A Meme Not to Be Forgotten

She was our grandma, stout, silver haired with soft eyes and flawless skin. I remember her black hat with a veil and hat pin to keep it on her head. She also wore a head net to keep the sliver locks from slipping onto her face. To our young eyes she was old, she was strong, and she was stern. We did not see her human attributes, we only saw her as Meme our fathers mother.

Every time a baby was born she would appear at our house, her sleeves rolled up, her apron on, and her stern countenance ready to take on the responsibilities of helping mom. She would wash diapers, make formula, and apply her folk remedies to all what ailed us. As the family grew, so did her responsibilities. She would see to us older siblings, make us wash behind our ears and our necks which we were always inclined to skip. She would whip up meals out of scanty cupboards and she would keep us in line so latest baby could be attended to. Meme was stern but loving. She was of few words but her looks spoke volumes. She was born of time when sacrifice was expected, actions were for the good of the family unit, and waste was not tolerated. She made us clean up our plates and told us about the starving children in India. We dare not misbehave.

It wasn’t until years later that I learned the story behind the woman who was my French speaking grandmother. I had left my home and traveled the world and did not have the pleasure of her company as an adult. It was after she was long buried that I learned about the real essence of my indomitable grandmother.

She grew up poor, the step child of a French speaking family in Canada. They migrated to Massachusetts and as a young woman she married another Frenchman named George. They were hard working and upright people who raised five children during the depression. Work was hard to come by; ingenuity was a skill that was born out of the circumstances of little money and little opportunity. My grandparents together developed a formula for making picture frames. They were made with flour, hardened and painted as beautifully as the roses on a wedding cake. The frames were primarily made for wedding pictures. They peddled those frames in town after town. That is how they put food on the table and money in the Sunday mass collection. Meme not only fed her family but those of the extended family that would drop in. She was an excellent cook and seemed to make grand meals out of almost nothing. She could make a soup bone into an epicurean feast. She made her own bread and the house would fill with the aroma of freshly baked bread. Her talents did not stop there. She had a wealth of knowledge of homeopathic remedies. She nursed her own family and many neighbors back to health with her home brewed concoctions. In addition to that she was an “unofficial mid wife” and brought babies into the world in the spirit of helping out. It was a time when neighbor helped neighbor and my grandmother brought all her gifts and knowledge to bear. She is also attributed with saving a life of a neighbor when the doctors pronounced the situation helpless. She was widely respected.

Life was not easy, rewards were few. My grandfather who was coming home from work one day saw two men fighting. He tried to break up the fight and was bitten by one of the men. The bite eventually was infected and the bacteria got into his blood stream. He became weak and very sick. He could no longer work and Meme took care of him, worked in a factory and raised her children with never a word of complaint. She was made of strong stock. Eventually my grandfather died.

After some years went by Meme married again. It was a short marriage because her new companion suffered wounds from the war and died after a couple of years. She was alone again, but remained busy helping her five grown children wherever she could and showing us all what real character is all about. God Bless my Meme.

“The most sublime courage I have ever witnessed has been among that class too poor to know they possessed it, ad too humble for the world to discover it.”

 George Bernard Shaw