Cleaning out a closet

Today, as I was cleaning out a closet and lots of old papers, I found a few emails Grandma had written to me while I was in college. Some are even stories of her growing up. I thought it my duty to compile them on here so you could share in the stories with me.

4/18/99
Subject: Nothing special

Aha!! I now have someone that is interested in me and my life. You may be sorry you asked me to tell you about myself. I remembered something last week and decided I would tell you about it. When I was a little girl, we lived in the country. We were also very poor and I do not recall having toys. I had things I played with, crayons and a coloring book (that was a big day) but nothing I could class as a toy. Hard to believe, I'm sure, but true none the less. I did have one thing that many children growing up do not have, then or now. I had a cherry tree of my very own.
Me and my cherry tree spent many hours together, mostly in the summer. I learned to hang upside down by my knees and gradually from the tops of my feet. In that tree I became a circus performer, could see the neighbors house from the top, could see my Dad coming home from work (we had no car so he walked), could see my brothers and sisters coming from where ever. Under that tree my Dad put a ring of rocks and in the center he would build a fire at night. My favorite thing. He sat on the ground too. My brothers went to war and my sister married a sailor and left so my Dad and I spent the best part of the summers under the tree waiting for all of them to return.
We cooked anything my Mom would let us have. Mostly potatoes. We just put them in the coals and then when they were done, we rolled them out, waited until they were cool, broke them in half, added a little salt and oh my, the were the best.
The cherry tree always had plenty of fresh branches I could use for cooking, that's when we had stuff that you needed a stick for. Then I grew up a little and everyone came home form the war. Things were just different, I was different and they were different but the old cherry tree just stayed the same. Love, Grandma C.



Subject: Another tidbit from the book of Julie
5/14/99

I'm sitting at the computer with the window beside me open and the fresh evening air coming in. God is good.
During my growing up years, I really never realized how much my Dad knew. It seemed as though what he knew was so unimportant. What I considered important, he knew nothing of or at least made me believe he didn't.
At the time when my brothers were in the service during WWII and all over the world, my Dad had no one to go hunting with. Yes, we had guns in the house and the ammunition and yes, I knew how to shoot them. My sister was gone as she had married a sailor. I was therefore the only one left at home.
I think out of his sadness, he decided that I could go hunting with him to keep him company. He walked faster than I and I struggled to keep up. We hunted mostly in an area called Stratford Woods, a nice hike fro my own back yard. While we walked along, he had a keen eye for asparagus that grew in the early spring in Stratford Woods. You have to watch close or you won't see it. He would take out his pocket knife and cut enough for a large meal (always seemed to have a bag in his pocket ). We really didn't catch any pheasants or rabbits but we had a great walk. Personally, I thought I was a big shot. I wanted desperately to be loved by my Dad.
In the same woods, he took me hunting for mushrooms. When we came home, my Mom would put them to cook with a dime (yes 10 cents) in the water. If the dime turned black, we did not eat the mushrooms.
The early spring also meant dandelions. If you dig them before they bloom, the make the best salad in the world.
He also would resole out shoes. My grandfather worked as a millwright (leather worker) and he would bring sheets of leather out and my Dad would resole shoes by slipping them on an iron shoe form and cutting out around the shoe. He would then tack and glue. We definitely did not go barefoot.
We made our own root beer, sauerkraut and grew our own popcorn. Speaking of popcorn, one year a man gave my Dad a whole sack of corn seed. When you go anything free you made something of it. Nothing was thrown away. My Dad planted the whole sack thinking it was regular sweet corn. The whole field was popcorn. Boy was he mad. We shucked (someday I'll show you what that is) until my hands almost fell off. We kidded him for a long time. He did not like to hear it. Enough of this story. Amen. Love GC
Also, are you at all familiar with Lutheran Social Services. They do an incredible job. They have several offices in Wisconsin. Madison in particular. Maybe you should be a social worker?



Subj: Massive Apology
8/27/99
My dearest darlingest Katie,
I have been ignoring you all summer. I believe that since you were not at school, I could not email you. Sooooooo, I'm sorry. I plan on downloading all the emails I received and sent that you may be interested in... little by little.
My story for the day to you about me as a child is: ON THE WAY TO SCHOOL.

My brothers and sisters and I went to a very small country school whose teachers were Servite Nuns (an Italian order) very strict but good teachers. Our home was way out in the country so we had to walk to school (about 1 1/2 to 2 miles ). It really wasn't bad because all the kids that went there had to walk. Very few people in my home town had cars, certainly not us, we had enough trouble keeping food on the table.

Not far from the school, St. Domitilla's was a servite Seminary (like a college for priests). We had no church of our own so we went to church at the seminary. Just can't think of the name at the moment. I remember the smell, like flak soap, and also the beautiful marble floors. Always very clean with candles burning and nice and warm inside. I loved it there. The seminarians attended mass up above the alter where there were massive arches to look through. They would sing the hymns for mass in what is known as Gregorian chant. I think not long ago someone put out a CD of it. I loved the listen to them. The written music is done with squares, not ovals and as I recall there were only 4 lines, not five. Very different.
Since I was the youngest of 6, my brother who was 8 years older was my caretaker (or whatever) on the way to and from school. Well!!! after we got out of sight of our house, he made me walk way behind so that I couldn't hear what he and his friends were talking about. But I heard anyway. It was GIRLS!!!!
We carried lunches wrapped in newspaper as we could not afford bags. I was always jealous of the kids with the nice neat bologna in the sandwiches and the neat twinkies, while we carried roast beef on lumpy homemade bread and the old sloppy homemade from scratch apple pie. I guess its all a matter of how you look at things!!!!
Well enough for that story. I'll try and remember the name of the seminary. Love you very much my Kate. Grandma C.
Just remember, Mater Dolorosa. Kind of Italian would you say, especially since most of the people in town were Irish, O'Shaunessy, Dwyer, Murray, O'Brien, Coleman, O'Rourke, etc.


Subject: RE: Massive Apology
9/7/99

I think my next story will be what I experienced when WWII started. I must have been about 8 or 9. Things certainly changed very quickly, it seemed like overnight. Actually, it was. On the evening of December 7th, a Sunday, I was sitting at the table in our dining room doing my homework. I twas evening and we had had our Sunday dinner. We were all listening to the radio, a small one on the top of a table in our dining room. My Dad was reading the Sunday paper, he used to rad i cover to cover every day. We had the programs on that everyone listen to, the Burns and Allen Show, The Shadow, Jack Benny, etc. Very suddenly, there was a break in the programming to announce a bulletin. The announcer said that the Japanese air force had bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii. There was no forewarning, we were not even having a problem with them, at least the general public knew nothing about it. We were at peace, recovering form the depression, our military was at its lowest, and the population was lulled into believing we had already com through the worst of times.
I recall my Father looking at my Mother and neither knowing what to say or think. The whole thing was pretty unreal as though you didn't hear it right, you needed it repeated.
It was a turning point in my life and in the lives of everyone in my family. We were never the same.
More later. Love GC