Beginning to Know My Grandmother

@1906

My grandmother, Eitheline Marie (Pierce) Edwards (1885-1962), passed away when I six or seven.  We lived in Lake Bluff, IL, by then; just barely.  I didn't get to know her very well at all.  We did the family visits to Kansas nearly every summer; 2.5 days with Mom's family, 2.5 days with Dad's.  But what little kid hangs with the old people when there were cousins to play with and a gazillion things to do outside in the (oppressive) Kansas heat?

There are few things I remember about Grandma.  She was quiet.  She had a twinkle in her eye much like dad used to have.  (Dad favors her strongly.)  She was tired by the time I knew her.  Tired from a life of hard physical labor on a farm.  Making due with nothing.  Making use of every bit of everything.  In fact, I have a quilt top she made and I'm sure it was from clothes she and others used to wear...

1908 Wedding Picture

Grandma bore a daughter, then three sons, then much later another daughter..  Her daughter, her firstborn became ill before my father was born.  She died the year my father was born; I think she was about nine.  I'm sure it was so heartbreaking for my Grandmother.  So much so, that they went to the local children's home and adopted a girl who would have been about the same age as her lost daughter -- Faye was the adopted daughter's name.  I think she was 12.  Taken to the home by her parents because they could no longer afford to feed her (which is another long story).

By the time I remember Grandma, she had a dog.  A lap dog.  I never understood it.  Tinkerbell was a pekinese -- a very, very spoiled and nippy pekinese.  Tinkerbell was always sitting right next to Grandma on the chair.  Whenever we came near she growled and nipped at us.  I never could understand why Grandma wanted such a dog.  What was so special about that dog.  I didn't understand.

Until now. 

There is a loneliness that I think only women can understand as we get older.  Our "men" are off in their garages, workrooms, offices, lost in television and computer games. Or we are single again for one reason or another.  And we are here.  If we've been blessed to have children, for the most part those children are grown and gone. They have their own lives.  The house is empty.  We are alone.

Grandma never had anything nice in her life.  It was a hard life and she was dirt poor all 77 years.  But she finally had this dog.  This fancy schmancy dog. This beautiful, exotic dog with long hair who loved Grandma and never wanted to leave her side.  I think it was the first thing in her life that was not at all practical.  It was just for her.  Tinkerbell loved Grandma. She was her companion 24/7.

@1961 with Tinkerbell at our home in Madison, WI

Getting older, particularly as a woman, is definitely not for sissies.  And it can be a very lonely business.  So I can totally understand now why my Grandmother had her little dog and why Tinkerbell was so important to her.  I am beginning to know my Grandmother.