Grandma thread

My Grandmother was born in 1890 in Iowa. When she was three years old her Father bought a ranch in Sheridan, Wy, they traveled by train to Cheyenne and then by wagon to Sheridan. When she was 20 she moved to Albequeque, NM to care for her two brothers who had contacted TB, she traveled there from El Peso, TX by wagon. She helped raise me after my Mother and Father divorced. She pretty much taught me the Bible through the seat of my pants, one blow at a time. When I went into the military she told me not to smoke cigarettes, drink whiskey, or play poker with anyone I didn't know. I should have paid better attention. She was a Grand Lady and a wonderful influence in my life. She died in 1984.....I still miss her. Keep shootin'
 
My Grandmother, Mother's side, died in '68, she was well into her 90s, A well loved lady in the community.

She stood about 4'10" and never seen 100 lbs. She was quite an old gal.

She lived on a small farm in Arkansas during the depression, My Grandfather had a part time job transporting prisoners from Perryville to Little Rock. Wasn't really a deputy or anything.

One night after a long day he stopped by the farm on the way to Little Rock for some rest, (he used a wagon for the transports). He used an old single shot 16 gage. He set the bandit in a chair, gave my grandma the shotgun and to watch the bandit while he napped. The guy told her he didn't think she was big enough to use that shotgun, she cocked the gun and kept on rocking. Bandit didn't test her.

When she first got married, she wanted to go hunting with the menfolk. That didn't happen back then. Women didn't hunt so they left her home while they headed to the hunting camp.

They got skunked but granny didn't. A deer got hung up on a fence trying to get to her garden, she killed it with an ax and had it hanging with the men folk got home.

She use to tell me stories about her mother. They had a slave with a little girl the same age as my great-grandmother. The slave playmate and my G-Gma would hide under her mothers dress so the yankees wouldn't get them when they came through.

Seems like most of my growing up time she set in a chair snapping green beans or combing her long gray hair that went to the floor when down.

I killed my first deer when I was about 8-9 using that same old 16 gage, I was able to get it and still have it, not worth much but I'll never let it go.

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When my younger brother visited last year, he brought along some family photos, including one of my maternal grandmother. We didn't have any pictures of her when I was growing up, and I hadn't seen her since she died in 1959. Needless to say, I don't have a very clear memory of her.

She was born in 1888.
 
This is what I find so amazing about my grandmother:

She was born in the early to mid 1890's, and in 1898, she travelled with her parents, via covered wagon, to her new farm in Kansas. Pretty standard way of getting around back then.

Before she died in the late 1970's, she flew on a jet airliner up to Montana and back. I STILL can't believe that!
 
And just the other day, it was proposed to ban grammer threads...
 
My grandmother lived with us until she passed away when I was 14. She was wonderful and told my brother and I stories of the depression days when grandpa (who died in 1948) was a poorly-paid Methodist minister. He used to hunt rabbits with a little Iver Johnson .410 single barrel to have some meat for the table. The .410 is in my gunrack today.
 
I envy the memories expressed here, as I only knew my maternal grandfather, who was born in 1887. He passed in the early 60's.
 
I was very close to both Grandparents. Grandma's birthday is May 5th.

Growing up I spent my summers with Grandma & Grandpa Meier in Salina, Kansas. Grandpa taught me how to fish & catch bullfrogs properly. DoG help ya if you mentioned gigging or shooting bullfrogs in his presence.:mad:

Grandma taught me that you can eat just about anything if ya fried it first! :D Her thing was bluegill & bass tails. We never cut the tail off of a fish. Grandma ate those fried tails like tater chips.

I cannot spell a lot of the German food she cooked but boy was it good.

I still miss her. And Grandpa, too. :(
 
I only got to see my dad's mom a few times a year, but I've always loved her.
My mom's mom, otoh, only lived a few blocks away and I was fortunate to see her almost everyday while growing up.
She was a tough old lady. She went to work at The 45th Avenue School (renamed Lew Wallace High School in 1926) in the early '20s as a janitor and retired in 1965. She walked the 2 miles to the school EVERY DAY, including Saturdays - She NEVER missed a day's work!
She lived by herself after my grandfather died. The Gary, Indiana neighborhood that she lived in since 1918 became a black neighborhood in the early '80s.
While my parents were worried about her initially, it turned out that her new neighbors were just as nice as her old white neighbors. They looked out for each other just like the old days... Then one day in 1985 a couple of black teenage boys broke into her house, beat her severely with the lead pipe that had always secured the back door, and told her that they didn't want her there anymore. They took nothing other than her dignity and sense of security.
She recovered from that beating even though she had many broken bones and a severe concussion and lived with my parents until her passing just before her 100th birthday.

Her house stayed just as it was that day until she died.
My brother and I went to her old house and were surprised that almost everyone in the neighborhood came by to apologize for the behavior of the two punks that had beat her.
As far as I know they were never caught -
Hopefully, Karma fixed them up with all that they deserved.
 
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