Grammie had eight kids! She was not your average Grandmother. She swore, she could get hopping mad, and her baking was perfect. She was so animated telling a story, laughing or crying before it was done. She was dominate, fierce, strong willed and very dramatic.
I may be scared of bees because of her. I was five, when I was playing with Grammie’s neighbour’s little girl. We were playing Hide and Seek, and it was my turn to seek. I was against Grammie’s house counting and a bee came out from the wall and stung me in the corner of my eye. I know why it is called sting! Off I went wailing into the house and before my mother could even reach me, my Gram stormed over to get the story and assess the damage. She gave out a battle cry and rushed outside to find these terrors that harmed her Grandaughter! She discovered where the were going under the tarpaper on the outside wall and she tossed her slippers at their home. Of course they were none to happy so they started coming out at her. No word of a lie, she raced back in grabbed her lighter and the kettle, went out and set the tarpaper on fire. There she was screaming and swearing the house was on fire and put it out with the kettle. Not traumatizing at all!
She had five boys and three girls. That is one short of a baseball team! When they lived in Havelock, Gram used to walk across the back field to get the milk from the neighbouring farm. The kids were out back waitng for their Mom to get back. When she was halfway across, a moose stepped into the field not far behind her. Well of course the kids started screaming to warn her and the boys ran to get the gun. Gram set off full tilt across that field, would not drop the milk, racing the moose, screaming and cursing the whole way. Now there are variations of the end of this story. The short version is that the boys fired off a warning shot into the air, Grammie went down still holding the bottles upright. The moose took off, they helped her the rest of the way and then got the switch for taking out the gun.
One of the last times she was over to my house for tea, my other Gramma was here. My other Gramma, was like most Gramma’s, proper, soft spoken, passive. The two of them started talking about grandkids. Then the birthdays came up and my soft spoken Gramma was rattling off dates as she was very keen on remembering everything. Gram was getting agitated by this attention to all these details, she jumped up and said, ” oh yeah, but can you do this?” and proceeded to run up and down my hallway!
I could write a book about the stories of my Grandmother! She loved hard, her hugs could cave in your ribs! Miss you Gram!
Momma Wouldn't Say 