Saturday 10 May 2008
Grandma's party
I had nice chat with one of my students tonight about her grandmother. They went off together to spend two nights in a mountain ryokan - a traditional Japanese inn (that means rice husk mats and futons to sleep on; fish, fermented soy beans and a raw egg for breakfast). My student, in her 30s, slept in the same room as her grandmother, in her 80s, and had to adjust her body clock to her older companion's sleep patterns. This was fine for the holiday, but when she got back to working in Tokyo, she found herself getting sleepy before 10pm and wide awake at 5:30am. It got me thinking about my American Grandma. She was a politically astute Arkansan who saw out the defining moments of the 20th Century - America's Century - The First World War, Great Depression, Second World War and Cold War. She brought up three children, one of whom was my mother, and lived through some astounding changes in the US South, including the Civil Rights movement and she joined the march of women from behind the sink to their place in the office. I used to visit her every Wednesday night in the early 1990s. I would bring her copies of my latest opinion columns, and she would feed me dinner (I definitely got the better end of the deal there). Then we would sit down and watch a little of the McNeal/Lehrer Newshour on PBS and she would nod wisely when a Democrat was on and scowl when a Republican spoke. Roosevelt's New Deal policies had kept her family in food and, in return, she was a Democrat for the rest of her life. Her proudest possession in her latter days was a Christmas card signed by President Bill Clinton, thanking her for her contributions to the party. The feeling, I'm sure, was mutual.
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5 comments:
Thinking of your American grandma and mutuality, I remember learning that during the lean times of the 1930's depression when she was the only sibling to have a job, your grandmother paid for her sister, Great Aunt Johnnie, to attend a hairdressing school, and thus gain a money-earning skill, and that ever since that time, until her very last years, once a week, Johnnie would do your grandmother's hair (trim and set) as a mark of her gratitude.
Love, Dad
I remember the haircuts, I'd forgotten the reason for them. Thanks for that.
Only in America would you name females with a male name!! Billie and Johnie?!!
And their mother, your great grandmother, was called Bertie! (Short for Alberta.) Apparently, your great grandfather wanted boys and, faced by girls only (he did eventually father one boy, Devereux by name) called them by boys' names. (Billie is short for Wilhelmina, Grandma Holiman's proper name.) Incidentally, that great grandfather, whose name I can't now recall - probably Joan or Jean! - fought in the Spanish-American War of 1898.
Well, I never....Spanish-American war eh? I have some interesting relatives then, names aside!
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