Even though my family was dysfunctional as a unit, there were some really positive and good things that came out in some individuals...If not for those times I am certain I would not have survived spiritually. One of the best things in my life growing up was my grandmother. While she was mired deep in the doctrines and activities of her chosen religion that seemed to rule her life and ours, she was also a strong woman and I loved her more than there are words. She was many things, Sunday school teacher, seamstress, clerk in a local store, a life long member of the Garden Club in Wenatchee, a wife and mother, but the best thing for me was that she was an English teacher. Mind you, when she was teaching publicly, she did not have a degree or license or the kind of education that is demanded of teachers today. Her classroom was often in a one room schoolhouse. After her class she then returned to the gas/oilfields to serve lunch and prepare dinner for the men who worked the fields and then when that was done she would take care of her family. In her time it was a cardinal rule that the men ate first followed by the children and then the women ate whatever was left as they did the cleanup. Then there was canning to do, sewing and alterations for the upper crust ( and for the kids too). Sometimes she was paid, maybe 50 cents for one days work, sometimes she was paid in fabric or hand me downs and later she specialized in wedding dresses. For many years the sewing was all done by hand. My grandfather was a well driller and while he wasn't rich, she was given a treadle machine for Christmas and that treadle machine was used clear into the 1960's. While I totally hate to sew, because of her I am good at it and that old treadle was my machine once she got a 'new fangled' electric one. I sewed all my kid's clothes and made pillows, aprons and more as gifts for birthdays and Christmas and in my thirties I started doing alterations for extra money. Because of her teaching I always had straight A's in my English classes and spelling. And I loved reading and was very creative in writing, short stories, poetry etc. I made it to the final round in a spelling bee at the state fair, but because I was so nervous being in front of all those people, I lost because I forgot to say the word before spelling it, the word was committee, I spelled it right but when it got to the double e's my voice dropped and it wasn't heard...didn't matter tho since I didn't say the word first. It's really okay that I lost because still to this day I hate public speaking in any form. When I had parties or dinners, I rarely spoke, I preferred (and still prefer) to sit at the back of a room and just listen to the others. The other good thing that came in part through her was my love of animals. We always had a dog, cat, birds, turtles, fish and oddly guinea pigs:-) To this day I still want one of every animal, I simply can't resist the beautiful babies of the furry critters. I still do animal rescue, doesn't matter what the animal is, if it needs help I am there! I am immediately attached to whatever critter and if it dies or needs a new home, it breaks my heart. In the picture above you see me with one of grans cats, Puff. Gramps was a well driller first in the oilfields and the his own business of drilling water wells. On Stevens Pass in Washington, at the rest stop, is one of the wells he drilled for the state. He has wells all over the state of Washington and a few in Idaho. I used to love when he got paid because he was often paid in silver dollars. They were put in a cedar chest in my grans room and there was jewelry in there as well so it was like opening a pirates chest. And they wonder where I got such a strong imagination! I loved my gramps so much, he always had time to share a silly story or to make us 'whimsy's. At the end of his work day all the leftover springs and nuts and bolts and wire were used to make us the whimsy's. They were most often given at Christmas or birthdays but occasionally he would just give us one for no reason other than to see the excitement it brought. He never named his whimsy's, he wanted us to tell him what we thought it was. I still have one that looks like a mouse holding a golf club or a hockey stick. He was not an educated man but he had great vision and he shared it with me more than with my brother or sister. One of the things he told me was to make myself strong and independent, not to depend on a man to do for me but to be able to do it myself if there was no man. He firmly believed in an educated woman even though we were still in the 'Cinderella' years. The women of the family of course said to learn housekeeping and all that goes with being a housewife and you obey your husband no matter what. The 'no matter what' included being beaten and everything bad was kept 'in the closet'. You could not tell anyone, could not defend yourself, could not talk back and your 'wifely' duty was to be endured even if you were sick. While I bought into the 'Cleaver' life for a short time and thought of the 'house with a white picket fence' it wasn't long before I developed more in my grandfathers way of thinking than the womens way. Gramps was the only one in our family who was not religious though he would go to church on special occasions such as Easter and Christmas. Gramps was one who 'honored the child' within, he remained young at heart and his room was filled with toys. He loved toys and birds, he had one of the very first talking toys, a stuffed parrot that when you pulled the string and it said things like 'Polly wants a cracker'. He loved trains and steam engines and had a small working steam engine that he would sit and polish on the dining room table, then make it work for us kids, then polish again before he would secret it away till the next time. Gramps loved my grandmother to spite the fact that she was a total prude and very dominating. In all my life they never slept in the same room. I never saw a kiss, a pat, a smile or any emotion pass between them and I found it to be quite curious but knew better than to ask why. Grans father, my great grandfather, was a Southern Baptist minister. He was always dressed in black and was very dark and foreboding in demeanor and I was scared to death of him. I do not recall him ever smiling or even speaking with any of us kids. When he walked into a room it was as though the sun left the room and us kids were sent outside to play with the door locked behind us. Because of the huge religious presence that seemed to leave the children out, I learned very early how to amuse myself or keep myself busy so as not to be lonely. I still do that today. It wasn't all bad on Sunday either...there was the trip to Dairy Queen for banana splits and A&W for root beer and hamburgers and this after the Sunday drive...as I look back now gran was silent except to ask what we wanted at Dairy Queen. Sometimes we ate in the car as we watched the girls on their roller skates taking orders and delivering them to the open windows. There are a couple places left like that in Washington but I haven't seen or heard of it in New York. I miss those times and miss my grandparents. I don't miss my great grandfather or the church that he helped to found in Wenatchee. Don't get me wrong, I respect who the man was in terms of family and humanity, its just hard to like someone that won't try to get to know you. To be continued...