The shocking news met my heart and like lead-pole legs stuck in quicksand. I sank into a nearby recliner, saving myself from face planting onto the floor.
“Grandma? Not Grandma.”
The beloved tender of my soul, fiercely loving each of us kids with a passion, her fire for life could not have been extinguished. No. I wouldn’t believe it. Couldn’t. Too many letters yet to write. Too many cakes to bake. Too many flowers to plant. As much as I tried to deny it, the truth was that Grandma Vita had passed away unexpectedly on May 25, 1972, at the age of 75. I was just a junior in high school.
She’s been gone for 52 years and while I don’t think of her a lot, just lately I’ve been wondering about her more and more. Too often, our older relatives pass away before we discover what their lives were like.
I have a niece who is passionately interested in family genealogy. The line of descent traced from our ancestors fascinates her. The more I find out about my grandma from the research my niece has done, the more I feel a kinship with her.
Growing up working hard on her dad’s farm, perhaps to offset her oftentimes demanding lifestyle, my grandma relished reading and writing. She actually finished 12 years of school (in those days, unusual) and went on to hold a teaching job before marrying my grandfather on June 14, 1917. Just a few years later, after he’d sold the cheese factory he’d operated in rural Antigo, they moved to Marion.
Among the stories my niece heard, we discovered when they moved into the farmhouse (where I was raised), the only furniture they’d had to sit on were cheese crates. They may have needed every penny of the sale of the factory to take over the farm from my great-grandfather August, who as a side note, married my great-grandmother, a woman who happened to be named Augusta.
Grandma and Grandpa had only one child — my father — born on April 18, 1920. I’d like to have asked her why just one, Grandma? My niece discovered my dad was only 3 when Grandma, at 26 years old, lost her father due to an infection that started in his fingers. Perhaps that had something to do with why she never had any other children. It’s only speculation — this tragedy may have affected her in such a way as to ponder, “Who in the world would handle all of this work if I had any more children?” How that thought wrenches my heart.
In her 30s and 40s, while still actively farming, (including handling horses clearing land) she was ardently involved with the Ladies Aid at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Marion, playing a leadership role. There are news articles mentioning her involvement that included planning, hosting and speaking roles, continuing on into the 1950s when she’d have been entering her own 50s decade.
As I was growing up, I knew of her love of gardening — her fingernails would be blackened from digging in the dirt. She’d plant fire red geraniums in buckets, placing them in the barn windows. Their leaves would be caked with hay dust but still looked beautiful to my small child’s wondering eyes. Flowers in the barn.
She and Grandpa lived with us for a while at the farmhouse until sometime in the 1960s when they moved to their house in town. She’d always welcome all four of us kids with open arms and a heart full of love. Squealing with delight, she’d plant both hands on our cheeks and squeeze, kissing us first on one side then the other.
Something hot and sugary from the oven would be waiting for us; her pineapple upside-down cake was the best. We’d sit down and share no matter the time of day, and as she ate, her nose would run. This trait got passed down to her only child, my dad, and then to me. To this day whenever I eat, my nose runs.
Her original hair color was auburn, although somewhat haywire, and she kept that until the day she passed. With a touch of scarlet rouge dapped on each cheek, she wore matching lipstick that wove its way past her lips’ boundaries into weather-aged creases. So endearing to me. Her vibrancy belied her age.
Every May 1, us little kids would make up a May basket and ringing her doorbell, run and crouch behind a tree watching her eyes light up as she bent to retrieve it, knowing her littles were somewhere right outside her door.
My dad fashioned a wooden, portable writing table for her that fit on top of her living room chair and she’d write letters of encouragement to people; entertaining them with her stories or to edify or enlighten — she loved to write.
My dearly loved Grandma Vita. A part of you lives on in me.
(“If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” Romans 14:8)
Kay Reminger was born and raised on a dairy farm, and she married her high school sweetheart, who happened to farm for a living in Leopolis. Writing for quite a few years, she remains focused on the blessings of living the ups and downs of rural life from a farm wife’s perspective.
Farm Life From a Farm Wife
