Being Christmas eve my thoughts just naturally turn to the past. It's a strange thing when those thoughts turn to something you really don't even remember. And that is just the case this morning as I remember when Grandmother Bennett came to our house for Christmas. Well, as I said I don't really remember but I have a picture, proof positive that it happened. It was in 1957, so no photoshop or trickery of any kind involved. I have the original print. Just Grandmother Bennett, myself and my three siblings.
This was a rare occasion indeed. It is the only time I remember grandmother Bennett leaving her house. Really, I mean that literally. I never saw her outside of her home, ever. Family legend and lore tells of her going to my Aunt Edna's house but that's what it is to me, a legend. Grandmother Bennett, nana, didn't drive or own a car, she didn't work outside of the home, and she she didn't go anywhere. Her groceries were either delivered or Aunt Edna did her shopping for her. When all of that started I can't be certain. I know that her husband, grandfather Horace, passed away on Christmas Eve 1949. Something that was never mentioned until years later. I had no awareness of that as a child growing up. Grandfather Horace was just, gone.
Nana was the mother of ten children. She came to America, dispatched by her father to care for a sick Aunt. She did so until that Aunt passed away. As a sort of reward she was then sent to culinary school where she trained as a baker. As was the custom back in those days a wealthy family secured her services. While working for that wealthy family she met and married Horace. Ten children and forty years of marriage later she was widowed. She was sixty five years old at that time. In 1949 sixty five was an old lady! Yes, sixty five was near the end of life in those days, socially speaking, for most women. I remember her in her seventies. A typical grandmother, stereotypical even. Grey hair up in a bun, an apron over her house dress, stockings that were rolled to mid calf and slippers. In that photograph she is seventy three years old. She would live to be eighty nine.
In 1957 I was just three years old. My sister was five, brother Dan seven, and older brother Harold nine. I've seen that picture so many times that it is almost like I remember that. I do remember some things in the picture like the furniture, ornaments on the tree, and the carpet on the floor. They do seem as familiar to me as the ones in my home today. Strange the things we do remember. I'm remembering a Christmas past, a time when Grandmother came over the river and through the woods to my house! Never happened again.
Dan, left front and myself, fourth from the left, are
the only ones left from this fading photograph.
And strangely, when I look at this, I don't feel
sadness, Just Peace on Earth and Goodwill toward men.
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