“If you want to see her one last time, I think you’d better come now,” said my mother during our weekly phone call.
I looked at my three-and-half-year-old daughter and five-week-old son and sighed. “Okay. I’ll book a flight.”
As it turned out, my grandmother had not been feeling well for over six months. She had said nothing of the pains she felt in her lower abdomen, nor of the nausea she had been experiencing. Her secret was discovered the day she winced and bent over, nearly collapsing on the floor in front of my mom, her daughter.
Mom was no stranger to the stealth nature of cancers, having so far survived one herself. Her fears were confirmed after scans and tests revealed that Grandma had fourth stage ovarian cancer. At 82 years old, she was not interested in treatment.
It became clear very quickly that Grandpa would not be able to manage Grandma’s care at home. Thus, Grandma elected to put herself into a nursing care facility where her daughter then visited her every day. I flew down to Florida for ten days, with both my toddler and infant, and we joined my mother on her daily visits.
A routine was established. I would nurse the baby so that he was satisfied and sleepy prior to our short drive to Grandma’s nursing home. Each day, our arrival was met with celebratory greetings from staff and patients alike as we paraded down the hall to Grandma’s room. Grandma said she felt like a celebrity with all the fuss that was made over her visitors. She wanted the baby, who was in his carryall, placed at the foot of her bed so she could see him. My chatty three-year-old would tell Grandma what all we had done that morning, and then she would play with her doll, or sing songs, or stand at the door and wave to anyone who walked by.
As the family archivist, of sorts, I long had put off identifying a box full of photos that had been salvaged when Grandma and Grandpa sold their Wisconsin home and moved to Florida. I thought it might be now or never so one day I brought the box, which was stored at Mom and Dad’s, with me.
“Grandma, I was wondering if you might like to go through this box of photos with me so I can write on the backs who these people are,” I said, box in hand. Grandma agreed and scooted over as she patted her bed, indicating that she wanted me in the bed with her. I crawled up next to her and placed the box across our laps.
It took three visits to get through all the photos. Most dated back to the early part of the twentieth century, none were taken any later than the 1940s. There were baptism and confirmation photos, wedding and anniversary photos, and a couple 4x6 leather-bound albums with vacation snapshots. Grandma was able to identify most of what we looked at together, but there were quite a few of which she just couldn’t come up with the name or the reason for having the photo.
When I showed her the portrait of a young girl in a petal sleeve dress with ostrich feathers on her lap, Grandma began to chuckle her signature laugh of delight. “Oh my goodness,” she said, a blush clearly appearing on her face.
“Who is this?” I asked.
Her blush grew deeper as she responded, “That’s me.” I waited a few moments before prompting her to tell me the story of this photo.
We girls, me, my sister, and another friend, thought we were such big shots. You see, we’d grown up on farms in Albion, but all of us went to school in town, in Edgerton. It was a five-mile drive both ways and in the 1920s, my dad didn’t own a car yet. He wouldn’t have one of those until long after I was married. My younger brother, who had to quit school to work on our farm when he was 14, drove us in the buggy each morning and then picked us up in the late afternoon. We girls got to go to high school, which was really something. Sometimes I still can’t believe my dad let us go. But we went.
So after we graduated, Dad said there was too much work to be done to let my brother continue with what he called ‘that nonsense,’ so the three of us girls got jobs in town and arranged to stay with one of the many folks who rented out rooms. I worked at the Ford garage as the receptionist, my sister was at the Edgerton General Store, and my girlfriend worked at the newspaper. Oh, yes, we thought we were big shots alright. With our own pay every Friday, we went to the picture show–there was a new one out every week–got sodas at the A&W, which was where all the kids went to hang out, and even got store-bought clothes, and shoes. Yes, we thought we were something.
One day an itinerant photographer came to town. We were always warned about peddlers and such, but he was real nice. He set up on the edge of town with his caravan full of dresses, hats, jewelry, shawls, jackets, and feather boas. Everything looked like costumes right from Hollywood, they were all so colorful and stylish. He had costumes for boys, too, but mostly it was girls who wanted to get dressed up for a photograph. It cost two whole dollars! But, we girls were determined to do it to show off how fancy we all were with our own money.
Grandma held the photo a little bit longer in her hand, admiring the beauty that stared back at her. Her eyes glistened as she put the photo back in my hand to return to the box.
Grandma died just two months later. Whenever I look at this sweet photo of her pretending to be a movie star and feeling like a big shot, I, too, find that my eyes glisten. Her laugh, her smile, and her famously dry humor are captivating memories.
Copyright DJ Anderson, 2022
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