Gramma and Aunt Dolores
I’ll tell you about her though. My mother worked, so when we were little kids, if we couldn’t go to school, we went to Gramma’s house. Always our choice for lunch was either a baked potato (in the cool weather months) or homemade noodles. I almost always opted for the noodles and when I was around the age of 6 or 7, Gramma decided I needed to make my own “damn” noodles. She instructed me with the ingredients and while I mixed them up she’d put on a pot of water to boil. Once I had a ball of dough, I’d stand on a stool so I was taller than the pot on the stove and using my great grandmother Schnellmann’s lye soap grater, I grated the dough into “noodles” right into the boiling water. When they were done, we slathered them with tons of butter and salt and pepper and had a feast. After a few batches of grated noodles she decided it was time for me to learn to use the rolling pin. I made the dough, then rolled it out on the comics section from the Sunday paper. When I could read the comics thru the rolled out dough, it was thin enough. I love Gramma for teaching me to make noodles at such an early age and nobody, and I mean nobody, can whip up homemade noodles faster than me!
She also taught me to use a sewing machine around the same time. We’d go shopping for fabric at the rummage sales and thrift stores over on South Broadway in the (Carondelet neighborhood – where I grew up) – we’d find large size dresses with full skirts that I would take apart with a tiny very pointy scissors. Then we’d wash and dry and iron the yardage. She would take patterns for things she made for herself and cut them down and redraw the sewing lines – I would sew right thru the pattern paper. First thing I made was a moo-moo. I’m sorry, but no 6 year old should be wearing a moo moo! Eventually, the biggest treat ever was to go on the bus up to Cherokee Street to a variety store that sold fabric and patterns. I looked at book after book after book and finally picked out a wrap around skirt pattern in my own size.
Did you know that Sunday, September 7th, 2008 is National Grandparents Day?
The impetus for a National Grandparents Day originated with Marian McQuade, a housewife in Fayette County, West Virginia. Her primary motivation was to champion the cause of lonely elderly in nursing homes. She also hoped to persuade grandchildren to tap the wisdom and heritage their grandparents could provide. President Jimmy Carter, in 1978, proclaimed that National Grandparents Day would be celebrated every year on the first Sunday after Labor Day.
Make someone’s day extra special today!
Anyway, happy grandparents day and if you would like to send a gift WKF has a nice selection!
If you would like share a story of your grandparents Click Here.