January, 2019
Dear Grandma,
It has been close to 30 years since I have spoken to you.
I am now nearly the same age as you were when I was first born. I think my earliest memory of you is me being picked up out of the metal crib and being held on your lap. I have the impression that I was quite ill at the time, probably with a fever and a cold or even chicken pox.
All the changes that happened over that time. It is terribly cold here these last few days. I live in a rural area much like you did when you were my age. As I sit here looking at the outside temperature gauge and listening to the wind howl I start to wonder how you managed to live the life of a farmer's wife for five decades.
You were brought to the farmstead as a bride. I am pretty sure you wouldn't have had power back then. How quiet the days must have been. No radio. No fridge motor humming away. Probably not even a telephone for the first while. Grandpa would be busy I imagine, feeding cattle and pigs in the barn, milking, feeding chickens, working on machinery, hauling wood, repairing bins all while you were in the house heating water, cleaning floors, washing clothes and making meals with only your thoughts to keep you company. Newspapers were rare. The Western Producer and the Family Herald were probably the main monthly papers delivered to the post office 10 miles away.
I envision you pouring over the Women's Columns in these papers looking at recipes and the latest news about fashion trends and family living advice which could involve gardening tips as well as serial stories and advertisements for feminine needs.
I have kept a few of your recipe books, wire bound stenographer pads , that have cut outs from the Western Producer taped into them with some time honoured gems such as Tomato Soup cake, Yorkshire Pudding, and even a recipe for a No Egg Cake. It certainly would have been a challenge to bake anything in a wood stove oven without a proper temperature gauge with the only way to turn the heat up or down depended on the quality and quantity of wood placed in the hot box.
Washing must have been quite the chore in the winter. I do remember watching you hanging wet sheets outside on the line in minus 30 degrees temperature and hauling them in again a few hours later, stiff and frozen and then putting them on the kitchen table to drip dry.
I think of you going about your daily housework tasks primarily in silence day after day. The only sound to be heard would be the sound of labour. Placing wood in the cook stove by first lifting the metal burner and hearing the clunk and consequent instant sizzle of the wood turning to flame especially if it was really cold outside. The clunk clunk clunk of the iron being heated on the stove to smooth out wrinkles of every piece of linen and sheet, tea towel, work shirt, coveralls, and handkerchief. Many a young bride was judged by her mother in law in those days by the white of her tea towels, the neatness of the linen cupboard, and the crease in her husband's dungarees.
I can imagine the sound of the handle of the hand pump creaking and squeaking as it is pumped up and down until the swoosh of cold water gushes out the spout and into the waiting wash basin or
pail, depending on the chore at hand.
I wonder if you sang or hummed a song or if you day dreamed of other times when you were with your sisters in town going skating or visiting with friends. Would you be planning the next meal, or would you worry what you would wear to the next school social? I know you liked to look nice as I recall you getting your hair done in home permanents often--no natural curly haired beauties in our family was there?
It will be minus 40 here tonight. That is in Celsius degrees which actually is also the same on the Fahrenheit scale so you will have a full understanding of how cold it really is...at least that is one thing that hasn't changed.
Hope all is going well. Say hello to Grandpa for me. I know he is probably close by. Think of you both often.
Love and miss you,
Penny
