For Christmas in 2002 I gave each of the living grandparents, either my children's or my husband's and mine, a decorated composition notebook and a list of a little over 100 questions pertaining to their lives. None of my children's grandparents have done anything with theirs. My grandmother answered about ten of the questions without much detail - it seemed like it was awkward and somehow the woman who talked constantly otherwise couldn't come up with what to say, even though I implored her to write from her heart, simply as though she were talking to me, but she never did do anything else beyond those 10 questions.
In winter of 2003, my grandfather was snowed in at the Denver Airport for three days. He completed his book, and returned it to me. He understood why I valued such a thing; indeed, one of the things that drove him toward the end of his life was his desire to complete his autobiography. Fortunately, most of what his autobiography covered is in that book.
It is one of my most beloved possessions.
This book is written evidence of the kind of man my grandfather was: honest, hardworking, witty, tenacious (some would call this stubborn, especially if they knew us), kind, and loving. He had an incredible strength of character, a man of integrity with a strong faith. He knew what was important in life, and how to live a good life. His family was always most important to him.
I will be reading from this book during his memorial service this weekend, and I will be looking to get the completed autobiography published - if I can't find someone else to do it, I will publish it on cafe press. Over the course of the next month or so, I may share a few of these stories with you.
What follows is one of those stories, in my grandfather's own words. To give a little bit of background, my grandfather was from a ridiculously small town in Illinois, where everyone knew each other. His father owned the local general store, and my grandfather went to school in a one room schoolhouse. He didn't have indoor plumbing or electricity until sometime in the 60s. It was very much like the life lead by Laura in the Little House on the Prairie books.
Almost all of the social life in [small town] Illinois, where we lived, evolved around the church and our family store.
At Christmas time, my dad always bought the large bags of peanuts in the shell and one of my earliest jobs was to put the peanuts in small paper sacks and we gave a sack of peanuts to all the children in the neighborhood. I ate almost as many as I bagged.
The church always had a program on Christmas eve where all of us children participated. When that was over, we all went home. I am not sure how other people observed Christmas but our family went home. We kept the store open for about an hour for those who came to town and needed to buy something.
We then went home, which was the second floor of the store building.
We always opened our presents on Christmas Eve and then spent the Christmas Day in some forms of relaxation. Our winters were usually very cold so most of what we did was inside.
We had a Christmas tree which was decorated usually with hand made popcorn ropes and hand made ornaments. We used real candles which we held to the tree with spring clips. We only lighted the candles when we were in the room. This was very dangerous because of fire. We learned very early in life to be very careful.
The country was very poor during my early years so we did not get many presents. I was luckier than most of the kids in our neighborhood. Some of them got nothing but the peanuts.
For Christmas every year for as far back as I can remember, we in the family always received a card with a little bit of money for us to buy whatever we wanted or needed, and a can, wrapped, of some kind of nuts. I only learned why when he wrote this book.
LOVE that idea. What a WONDERFUL way to share (and then preserve) your family story! I am thinking I may do this for Christmas for my family too.
Then, so memorable to read at his service, you have his own words to share ((hugs))
Posted by: bzymom13 | April 27, 2007 at 09:42 AM