MEMORY MONDAY

 

My mother has written her memoirs and has been after me to write mine. I have been resisting for a while however I am creating Memory Monday to help me along. Come join me with your own memories. Each week will be a different prompt to encourage the writing of your memories. Link your memories and share them with everyone.

Our prompt is: Most Influential Person

I have had many influential people in my life however the most influential was my grandmother. My grandmother may have only been  4 foot 11 inches tall, but she was a remarkable woman. She was a mother to 19 children, 9 of whom lived to adulthood. She had 2 girls and 7 boys.  My mother  was the oldest girl (more about her story in the next blog).

My grandparents lived on a farm but my grandfather was away a lot. He was stationed in Newfoundland during the Second World War so she had to manage the family and the farm without  running water or electricity. My earliest memories are of visiting the farm as a child. There was a big apple tree in the middle of the drive. I used to walk around the drive holding onto the dogs and when I got tired I would nap under the apple tree.

My grandparents moved to the schoolhouse where my mother had attended classes. They converted the one room school house into several bedrooms with a kitchen and a bath. There were no doors on the rooms just curtains. A lot of my memories are here since  Grandmother insisted that everyone come home in June to celebrate her wedding anniversary. There would sometimes be as many as 100 people in attendance. It was a huge family reunion.

When my grandmother was 50 years old she went back to school and  earned a degree as an Assistant RN. She took a job at the local  hospital. She earned enough money to buy the first family home in the town of Lindsay. I remember it had a big summer kitchen and there was always bottles of water in the fridge. The bottles were used whiskey bottles so we called it whiskey water. She also learned to drive and actually won a car in a Supermarket Sweepstake.

Grandma finished her nursing career as a night supervisor at the local correctional facility for girls. Here she became the grandmother figure for troubled girls. They never caused any problems when she was working. Her experiences helped me through my own turbulent teenage years. Compared to these girls I had nothing to complain about.

My grandmother was my back up support. I would call her when Mom and I got into an argument. Often she would invite me to come by bus for a visit. Partly to give my Mom a break but also for my sake. She instilled in me a love of books as well as a love of tea. When I was pregnant she confided in me that those were her happiest days.

When she passed away I acquired her pearl necklace as well as her mink stole. I don’t wear the stole any more however I have worn the pearls to all of my children’s weddings as well as the christenings of my grandchildren. She is with me in spirit and I miss her.

Next Week’s Prompt: My Mom

My daughter made us a Memory Monday button that you can grab from my sidebar if you want.

Please link up your posts to this continuing linky so we can watch each other’s memoirs develop over this year.  Please use the format of “PROMPT – BLOG NAME” so we can follow each week’s writing.