Share your memories and advice from your grandparents here!

[savingdogs]

I have noted that many of you share stories of your grandparents and great grandparents and their livestyles.

I know my grandma was very influential to me in this manner...her garden, her chickens, her cooking and cleaning style, her thrift and her cooking.....I often think of her as I try to learn to do homesteading crafts as I know she knew how to be self sufficient and I didn't get enough of that knowledge from her.

Can we share what our grandparents taught us here and see if we can regain some of the lost information and tips?

I invite you to pour yourself a cuppa, sit down on the couch and tell me your grandparent tale........................

 

[Wifezilla]

My grandma lived in Cudahy, kind of a suburb of Milwaukee. Even being "in town", she raised rabbits for meat and fertilizer, had 3 huge apple trees, a raspberry patch, a big veggie garden and lots of flowers.

My mom totally rejected all of grandmas ways. Apparently the self-sufficiency bug skips a generation in my family.

When grandma and grandpa bought their plot of land, they also bought the empty plot next door. That is how they were able to do so much in suburbia.

 

[kcsunshine]

Well, since I highjacked BarredBuffs journal, I'll start with copying what I wrote there.

My Mamaw was such a strong Christian woman who raised chickens, turkeys, cows, and could grow anything. She saved her seeds every year, cooked all her meals from scratch every day, even went out in the woods and chopped her firewood. She had a big iron pot in the back yard she used for heating water to wash clothes (Papaw didn't believe in having a bathroom in the house and she didn't have running water in her kitchen. (My uncles built her a bathroom, my dad dug her a well, and they piped water into the house for her after Papaw died). My Papaw passed away in 1968, just 1 week after my DD was born, and my Mamaw lived alone until her passing in 1991. She would have been 91 years old on her birthday. I still miss her and now wish I had paid more attention to the things she did and the way she lived. That woman could bake biscuits that would float off your plate - in a wood stove.

Mamaw never left the house to work outside without her sunbonnet on her head - got a headache if she baked her head. She was 9 years old when her mother died and was left in charge of several younger siblings for a week at a time while her daddy went off to work. Some of the tales she told about what they got into when he was gone would make you ROFL.

We had such lovely (and some painful) adventures at her house. There were 20 acres, mostly woods, and we explored them all. I broke my arm there (doing something my daddy said not to do, of course) and my nephew broke his arm there, too. Mamaw made a home-made liniment she used to rub on my legs when they hurt at night. Stunk to high heaven, but would put me right to sleep. She used all the old remedies for whatever ailed you - mixed snuff and honey to make a paste to put on boils - it would bring it right to a head, then twist a string around the core to pop it right out. (TMI?)

This is all about my Mom's mother - now my Dad's mother is another long story - for a later telling.

 

[FarmerJamie]

So many good memories - the funny one was when we were in a fast food restuarant (a treat for us kids in the 70's) and as GM was heading to the booth, her soft drink (soda/pop for you outside OH ) fell off her tray onto the floor. That gracious Christian woman let loose an "oh $h*t" that whole place heard. We laughed about it at her funeral.

The memory I regret - I was the oldest of 9 grandchildren, in my mid-twenties and did not have a GF - many of the others a few years younger were already married. For a year straight, at the family holiday dinners, after the prayer, GM would comment about how she had hoped I woulld have brought someone as she had plenty of room (at that time 25 us would attend). One New Years Day, I warned my cousins I had had enough. When the "comment" did happen, my response was "you'll need to set an extra seat for Easter, he gets out of prison in March". It was the only time in my life I remembered being lectured by my Grandpa and I apologized to her later that evening.

I got my love of gardening and canning from those two, RIP.

 

[FarmerJamie]

On the other side of the family, my grandparents had a dairy farm. GM was opposed to alcohol completely. I didn't witness it, but once she and her MIL decided that they could turn a nice profit if they made and sold brandied fruitcake. As the story goes, the followed the recipe and about the time it should have been "ready" they tasted it (never having tasted brandy before) and thought the whole batch spoiled, so they fed the whole lot to the chickens. Supposedly, shortly afterwards, a friend was visiting and asked what was wrong with chickens with the roo let out a ghastly mangled crow. Then he explained the chickens were most likely DRUNK.

Got my love of animals from this set of grands, RIP.

 

[BarredBuff]

I got garden and orchard love from my Granny. The chicken bug was accquired..........

 

[murphysranch]

On my father's side, GM and GF would make their own sauerkraut. It was in a big crock with a stone on top. In the basement of their home in Pittsburgh PA. It was delicious and soft in texture. And GM had a crank washer wringer, cus GF was too cheap to buy her a new fangled one. She lived until her 90's. She would make us fried green tomatoes in cornmeal (ugh) and would make me sardine (in oil) sandwich on white bread (ummm). My looks take after her, but not my height. She taught us how to make fried bologna sandwiches too. GF worked for the Penn State Railroad, where he was a station attendant.

On my mother's side, they raised turkeys and chickens in their surburban Philly backyard, in Bala Cynwyd. GF was an engineer for Atlantic Richfield, and during the depression when he was laid off, he sold the dressed turkeys, he fished in Barnegat Bay and sold the fish and clams he gathered, while GM mended clothing. GM always told me to push my cuticles back until you could see a half moon. (ouch) She made the best Clams Casino, and fried blow fish. Grandfather showed me his 60's stick shift VW and how the engine worked.

Too bad we didn't see them very often. We were a military family and only saw each of the above sets every few years.

From their genes, I love to fish, love to sew, do needlecraft, and am now raising my own chickens and eggs. I want to make sauerkraut someday, hoping it will taste like I remember.

 

[abifae]

I adore this thread I have no stories but am really enjoying reading all yours

 

[farmerlor]

My grandmother was a good Christian woman who had a real strong Pagan streak in her. She talked about honoring the earth and taking care of her and she taught me to listen to the trees and animals. She'd be horrified if she heard me say this. LOL!
Gram always told me that you take care of your family first, your neighbors next and your community after that. She said no decent person cannot sleep warm with a full belly if their neighbor is cold and hungry. Gram was all about "pay it forward" and karma before either term was popular. She told me that everything I did would come back to me whether it was a good thing or a bad thing so best to put those good things out there so only good things came back. (more Paganism)

 

[ORChick]

I grew up in a stone house that my grandfather built. We were a 3 generation family in that house until his death. GM had died a couple of years before I was born. The house was lived in from 1919, but didn't have electricity until my eldest brother was a toddler, 1948 - there wasn't any at the site when the house was built, and later my grandparents didn't see the point of adding it. I think it was eventually their DIL (my mother)'s idea. But they still had the kerosene lamps for winter storms. Specifically what I learned? Mostly from osmosis, and not true lessons - I learned about recycling; GF built that house with stones from the beach, but there were other bits that he acquired that were built into the walls - marble from a local bank being demolished; some large granite slabs, likewise; many other things. I learned that a granite house in the fogbelt of the central California coast is usually very cold and damp, and that layering is good, and also that an ambient temperature of 62* is warm (the house was usually colder - no central heating, but a number of open fireplaces). I still find most American homes overheated . I learned that spiders (and, by extention, all living things) are not *evil*, and should be helped outside if they are inside, and not squished (I just somehow *knew* that - a girl thing? - but my brother remembers GF teaching him). And I learned that having a GF around 24/7 is a very nice thing for a little grandaughter