Share your memories and advice from your grandparents here!

[Wannabefree]

My GM started teaching me to cook when I was 5 and ig enough to get my own chair My other GM I only remember in her chair by the window for years. She passed about 5 years ago, but for all of 25 years prior I just remember her in that chair looking out the window at her squirrel feeder It is all she ever really did. Back to my mothers mother. We did alot together. I never knew my GF's one died before I was born and the other when I was 3. I have one memory of my GF and that was him sitting me on his knee and giving me a silver dollar, which I still have So, I didn't learn a lot from them, but GM did teach me to cook, and I love cooking to this day. She kept chickens too, and I loved them then. Guess that's where my love of birds comes from.

 

[savingdogs]

Oh, I'm loving this chat!

I need to tell a little of my own Grandma's story, the one who inspired me to start this thread, my mom's mom. On the other side I never knew my Grandma.

Grandma Mable was a character as well as frugal, hardworking and resourceful, the original recycler. She darned her nylons! She was married four times and outlived all four husbands. She swore, drank and smoked cigarettes, so in some ways, she was a very poor role model. But she was a happy and generous person and was actually quite healthy, living to be almost 100 and independent of all but five of those years. Always ate two veggies at every meal! As a child I remember her always having some small gift she had saved for me. A butter tin full of pennies. A cute cup. A box of candy. She started showing me around her garden at a young age and teaching me the names of flowers and how to care for them. As an adult if I took her to nurseries or plant shows, she would secretly pinch off leaves and then show me the plants she created when I would next visit.

She was a marvel at sewing and crafts and could make any garment you asked, no matter how complicated. Every little scrap of fabric was saved and she made quilts. I still have a Sunbonnet Baby quilt that she made me, using scrap cloth from the dresses she had made me to go onto the sunbonnet babies. I cherish it!
She always wanted everyone tremendously fed when she came over and always tried to get everyone drunk and laughing! I remember her always with a big grin and laughing, an unsmoked ciggy sitting ignored in the ashtray.

She adored animals and she MUST be where I got the loving animals gene because both of my parents are really not very interested. But one remark that always sticks in my mind that she made....one day I served chicken drumsticks in a spicy sauce for her to try the recipe. She looks down at my platter of drumsticks and says to me, "Damn, that chicken had a lot of legs!"

 

[kcsunshine]

My Mamaw quilted.....boy did she quilt. She had a treadle sewing machine and taught me how to sew. I spent almost all my spare time at her house, at one time I cried until my uncle took me back home (late at night) then brought me back 'cause I only wanted to see my mama and daddy. (Yes I was the oldest and spoiled). Under Mamaw's watchful eye, I made my first quilt, a 9-diamond pattern. When she got to the point she couldn't care for herself alone she still sewed quilt tops. Her box of quilt scraps and pieces of fabric always set beside her chair. When she passed there were enough tops for every son and daughter (6) and every grandchild (11) and more left over.

She was also a recycler before it became popular. That woman had a room full of boxes of canning jars. She saved pieces of foil. I remember her churning butter, making cottage cheese, and apple pie with crumbles on top instead of crust. Every Saturday she made a soup out of all the left-overs from the week before. She dried apples on top of the tin roof of the wood shed and made the absolute best stack cakes in the world - and potato rolls - yum - I'll have to post that recipe.

Okay, I'll stop - I could go on forever.....

 

[savingdogs]

I was enjoying your story, KC.
My grandma saved foil, too. And washed baggies. She even reused wax paper!

 

[Wannabefree]

I was enjoying your story, KC.
My grandma saved foil, too. And washed baggies. She even reused wax paper!

My GM still does this, as do I. Learned from the best Waste not, want not.

 

[miss_thenorth]

I sadly never learned anything from my grandparents. My mom was third youngest in a family of 13 kids. I remember one day we went to visit my moms parents, and my grandmother asked my mom what our names were (me and my sis) :/ By that time, she already had close to 200 grandkids and greatgrandkids.

It was basically the same thing with my dad's family. He was second youngest out of 8 kids. By that time, the novelty of grand kids had worn off.

But......

My dad's dad had a huge garden and provided most all the food for his family. he also raised rabbits for meat. He was also a baker --that was his profession when he lived in Holland, - before he came over after the war.

My moms dad was a farmer on a larger scale. When his family came over from Holland, he was sponsored by a farmer not far from where I am living right now. 13 kids, 8 of them boys,he got a sponsor easy. He ended up buying his own land and farming until he retired. He did cash crops and family livsetock like chickens, ducks, a family cow etc.

Maybe what Wifezilla says is true, that it skips a generation. I would have loved to have known my grandparents, and would have loved to glean information from them. My mom says i remind her of her dad. he had a love for the animals, and my dad says i have agreen thumb like his father had. i must have picked up the bug for baking from him too.

As I talk to my parents about what interests me, Ipick up bits of info about what their parents did way back when, but seriously, it would have been nice to learn from my grandparents.

 

[FarmerDenise]

I love this thread. I'll have to get back to this. I learned sooo much from my Omi and a lot from my Opi.

 

[savingdogs]

Maybe it is that tendency to be different from our parents.

My mother wanted to be classier and less earthy than her mother.

I wanted to be more homey and more earthy.....

But everyone in our family pretty much likes gardening.

 

[kcsunshine]

savingdogs, I believe you're right. Both sets of grandparents were poor, so my mom and dad grew up poor. I know they wanted better for us - but I still remember my mom cooking on a wood stove, so they didn't stray too far from the fold. They thought they had made it big when they could afford to get carpet for the living room. My dad always had a big garden and shared with the neighbors. And, he raised a pig and a cow each year to put in the freezer. Mama canned sausage in pork fat - Lordy, I can still taste the gravy. That black kettle in Mamaw's back yard not only heated water for her washer, but was used to make hominy and lye soap (I wonder how she cleaned it). It held the hot water to dip the chickens and turkeys in when she plucked them. My job was to shove the galvanized tub down over the chicken to keep it from flopping all over the yard after she snapped that neck.

My daddy's Mama was always working. She cooked 3 huge meals every single day. There were 13 kids and we always had Sunday dinner there. She put 2 platters or bowls of everything on the table and the men always ate first. Papaw always kept the house hot and Mamaw would stand in the kitchen with the window open huffing and puffing like a steam engine. They always kept a jug in the pantry and would take nips from it when we weren't looking because daddy wouldn't let them drink in front of us. My favorite recipe from her was Vinegar pudding - I'll post that recipe, too. I have to say most of the SS things I learned came from my Mama's mom. Daddy's mom was always too busy to try to teach me anything.

 

[tamlynn]

Fun thread!

My maternal gma was my favorite grandparent. She had polio when she was a child and it damaged her right shoulder. She was right handed, but it didn't stop her from her passions, painting, sewing, even white-water rafting! She couldn't lift her right arm to shake your hand, so she would lift her right hand up with her left hand. She drove a car with that right hand on the bottom of the steering wheel- rather scary, but she drove herself all over the US. She was an accomplished water color artist and especially loved to paint old barns. She would paint the bottom of the paper with her right hand and the sky with her left because she could raise up her left hand.

Her husband (gpa) died in 1977 and she passed away in 2000, so I only knew her as a single woman. She was extremely independent and nature-minded. She knew the names of all the birds and wildflowers. When she stayed with us she would forage for dandelion greens, asparagus, wild plums, etc. She loved to make jewelry out of seed pods, rocks, shells, etc.

Some of the things she liked to sew besides clothes and quilts were sleeping bags and tents!

She had a tiny house on my parent's property that was kind of her home base. She traveled quite a bit, but usually spent at least part of every year with us. I am now fixing up her little house as a vacation house for my family. A lot of her stuff is still there.