My grandmother died today.

It wasn’t completely unexpected. She’s been a frail lady for a long time, and my grandfather devoted the last years of his life to taking care of her so she could continue to live at home with him. After his death in March, she declined sharply, and his funeral in May I think was a breaking point for her. She became very ill with a flu that was going around, and despite my mum’s best efforts in care, it became really apparent that my grandmother needed to be placed in a nursing home. She had a heart attack at home, the day I was supposed to go up and give my mum a break from nursing her. I went up there anyhow, to visit in the hospital. It was very sad to see her lying there.

My last words with her before I left for Greece was her saying that the next time I saw her, it would be at her funeral. I grabbed her hands and said “That’s not true, Grandma! I will see you again.” But really, I didn’t think she would be there when I got back.

I tried not to dwell on things while I was away, and when I returned, I was amazed to hear that she had made a very good recovery, and was now in a nursing home in Walkerton. She wasn’t adjusting well to the change (her secret family nickname: Goldilocks, because nothing was Just Right), but the people were nice and the facility was beautiful. My grandmother enjoyed having a hairdresser come and visit and set her hair for the first time in months!

But, a week or so after I returned from Greece, I found out she had been taken to hospital, and that she had many more things wrong with her than previously known. She had an aortic aneurysm, a bowel tumor, clogged arteries from that, her leg ulcers, and her bowel was ready to perforate at any moment. I did manage to go up and visit with her again this past week, and Mum just called to say she was gone. It hasn’t sunk in yet.

My grandmother was born in Limpley Stoke, England. She lived in a little bungalow called ‘Tis Done.

You can see it here in this picture – it’s the little house on the left hand side by the train tracks.

My grandmother had four siblings. First was my great-uncle Sid, then my great-uncle George, then a son who died very young who would have been my great-uncle Fred, then my grandmother Hilda, and then her sister, my great-aunt Violet.

My grandmother was an adorable baby, wasn’t she? Here she is with my great-uncles George and Sid. They both died a few years ago in their 90s. They were very sweet men and my grandmother missed them terribly.

I always love this next picture because of the story around it. This picture was taken for my great-grandfather Edward during WW1. My great-grandmother had to wrangle four children down to the portrait studio because she wanted to send my great-grandfather a photo to keep with him.

My grandmother wanted to be a fashion designer. She actually had a scholarship to go study art and design and fashion but she had to turn it down because my great-grandfather didn’t want her to go. So she went into service for a rich family in Bath. She had a little apartment in the house, and was head Nursery-Maid. She couldn’t bear to be away from her family though, so she came back after the children no longer needed a nursemaid.

Somewhere after that, she met my grandfather and fell instantly in love with him, and he her. The story of how they met is really sweet. The Viaduct Inn outside of Bath used to be a gathering spot for the surrounding area. Local buses would come and drop off young people, who would all socialise and dance and eat at the Inn. My grandmother was with her best friend one day, when my grandfather and his best friend came up to chat. They all hit it off, and in fact, both married their dance partners!

During the war, my grandmother worked for the Admiralty. She told me that she had two choices, to work in the Admiralty or to be on the Fire Patrol. She didn’t want to be out at night during Air Raids, so she chose the Admiralty! She made up repair estimates for warships. Isn’t that cool? It must have been a really frightening time though. She lived in a terrace house on Odd Down in Bath, and they had an incendiary bomb land in the front garden. Another killed the family the next terrace down from them. She also told me one day about going into work after an air raid and discovering their building had been hit and some of her friends had been killed.

My mum Patricia was born in 1942, preceded by a stillborn son. My aunt Diana was born in 1944, and another daughter, Janet was born in 1948, but she died as an infant from whooping cough.

In 1955, Grandpa and his family decided to emigrate to Canada. There they worked on a farm in Desboro before my grandfather was able to purchase a farm outside of Chesley. I will be writing more about that soon.

My grandma found life on a farm to be hard. It was horribly isolated, as my grandmother never learned how to drive. At first, my grandfather tried to do it all, as he didn’t want my grandmother to have to work. But that wasn’t possible, even my grandpa couldn’t work a town job plus run a farm by himself! My grandma was a city girl, but she learned how to milk cows, and sew up sheep that my grandfather had nicked when he attempted shearing, and she helped (along with the rest of the family) bring in the hay. Quite an adjustment!

She seemed very straight-laced and proper to me as I was growing up, but I loved sitting with her and hearing her stories about growing up in England. She would often tell me about the scrapes she got into as a young woman and I began to see that Grandma wasn’t always as she appeared to be!

One of my favourite stories was how she used to tell her parents on Sundays that she was going for a walk with a girlfriend, and they would put on lipstick once out of sight of the house and sneak down to the Inn and play piano and dance! Isn’t that awesome?

She took up painting in her 70s, was an accomplished knitter and seamstress. She could see a dress in a picture and make up her own copy just from that. She made the best gravy I have ever tasted in my life. In fact, when I was about 5 years old, I came up with this little ditty, which pleased her to no end:

“My mum’s gravy is pasty/But Grandma’s gravy is tasty!”

It was a very sad day when she had to give up pouring the tea at the table. She took that duty very seriously — she definitely ran the household. I remember a couple of years ago when I was up for a visit and I put the wrong teacups out at the table. My grandfather came up to me and said “Don’t let Granny see you! Those are the breakfast cups, not the ones for dinner!”.

I am so happy that her and my grandfather were able to come to my wedding in 2001.

I am very thankful that I got to have her around as long as I did. I hope she is with my grandfather, in a place she loves.

Goodbye, Grandma, I love you.

Posted under 2006 & Journal & July | No Comments »