I have been wanting to publish my grandmother's brief memoir ever since I first got my hands on it. My father's mother grew up in the late 1800's and early 1900's in Canada, and she had what is euphemistically known as an extremely hard life.
Yet, she never complained. She seemed to accept her fate. She had such an active mind that she taught herself to read and write, despite her lack of "schooling."
If you click on any of the 12 pages I am posting here, they become quite readable.
I relocated the original copy of this lovely article the other day when cleaning out some old files in my closet. Around 30 years ago, when I was still at Rolling Stone, one of the editors had the idea of a "grandparents' project," and I know I gave her a copy of this manuscript then.
But apparently nothing came of her effort, so Grandma's story remains unpublished until today, almost 40 years after her death in her early 90's.
What follows is the rest of her story:
(Thanks, Brad, for helping me choose this format.)
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3 comments:
On page 12, where she mentions "little David," is that you?
Oh, Cecilia, thank you for asking. No, that would have been my much older cousin David, who was deaf from birth. He died when I was 12, when he stopped his car at a RR crossing in Florida to carefully look both ways, since he could not hear train whistles. It was one of those unguarded crossings and the train that came around the corner killed him instantly. A compound tragedy: he was my aunt and uncle's only son. Uncle Ed died less than two years later of cancer. Aunt Alice lived to around 90, I think.
Oh, that is so sad. I too was thinking the same thing, Cecilia.
Thank you, David, for sharing your grandmother's memoirs with us. It's the story of days of old and we should never forget them for they make us what we are.
Although sometimes I feel that the stories are the same throughout time, just with a slightly different take utilising the tools of the current generation.
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