Your grandma sounds like my kind of gal! I’m impressed by her desks! My grandma did not write, but her sister did. A reclusive spinster who never left my great-grandmother’s house, she wrote songs & poems. I had them copied and bound into inexpensive notebooks that I gave to the women of our family one Christmas.
It made me happy to hear that even though it was thirty years after her death, you learned so much more about your grandmother and her life from things she’d left behind. I call them ‘breadcrumbs’ and they are treasures!
Thank you for sharing your grandmother with us. A truly beautiful remembrance. Love the lines that Ellen Edson in the comments highlighted. Those were the lines that resonated with me most, because I never had a grandmother and have always longed for one, but I see this opacity with my own child. That's why I remind our child at every opportunity to never forget Nana 'is' an entrepreneur and by being your grandmother doesn't mean she didn't have a life before you came into the world. It's so important to help change that narrative. It was interesting to read what you wrote, because it's so true. Thank you for sharing your grandmother's folder.
"As far as I’d known, she was just my grandmother. I think grandparents are often opaque to their grandchildren that way." This line resonated with me. Within the context of this special grand mother-grand daughter relationship, there is a reminding of how memory informs us, but also enlightens us to how much we often do not know.
Your grandma sounds like my kind of gal! I’m impressed by her desks! My grandma did not write, but her sister did. A reclusive spinster who never left my great-grandmother’s house, she wrote songs & poems. I had them copied and bound into inexpensive notebooks that I gave to the women of our family one Christmas.
It made me happy to hear that even though it was thirty years after her death, you learned so much more about your grandmother and her life from things she’d left behind. I call them ‘breadcrumbs’ and they are treasures!
Thank you for sharing your grandmother with us. A truly beautiful remembrance. Love the lines that Ellen Edson in the comments highlighted. Those were the lines that resonated with me most, because I never had a grandmother and have always longed for one, but I see this opacity with my own child. That's why I remind our child at every opportunity to never forget Nana 'is' an entrepreneur and by being your grandmother doesn't mean she didn't have a life before you came into the world. It's so important to help change that narrative. It was interesting to read what you wrote, because it's so true. Thank you for sharing your grandmother's folder.
"As far as I’d known, she was just my grandmother. I think grandparents are often opaque to their grandchildren that way." This line resonated with me. Within the context of this special grand mother-grand daughter relationship, there is a reminding of how memory informs us, but also enlightens us to how much we often do not know.
A beautiful story.