded ammunition from WWI in a field near his house when he was a boy.) So he managed to take a shipbuilding/repair course, and got a job in the shipyards repairing ships damaged in the war. It was the first time they earned a bit more money, and they saved it and after the war opened a hardware/building business together, which became extremely successful. My grandparents were married 75 years, and always worked side by side. My grandmother could dress up in the prettiest dress and shoes. On the other hand, she could lift, carry, saw, hammer well as any man. I guess what I learned from my grandmother is a love of pretty clothes and the value of hard work.

[Puzzle Piece]

Sorry, grandmas weren't around very long.

[deepwaterdotter]

She taught me racial tolerance during the 1960's in her inner-city neighborhood. She also taught me hand embroidery.