Grandmother Elizabeth

My two grandmothers were on the opposite sides of the spectrum as far as grandmothers go. Elizabeth was my maternal grandmother.

The impressions I carry of Grandmother Elizabeth are of a distant, self-absorbed haughty woman. Her head had a slight jiggle to it, much like Katherine Hepburn in her old age. I always felt like it was a sign of her judging life, and nothing ever met her approval.

We didn’t see her that often, but when we did go visit her at her apartment it was never a pleasant time. She was of the belief that children should be seen and not heard. If she had her way we would sit on the couch silently while my mother and her talked about petty everyday things that people usually don’t bother to talk about.

I never met my Grandfather, she had left him and a son back in Texas when she brought my mother to live in Los Angeles. My mother never had contact again with either her father or brother.

We were always told that my Grandfather was a “half-breed”, that his mother was a full-blooded Cherokee. That has always been a source of pride for me, that we were part Indian. I wish I could have met that side of my heritage.

My grandmother was a seamstress at Bullocks on Wilshire, which I guess was a fancy store back then, with high class customers. Perhaps my grandmother picked up the snobby attitude from working with all the rich customers.

The rumor was my grandmother married at least 8 different times. I do not remember meeting all of them. I think today they would have been boyfriends, but back then I think she felt she had to marry them to be able to fool around. Just a guess. None of the marriages lasted long, and thankfully none of her husbands ever tried to play the role of grandfather.

One day I came home from school to find my grandmother at our house visiting my mother.

I had just started wearing my first bra, which I hated. It was very uncomfortable, and as far as I was concerned unnecessary. I had come up with a solution to make it more bearable, I wore it over my slip.

The first thing my grandmother did when I walked in the room was pull my dress up so she could see how the bra fit. She was horrified to find that I did not know how to wear a bra!

Another fond memory I have of my grandmother was when I was visiting my sister one day.

Our family had gone through a rough financial period, and the family had been temporarily split up until my father got his feet on the ground again. I was living with my parents at my other grandma’s house, but poor Judy had gotten stuck with Elizabeth.

Her apartment was right next to the freeway, all night long you could hear the huge semi trucks roaring down the highway.

Behind her apartment there were stairs that led to I don’t know where, but there were about 100 of them, and my sister and I would play on the stairs running up and down, up and down.

My grandmother called out and asked if we wanted some soup. My sister asked “What kind of soup?”. My grandmother never answered, so we continued to play.

After awhile we started getting hungry, so we went into the apartment to eat our soup. When we got there, of course there was no soup waiting. When we asked my grandmother about the soup her reply was “If you had to ask what kind of soup you must not be hungry.”

As I said at the beginning, my two grandmothers were extreme opposites. I think my childhood and self-esteem was salvaged from the time I got to spend with my other grandma, Martha.