from Storyworth
I never knew either of my grandfathers. They both died in their 60s – when I was a very young. I believe one may have died even before I was born. (Which might suggest bad genes, but my dad lived until 94 and my mom is still alive at 90.) Being Polish, we called our grandpas ‘Jaja’.
I did know my grandmothers. They both lived in the Buffalo NY area – from which we moved away when I was a baby – so I didn’t see them that often aa a child. Again, as Polish, we called our grandmas ‘Busia’ (‘boo-sha’).
Each summer, we would do an annual trip from West Virginia to Buffalo – where all the kids would be packed into a station wagon, and we’d drive for 8-10 hours along pre-interstate roads to spend a week or two in Buffalo. So I got to see my grandmothers (plus aunts, uncles, and cousins) once a year. Eventually, interstates were built – so the later trips were quicker. Since the station wagon was full of children – including some without seat belts lounging about in the back (perfectly legal, different times), we packed most of our luggage onto the roof of the car. I remember one trip, some of the stuff strapped to the roof of the car came loose – and I can still remember my mom jogging away down the shoulder of the highway gathering fallen items.
My dad’s mom died when I was maybe ten years old. I remember hearing the news, and crying in my bedroom – I believe I was the only one of my siblings who cried. I think I was old enough to appreciate the loss, and young enough not to be able to control my emotions. (Or maybe I was just a crybaby.) I assume she died from complications from diabetes. She had previously had the lower half of one leg removed from a circulatory diabetes issue. It was interesting (and slightly scary) to see her for a few visits missing her leg below the knee. She was a nice woman, and I have nothing but good memories of her.
My mom’s mom (other Busia) was also nice, and we would sometimes stay at her house when we visited Buffalo. Most times we would stay at my aunt’s (my mom’s sister). Busia’s house was vey old school. For example, I remember she had a clothes ringer next to (instead of?) a clothes dryer. A clothes ringer is a crank-driven squeezing device that you feed wet clothes into, and it removes most of the water. Then I guess you hang them out to dry on the clothes line. She may not have had a powered clothes washer, and may have cleaned clothes in a tub by hand. Busia’s freezer was one of those chest-shaped ones – wide and low to the ground, where you open the top to access.
It’s interesting that Buffalo had very different weather form West Virginia. West Virginia was pretty mild – occasional snow which melted quickly, and warm summers that were not too hot. Occasional rain all year round. Buffalo summers were fine, but Buffalo winters could get nasty. One winter, they had to haul snow out with train cars because it had snowed so deep, and the temperature didn’t rise to melt the snow – so they decided to reduce the amount of snow on the ground by hauling it away – I guess to make it easier to get the roads drivable. Another (sad) Buffalo snow story is: my mom’s youngest brother Uncle Matty died running into a snow plow when he was driving. I don’t know whether he had been drinking (possibly), and my memory includes him getting (almost?) beheaded – but this may have been speculation by my siblings. Uncle Matty used to live on a farm with horses, and one visit he occupied us kids by asking us to collect and kill flies (there were a lot on the farm). He offered us a penny for each fly we killed. The downside he didn’t think through was that he had to count them all when we delivered hundreds of flies to him. It was kind of funny. I learned on the visit how to catch flies by hand, and kill them by throwing them at the ground.
Busia (my mom’s mom) eventually came to live with us in West Virginia. She must have done so when it became difficult for her to live alone. Thinking about it now, it’s surprising that she came to live with us. The reasons why it didn’t make sense were: 1) we were about 450 miles away and Busia had other children much closer, and 2) we were a family of eight in a small house. But I’m guessing that it fell to her two daughters to take care of her, and my mom must have ‘lost the coin flip’ with her sister. Also, by the time Busia came to live with us, some of my older siblings had already flown the coup – so we had enough room. Busia must have driven back home with us from one of our Buffalo trips.
Busia must not have lived with us that long – we moved away from West Virginia when I was 16 – but our house worked well for her. We lived on a low-traffic street with an alley behind, so it was easy to take walks. I remember Busia collecting fallen apples from the tree next door, and making apple pies. Busia was very religious, and we were a block away from the church (where the kids all went to elementary school) – so it was easy to wander over there and go to mass.
When you live with a grown child, there is always some disagreement/conflict – and my mom can be pretty challenging sometimes. My oldest brother’s wife, who is also very religious, was part of a prayer group at church where they prayed for people in need. They used to pray for Busia, whose daughter ‘treated her badly’. This was before my sister-in-law married my brother, and knew the connection. Kind of funny, because I’m assuming (hoping) that the ‘abuse’ wasn’t that true. It’s possible that Busia had a similar personality to my mom, and there was unpleasantness in both directions.
One religious Polish tradition that Busia followed was getting the food blessed at Easter. She would show at church with a basket of food ingredients, and get the priest to bless them. To the priest, it was probably interesting and unexpected. One overlay that just occurred to me now, is – our priests were mostly of German heritage, and the Germans and Polish have a bad history – which my grandmother lived through. I wonder if this was an issue for her.
I don’t exactly remember when Busia died, but I assume it was before we moved to Chicago – or maybe we dropped her at my aunt’s when we moved? My parents never made a big fuss about the deaths of relatives – I don’t remember going to any funerals. Even recently when my dad died, my mom didn’t have a ceremony 🙁
So in summary: I don’t remember my grandfathers; I do remember my grandmothers, especially the one that lived with us. My Busia’s were very nice, and it would have been good to live closer to them when growing up, and see my relatives more often.