Grandma thread

[mg357]

Dear s&w forum, tomorrow would have been my grandma's
89th birthday and in honor of her memory i have decided to start a grandma thread here on the forum. So if any of my fellow forum members have a grandma or had a grandma growing up and she is now passed on please feel free to talk about her. sincerely and respectfully mg357 a proud member of the s&w forum. p.s. my grandma was a wonderful lady she had short curly hair and blue eyes and she stood 5 feet 7 inches tall and i loved her very much.

 

[Jim NNN]

Great idea, and, by coincidence, today would've been my Mom's 87th birthday. Happy Birthday MOM! She wasn't my grandma, but she was a grandma, too. My kids' grandma. She was also a wonderful person.

And Happy Birthday to mg357's Grandma! Great lady, I'm sure.

How we miss them!

 

[redlevel]

I am very fortunate in that all four of my grandparents lived into my young adult years. My maternal granny lived until I was 34 or 35. She was 99. Both my grannies were old-time Southern ladies. Raised in the country in some hard times. My paternal granny helped me clean the first fish I ever caught, then immediately cooked it for me. I was probably five years old. I can barely remember it. A few years later, she did the same with the first quail I ever shot. I was probably 11 or 12. She didn't clean the game for me, but she helped me do it and showed me how.

That was all a long time ago.
Thanks for bringing back those memories for me.

 

[A10]

I'm livin' with a gramma that has a birthday in a week. She is loved by all her grandkids (I'm sure she is the only reason they tolerate me!). Happy Birthday honeypie!!!

 

[gunlovingirl]

My Grandma went to her reward about 12 years ago, at age 91. Up until the last few months of her life she lived alone in her own home, and loved baking and getting out to take care of her flower beds. She was also a big Detroit Tigers fan. She always loved all the grandkids and great-grandkids equally. And always loved and accepted the spouses as part of the family. All us grandkids loved her and miss her very much.

 

[Shooting Padre]

I used to stay on my grandparent's farm in the summers of my youth. I miss both of them, and I'm now a grandpa 12 time. I remember my grandma letting me help her make rolls one day. She showed me how to kneed the bread dough and roll it into little balls. She then gave me what I thought at the time was the greatest honor a seven year old could have. She said my rolls were special and we should treat the chickens with them. And they didn't even have to be baked. Later in life I realized that the white dough had turned black from the dirt on my hands. What a gentle way to throw away that dirty dough and not make me feel badly. She was just a very special person to me and I treasure all the time I spent with both grandparents. A lighter side; She happened to overhear me singing to myself one day and thought I was talking to myself. She said, "Shame on you for talking to yourself!" Back in those days your mag was considered a couple rounds short if you did this. Years later, I wonder if she knew something!!! I really still love them and look forward to seeing them in Glory. Great thread. Thanks.

 

[feralmerril]

My mothers mother died when I was very young and I dont remember her. But my dads mother lived to her mid ninetys. She must have had a hard life. She was married in whats now the northern ukraine actualy siberia. She lost her husband young and came to this country with one son about 2 years old. She married my grandpa who was also just widowed and was raiseing his 6 kids. He was about 12 years older than her and also from the same area years prior. So they started out with 7 kids. Married and just 9 months later dad was born. Dad was the first of 10 more! Of course grandpa had the largest farm in the county and it kind of sounded like he raised his own slaves to work it! Dad said his older half sisters all left home very young to be maids for rich familys in milwaukee. Grandma outlived grandpa by 35 years or so. She was deeply religious, received zero social security, and dad and a couple of uncles and aunts provided for her. She lived with my folks for awhile.
She told me storys of being brought up in old russia or siberia. Actualy she was 100% german blood as was grandpa. People moved around in those days too, as both of their parents homesteaded in russia from germany.
Seems my great grandfather camped part of the year in the forest and had a opertaion burning wood down to charchol and tradeing or selling it. They lived in a "dugout". Grandma remembered being left in the dugout with siblings while the folks were out working and wolves trying to dig their way down to them through the smokehole!
She also told a story of her and her first husband raceing a pack of wolves chaseing them on their horse drawn sled with him shooting them.
She told another story how men in her village had been poaching deer. Their equivlent of our gamewarden kept trying to arrest them. They took him, split a stump open, shoved his beard in the stump and let it spring together and left him for the wolves!
Grandma was a tough but sweet old lady. Of course she had a lots of grandkids. Most of the time when she addressed me or my many cousins she usualy would go through two or three names to come up with the right one! She spoke with a heavy german accent untill she died. She also could speak russian and polish. She raised 17 kids!

 

[olcop]

My two brothers and I were dumped on my grandparents when I was about 5 years old, grandmother was very religious and hated alcohol in any form, so she really hated my dad because he drank, (a lot), I was named after her husband, Miles and my father, John. Presumably the man she loved the most and the man she hated the most-----so, for some reason when she called me or spoke to me, she called me Henry!!!---I never did figure that one out.
olcop

 

[Stevens]

I inherited my Grandma's CZ 25 Cal. "purse gun' about 30 years ago.
Steve W

 

[chud333]

I was blessed to have 4 of the greatest Grandparents a person
could ever hope for. My grandmaw and my mamaw we're both
supportive and loving. Even with the tough times they always
we're there for us kids. Never forget them.


chuck

 

[ogilvyspecial]

Even though I've posted this picture of my parternal grandparents before, here it is again.

My grandmother, who passed away in 1967 when I was 10, was not very big so you can always tell which rifle was her's by it's cut-down stock.

My grandparents pictured were pretty even tempered, in fact I rarely ever heard them raise their voices even though I spent a lot of time with them. I guess they didn't have to get loud since we knew what was expected of us and always did it. I wonder why that was?

My grandfather's first & middle names were William, Bryan, but everybody, including my grandmother, called him Bill. There was an exception to this, that, even at a young age I recognized what it meant.

When my grandmother called my grandfather by his middle name, Bryan, it was one of those "Danger, Will Robinson" type of things. When you heard her call him Bryan it was better to either leave the room, or, if that wasn't an option, keep your mouth shut and mind your own business until the moment had passed.

She had one of those old fashioned names, Gertrude, but all of the grown up's called her "Gertie."

 

[HalfStack]

I inherited my Grandma's CZ 25 Cal. "purse gun' about 30 years ago.
Steve W

That's one grandma you don't mess with.

I met my grandma and grandpa from both sides when I was a toddler. That was the last time since we moved south to Texas from Wisconsin. Afraid I don't know them much but my friends' grandparents, they are super.

 

[cmort666]

My grandmother was to put it mildly, "cantankerous".

As a small child, one of her brothers annoyed her so she lined a leaden toy locomotive at his skull splitting his head open.

She trained as an ambulance driver for WWI, but never went to France.

As a young woman, she kept a P08 Luger that one of her brothers brought back from France. On New Years, she used to shoot it off of the back porch of her apartment. Strangely, she had no problems with her neighbors...

In Chicago in the '20s, '30s, and '40s, she regularly carried a Colt revolver (a Detective Special, I think) to and from her various seamstress jobs. One night, walking home in the middle of the night from the bus stop, she perceived a man following her. She crossed the street and he crossed after her. She instantly wheeled on him, and pointing the Colt at him through her coat pocket, declared "Cross the street or turn around and go back the way you came or I'll blow your GD head off." He chose to return the way he'd come.

Another time on the streetcar, she caught somebody reaching into her purse. They were standing by the rear exit. When the streetcar stopped and the door opened, she stomped on his foot as hard as she could. He howled in pain and tumbled backward off of the bus into the street.

She was the wardrobe mistress for the stage and ice shows at the Palmer House and Conrad Hilton for many years. I got to meet several celebrities, including Jimmy Durante and Frank Gorshin.

When I was in grammar school she lived with us (she and her son, my father, REALLY didn't get along). The landlord had a mean dog that used to chase the tenants. She kept it in the fenced in, concreted over yard where it crapped everywhere. One day, my grandmother was coming home from the grocery store. She had trouble keeping weight on, so the doctor actually told her to drink beer. She had a big purse (more like a satchel) with a 12 pack of Schlitz in it. Entering the yard, the dog went after her, whereupon without hesitation she swung that purse full of beer overhand and nailed the dog to the ground with it. It never came near her again.

When I was attending St. Columbanus Catholic elementary school, she and my mother attended a parent teacher meeting. I have always been a voracious reader. My grandmother regularly took me to Krochs & Brentano's and to the Museum of Science & Industry bookstore. I had a nearly complete set of the Doubleday Fighter Aircraft of WWII series when I was in kindergarten. One of the nuns made the mistake of telling them that they should stop me from reading because I was getting too far ahead of the other children. My grandmother and mother then proceeded to anticipate R. Lee Ermey's introductory speech in "Full Metal Jacket" by about twenty years, telling the nun what they thought of that suggestion.

She was definitely one of a kind.

 

[Jim NNN]

ogilvyspecial. I love your grandparents' old Packard!

 

[deanodog]

Appreciate those dear old women. I never got to know my grandparents on either side. I always felt I missed out on a lot of life's pleasures.

 

[ogilvyspecial]

ogilvyspecial. I love your grandparents' old Packard!

If I remember correctly it was a 1948.

I have fond memories of goin' out in the northwoods of Michigan berry pickin' with my grandma in that car, which was burgundy in color.

Time may have distorted my memories, but I remember velour like seats and the chrome trim on the dash.

 

[DeathGrip]

If I remember correctly it was a 1948.

I have fond memories of goin' out in the northwoods of Michigan berry pickin' with my grandma in that car, which was burgundy in color.

Time may have distorted my memories, but I remember velour like seats and the chrome trim on the dash.

ogilvy,That Packard is a little older than '48 more like a '40.

Great picture anyhow.

Great thread mg, I'll get back about my Grandmothers another time.

 

[ogilvyspecial]

ogilvy,That Packard is a little older than '48 more like a '40.

Great picture anyhow.

Great thread mg, I'll get back about my Grandmothers another time.

Thanks! I almost started a thread a couple of weeks ago with that photo just to ask what year it might have been.

I heard throughout the years that they had a 1948 Packard and just assumed that the car pictured must have been it even though the car I remembered didn't have such a narrow, vertical grill style. The one I remember had a grill that was wider & lower so the burgundy car I rode in was probably the '48.

 

[joeintexas]

our mothers and our grandmothers, god bless them all. I used to love to sit on my grandma's lap and listen to her tell stories of her and granddad coming across the country in a covered wagon from tennessee to texas, burning buffalo chips for heat and cooking and surviving off the land. Very tough times, but they were tough people with strong principals and good intentions. grandma lived to be 99. grandpa died in his 60s with a heart attack saving calves in a west texas blizzard, some his, some his neighbors.

 

[M29since14]

When I was growing up, my Mom's mom would invite my brother and me over to stay Friday nights, and then we would spend the next day playing with the other kids in her neighborhood. She would do this a couple times a month, presumably to give Mom and Dad a break from the action. Though she did not have much money, she spoiled us rotten in other ways (as all Grandmas know how to do) and we always hated it when it was time to go home - usually after we would watch Lawrence Welk with her on Saturday evenings. That went on for many years, and we always had a wonderful time with her.

During my HS years, I got busy with school activities and a parttime job. Unintentionally, I ended up "neglecting" Grandma, and she became ill with cancer and died shortly after I graduated. It was a bitter lesson that it is all too easy to accidentally neglect those who are important to us, and sometimes, there is no opportunity to "catch up."