On this day in 1892, my paternal grandmother was born.This much treasured photograph was given to me on my 18th birthday, with a special message on the back. It was taken in 1917 when she was 24 years old.
This grandmother was 29 when she married in 1921 and went on to bear 10 children (one still born). She endured the heartbreak of sending sons to WW2, thankfully both returned, only to loose two sons in their 20s.
She was a woman of pioneering spirit who used her talents and intelligence to help make a meagre living on the farm. Dad says he doesn't know how, but even during the Depression, they always had enough to eat . To me she was a hard working, knowledgeable, and loving grandma with whom I spent a great deal of time in my childhood as we were blessed to live only about 1.5 kms from them.
Grandma died in 1983, almost 91 years old, from a very painful skin disease which grieved her for the last couple of years of her life. She had converted to Roman Catholicism when she married, and was very faithful and devout to the Church of Rome. I remember visiting her not long before her death and she was reading from the scriptures. Two years later when I came to know the Lord I recalled this and have sometimes wondered whether in her old age she may have turned to the Saviour of whom she was taught as a child brought up a christian home. I also remember that my mum used my love for Grandma as a plea to come back to Rome myself when I announced I had become a christian.
I loved these grandparents dearly. They had a great influence on my early childhood. I was very blessed to spend so much time with them and to hear first hand their wonderful life experiences. My dad was recently given letters written by his mother (Grandma) around the time of the deaths of her sons and this opened my eyes to a new aspect of the depths of sorrow she had endured in her long and interesting, but often difficult life.
I wrote this poem about 4 months before Grandma's death when she was quite sick in hospital. She was ninety and I was twenty years old.
She sounds like an amazing woman, as were many of those pioneering ladies. My mind can't even begin to understand how they made it all work and kept things going with such a large family and no 'modern' conveniences.
ReplyDeleteThe RC question has always been one that interested me. I know some Catholics who declare they are Christians, but I wonder how they reconcile that with praying to Mary and doing all the ritual stuff that goes along with it? I truly hope your grandmother came to a personal relationship with God in the last years of her life, and when you found her reading the scriptures she was seeking to know Him better.