Remembering Grandma Peggy

I'm often comforted by the knowledge that my parents, all four of my grandparents and all eight of my great-grandparents were church-going and upright folk who worked hard, enjoyed a good meal, and loved a good song. I'm probably the first one in generations with a lazy streak, contaminated by a stray gene from another day and age. I can stare out a window at the rustling leaves for a good half-hour. I can leave the dishes in the sink until a better day. I can leave the Christmas tree stand on the porch until the beginning of March.

But my grandmother Peggy, born in 1896, would never do that. A card-carrying member of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, the good old WCTU, she had no time for slothful folks. She never stopped moving and working, except for the times she set aside for her Bible and her devotions in the morning, after a hot dinner at noon, and at bedtime. (The evening meal was "supper", not "dinner".)

"Learn to be neat!" was her refrain. As we took fresh-smelling bedsheets from the clotheslines on Mondays, she sang old hymns: The Old Rugged Cross, In the Garden, Blessed Assurance. She would call out happily to a flock of birds in the sky "My money! my money! my money!"- you'll someday get a dollar per bird, you know. She always wore a dress, stockings, and sturdy heels,even when working in the garden, her long gray hair piled in braids or a bun, she prided herself on her figure and her slim ankles. She was ladylike and happy.

After we made the beds, she would fold a small blanket at the foot of the bed with a precision I could never match. If I folded a throw blanket loosely and tossed it on the foot of the bed, she would take it up again and fold it right, with just the tiniest huff. I missed the gene that could help me notice such things, yet I learned to admire those who have it.

Now Grandma had her darker side, honed honestly and earnestly by religion and forebears who placed a high premium on working from dawn to dusk in order to be saved by Jesus in the end. She could be just a tad judgmental. I remember sitting smug in the car with my grandparents as we passed by a ramshackle house out in the country that had beer bottles and old cars in the yard. "Not fit to live," she said about one hapless resident, obviously knowing more about the man of that house than I did.

Occasionally Grandma would have a "sinking spell" which meant she had to sit down for a moment, and only very rarely, take to her bed. Once I remember her sitting on a bench in her gardens in the sunlight, combing out her long hair after washing it, and sighing "Ah! Fifty years seems but a day!" She did not like sinking spells in herself or anyone else. I, for one, given to occasional prolonged sinking spells, still feel very guilty when I give in to breathlessness or gloom. And I imagine my sister and cousins and all of us unto the fourth generation still feel guilty if we slack off for too long.

Grandma baked her own bread, made her own soap, killed her own chickens. Sunday supper was an event, 2:00 sharp every Sunday afternoon following three or four hours of church and Sunday School. She believed life should be lived close to the bone, close to nature, close to God. She had a mink coat that she wore to church and she lived in a beautiful home on many acres, but she favored simplicity. Her values were based on her Christian principles and her belief in the output of constant energy all day every day, except of course on Sunday. "Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy."

If I recall correctly, the framed needlework over her mantlepiece spelled out Christ's words: "Remember Me." I can't find the perfect picture right now,with just those words in a long horizontal frame, but I'll keep trying. I know He remembered her, and that she rests in peace.