Christmas with Grandma

Grandma came up to my parents' house to share Christmas with us yesterday. She brought the ham and a pumpkin pie, to accompany my mother's green beans, applesauce, mashed potatoes and crescent rolls. We prayed and ate, and then retired to the living room to sit in front of the fire with our coffee and give Grandma her gifts.

Grandma told me a story yesterday about her grandmother Mary Worden, who also made Kuchen, like my husband's grandmother. Mary Rodgers and her brothers and sisters were orphaned as children and separated, sent to live with and work for different families. Mary was sent to a family in Indiana. Eventually she ended up working as a cook in Randolph, NY. She grew up and married, and never knew what became of her brothers and sisters.

When Grandma was preschool age, her family lived in Orchard Park, NY. Her father worked for a man paving sidewalks and driveways. This man's name was Will Rodgers. Noticing that the spelling of Rodgers was the same, Grandma's father asked Will Rodgers if he had any sisters. The two men compared backgrounds and discovered the connection.

Grandma's father was able to bring Will Rodgers to Belmont, NY, where Mary (now Mary Worden) was living, and the long-lost brother and sister were reunited again. Eventually, through Will, Mary discovered the rest of her brothers and sisters were all living in western New York and she got reaquainted with each of them, including Fanny, who sold canaries - birds known for their singing - two for ten dollars, out of a room in her house. It was during the Depression and no one was opening shops.

Grandma also told us of the time when women had recently secured the right to vote, and Grandma's entire family piled in the car so that her father could drive her mother to the town hall in Orchard Park to cast her vote. Grandma remembers her father giving instructions to her mother the entire ride there, on how the process will work, how the machines are used, and exactly who she should vote for.

The third story that Grandma shared with us was after I asked her what her earliest Christmas memory was. It is a sad memory. She doesn't remember much about Christmas at home, but she remembers being in school, and her teacher gave her a poem to recite for the class, titled "A Christmas Dolly." The teacher encouraged Grandma to bring in her favorite doll as a prop for when she gave the recitation. Grandma didn't have a doll. So the teacher had another girl bring hers, and Grandma held onto that doll while reciting the Christmas poem for her class. She remembers holding on so tightly to that doll, she didn't want to ever let go of it.

I asked Grandma later while opening presents about quilting. I think that quilting is something I would like to learn to do from her, like caning chairs. I haven't really had the chance to take up caning chairs since I moved 40 minutes away and haven't been having regular visits with her. Also, the materials required to cane chairs are less easily come by. It's not the season for garage and estate sales, where I could easily find old chairs that need seats. However, in the meantime, while I still have hopes of learning to cane chairs from Grandma, I could take up a winter activity - quilting - and learn that from her. So I asked Grandma how she would recommend learning quilting, by machine or by hand? "Oh, as far as I'm concerned," she said, "quilting is done by hand." She has always quilted by hand. She recounted the story of how she learned to quilt. She was in grade school, in a combined fourth-fifth-and-sixth grade class, and one day they were separated by gender and all the boys were told they would learn to build desks, and all the girls were told they would learn to sew a quilt. She went home and practiced, and her aunt saw her quilting without a thimble. Her aunt insisted that she use a thimble, and though at first she felt it was impossible, now she says she can never quilt without one. Grandma has, upstairs in her late-1800s house, a wooden quilting hoop that she has used to make many of her quilts by hand. She said that so many people use machines nowadays, and the results might be more perfect and uniform, but the best quilts have imperfections and are the work of someone's hands. I believe her. I want to learn how to quilt - by hand.

I had picked out a very special Christmas gift for Grandma this year to be from Ryan and me - a hand carved sculpture of Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, made from solid olive wood, from Bethlehem. Like I've said in previous chapters, I'm not sure where Grandma stands spiritually, and I care deeply about her relationship with the Lord. I picked out this piece because I know she didn't already have a creche, and I know she loves hand crafted works of art. I'm hoping it will cause her to think just a little bit more about the story of Christ's birth. I included a small card with it telling her how much I love her and love spending time with her, and I told her that I was writing a story for her about what Christmas means to me. This story that I will write for her will hopefully communicate God's love and the gospel message in a clear way so that she will at least know where I stand. I've been burdened by never sharing my beliefs with her. How do you witness to your own grandmother, who has lived so much longer than you, who has experienced so much more than you, who is so much wiser than you? I don't hope to "convert" her myself, I know it's God who changes people's hearts and turns them towards Him. But I do feel a responsibility to share the message of Jesus with her.