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Grandma T

© Christina Coruth

Grandma T didn’t stay with us often, but I was very happy when she did. Soft spoken and slight of build, she was like a spring breeze that quieted the otherwise tornadic atmosphere in the house. I was very young when she came to stay with us. I don’t know how long she stayed, but I do know, it wasn’t long enough.

My memories of her are stored in vignettes.

One vignette involved Grandma T’s nightly ritual after washing the dinner dishes. She would go to her room with me following close behind. First she’d prepare her hair for sleeping. During the day she wore it in a bun on top of her head. At night, when she removed the hair pins, her silky gray hair fell all the way down her back. I had never seen anyone with such long hair. She would brush it and braid it loosely. Then she would brush my hair. Next came the hand lotion. She didn’t talk much, she hummed as she smoothed her hands, and then mine with Jergen’s lotion. And I hummed, too.

Years later, long after she was gone, I bought some Jergen’s lotion, having forgotten about Grandma T’s nightly ritual. Tears flowed when the sweet scent of the Jergen’s brought those vivid memories back to me.

I wish I knew more of her story. I have no pictures of her. I once saw a picture of her swimming at my aunt’s camp at Crystal Lake. I know that this little woman was tough, yet had a sense of humor. She and Grandpa T. had to get the children out of their west side home during the flood of ‘36. They hurriedly tried to gather some supplies. She told the story of how she asked the boys to get some of the goods she had canned. It wasn’t until they were out and safe that she learned they had saved the jam, not the vegetables.

Grandpa T was a Manchester fireman. He died before all of their seven children were grown. Her saddest time was yet to come, though. It was the night that she awoke with the knowledge that would be confirmed the next day in a telegram from the War Department -- one of her sons had been killed in the Pacific.

That’s all the information I have, that and my vignettes.

It was the little things she did, so thoughtful and creative. She put some straw into a bag and stapled it shut. She slipped it under the mattress of my doll’s bed so that it would “sound” like a bed. I treasured that bag of straw. Her creativity was never ending. We didn’t have any top sheets and I didn’t like the feeling of the scratchy blanket on my feet. Well, I was a kid and therefore, very short. So Grandma T had me scooch down lower in the bed and folded the bedspread over. No more scratchy blanket on my feet.

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