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| Grandma Mary Ellen |
First up on my recollections of Grandparents is my maternal Grandmother, Mary Ellen (deceased). The recollections are random, and in no particular order. This is a “living post” in that as I remember something, I will add it to this post, and update the date at the bottom.
- My grandmother, Mary Ellen, came from a large, but I take it, poor, family. She had one sister (Dee), and three brothers (Adam, Vince, and John). One of these brothers is my Godfather, my Great Uncle John (deceased). I could not tell you a thing about their parents. There was a family member who I knew as Uncle Bill. I believe he was my grandmother’s uncle.
- I do not know where my grandmother was born, but by the time I came along, she was living in Detroit, Michigan, and spent most of her life there, before retiring to upstate Michigan in a little town called Lewiston.
- She gave birth to my mother and my aunt (Denise) before her husband (my maternal Grandfather, Ted) bailed to start a new family. She eventually remarried to a man named Maurice, and together they had a son, my uncle David.
- She met Maurice while working as a cocktail waitress in a bar or diner (both?) in Detroit.
- Together they would build a life on a street called Manistique, in a cute, if small, 2 bedroom, 1 bath, brick house. There was a yard outback, with a detached garage.
- I used to spend time in the backyard playing with the various tools, pieces of wood, and what not, trying to build something (Or else, my uncle David was teaching me to shoot his BB gun at little plastic army men lined on the fence).
- She had a dog, Buffy, a Cocker-Spaniel as an indoor dog, while she had three huge St. Bernards who lived in a specially built, and insulated dog shelter in the backyard. Their names were Heidi, Hungry, and Teddy Bear. Years later after they passed, and she had retired, she ended up with a little Yorkshire Terrier named Jasper.
- There was a basement that seemed full of adventure and weird smells.
- My grandmother used to make chocolate peanut butter candies. She’d work in the kitchen, melting chocolate, using those molds to make little shellfish candies or lollipops, creating chocolate covered peanut butter yummies. God they were tasty.
- Sunday nights, she’d host a huge family dinner. Everyone was there…My aunt and her husband, my uncle, my mom and dad, and even though it was a full dinner, my grandmother would send me home with bologna and American cheese sandwiches (with ketchup) on white bread, with a tupperware cup of milk. It was the best meal.
- She used to work at a department store called Hudson’s, and retired from it. She used to buy an immense amount of clothing and send it to my brother, mother, and I, out in California. She’d buy on clearance, and with her discount, it came to nearly nothing.
- I remember visiting her once while she was still working at Hudson’s and seeing a cell phone for the first time. It was like a car battery with a long cord and a huge handset. Times have clearly changed.
- She loved to camp and fish.
- One time while visiting California in the 1980s, we were in the Marin Headlands and she stumbled. She ended up breaking her foot , and spending the rest of her vacation on crutches.
- Just after I was born, my mother and I moved to Italy to be with my father (serving in the U.S. Army). Years later, I found cassette tapes my grandmother would send to my mother while in Italy. The tapes were filled, hours upon hours, of my grandmother speaking about every topic: Local gossip; the price of vegetables; politics; and so on.
- She smoked.
- She used to use an entire stick of butter to make omelets.
- She died of cancer, of the breast, of the bone, and the lungs. She had been sick for years, but did not tell anyone. The one thing you could count on with my grandmother was that she would take care of everyone, but would never speak of her ill health or of needing help herself.
- For reasons I’m not clear on, she had a falling out with her sister, Dee. Something to do with jealously and back-biting. It caused a divide in the brothers and sisters as they took sides. My mother’s generation seemed to stay out of it, and regardless of what was going on at their parent level, all the cousins got along fine.
- The first time we ever visited her after she had retired, having not seen her in a few years, within 5 minutes of arriving at her home, she gave my brother and I brooms, and asked us to sweep the roof clean of leaves.
- She cried. A LOT. Whenever we arrived. Whenever we left. It was tears of absolute joy at seeing family, and absolute sadness to see them go. The family used to tease her about it, but I would not have had it any other way. You knew she cared.
- On a very early birthday for me, she had proudly made from absolute scratch a huge cake. She was so proud of it, and when it was served, I had the privilege of eating first. It was horrible! I said something to effect of “It’s gross!” and she burst into tears. Turns out…the cake had been sitting in the fridge next to the potato salad and the cream cheese frosting had absorbed the scent of onion and herb and made the cake taste like…well…potato salad. The “Onion Cake” still lives in family legend.
- Before she had the home on Manistique, she lived in an apartment downstairs from a little boy who would one day grow up to be the drummer for The Romantics.
Last Updated 11/24/2014
