I'm planning a trip to New York this summer. My great-grandparents live in a little town called Springville about an hour southeast-ish of Buffalo, so I'm going to spend a week with them, along with my mom and grandmother who make a yearly trip together.
For a week, it will be me, my mom, her mom, and her mom, plus my great-grandfather. That's four generations of women in one small house for a whole week. (Poor Grampa.)
Four generations of very strong, rather opinionated, independent women.
Four generations of varying degrees of eccentricity.
I made this trip a couple years ago, but my two youngest brothers went and made very nice buffers for all the estrogen bouncing around. They're not going this year.
What struck me most about that trip was the role reversals going on...I saw Mom as a daughter and a granddaughter, and my grandmother as a daughter and a mother. It was very strange, especially seeing my mom in that light. I guess daughters just aren't used to seeing their mothers being daughters.
And I don't think my great-grandmother quite knew what to make of me. I've kind of broken the pattern set by these women. All three of them married very young and had children very young. I have yet to do either.
On this coming trip, I want to make both of my greats sit down and tell me stories about their lives. I know they have some great ones. Grampa was in the Marine's and served in Japan during WWII. Grandma was one of 18 children and grew up on a farm during the Depression.
When I was there a couple years ago, Grandma made a comment one day about not trusting banks anymore, not since "all them banks were closing, back in 1929, 1930." That was the Great Depression, Grandma! "Oh, yeah, them were bad times. It was a good thing we had herbs to eat...dill, dandelions....Yeah, them's were hard times."
I also want my grandmother to tell me stories, and my mom, and then I want to weave all of their stories together, along with my own stories, and write a book. There's a pattern that has been set by these women that I sometimes find myself repeating and sometimes breaking, and I want to explore that more. I want to find out what that means for my life, and for the life of the daughter I hope I have one day.
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2 comments:
Yes! I'd read that book. Take a tape recorder. I have a gift from my father of dinner conversations between he and his mother and father... i listen to them sometimes. oh, they are so precious to me. One of the greatest/saddest quotes i ever heard went something like this: "everytime someone dies, so too a library." meaning the memories go with them. mine those memories. get em down. i hope to read that book someday, of course i'd like mine signed. :D
So....my name is first on the blogs.... :)
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