Several years ago, Robert Fulghum wrote a book entitled “All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” It was actually a very good book with a lot of pithy knowledge. My version of this might be entitled “All I Really Needed to Know I learned while working with my Grandma Delphia and my parents.”
I’ve written about my Grandma Delphia Bjorling before. Grandma was a wonderful lady with a very positive outlook on life. Raised on a farm by Swedish immigrant parents, Grandma was a worker, even when she was in her eighties and nineties. When Grandma was living out on the farm west of Galva, Illinois, she had a big maple tree in her back yard and Grandpa Edmund had hung a porch swing near that maple tree. In the summertime, Grandma and I would spend hours in that swing, but we were NOT merely swinging, thank you very much! In those days, if a housewife sat, she was DOING something – snapping green beans, removing the strings from string beans, hulling peas, shucking corn, and handling other vegetables. Grandma and I had a wonderful time in that swing and I remember it fondly! I think the swing finally got removed when the maple tree had to come down. Incidentally, that was a hard maple tree with smaller leaves than a soft maple, and the sound of the wind sooing through those leaves was incredibly comforting.
In the old days, it was a tradition for housewives to do their housework in the morning and then around 2 PM, they could change into clean dresses and aprons and do mending or sewing or fancy needle work. NOBODY wasted a pair of blue jeans or work socks! If the toes were wearing out on a pair of work socks, you used heavy cotton yarn to close the holes by darning them. Darning was best accomplished by slipping a “darning egg,” an egg – shaped piece of wood, inside the sock so that the tip of the needle would bounce off the wood and not pierce one’s finger. Work trousers were also patched, either by hand or on a sewing machine, using pieces of material from other trousers that had become so badly worn that they had to be recycled. In those days, it was very common to see little boys coming to grade school with patches on the knees of their jeans, and when iron – on patches became available, lots of boys showed up with iron – on patches. Some boys’ jeans even came with reinforced knees; everybody knew that little boys were going to scoot around on their knees doing things.
Fancy needle work was a skill all to itself. There was knitting, crocheting, tatting,quilting, and embroidery. Candle wicking wasn’t a big deal in my area. Some women did weaving and created rag rugs or even blankets and bedspreads. (Long before I became a surgeon, I knew how to do a running locked stitch; I learned that stitch from my mother as a “blanket stitch,” a stitch one did by hand at the edge of a blanket to keep it from raveling.) My mother knitted, crocheted, and sewed.
My Great Grandmother Minnie Mathis created beautiful embroidery, even though her eyesight was poor and she had to hold the material close to her face. It is probably no accident that two of her great grandchildren are surgeons! Many ladies created crocheted or tatted lace to apply to pillow cases, particularly for guest bedrooms. (Store – bought lace was expensive and considered poor taste.) A friend of my mother’s generation had a true story about entertaining the Ladies Aid Society from her church at her home east of Altona as a newlywed. In those days, cleanliness was not NEXT to Godliness, it WAS Godliness, and you had best remember that! Our friend had cleaned her home from top to bottom and had put her best bedspreads on the beds upstairs. The guest bedroom was being used as a repository for the ladies ’ coats. One of the older women came back downstairs and complimented our friend on the quality of the lace on the pillow cases in the guest bedroom. Now, you must realize that to inspect those pillows, this lady had to peel back the bedspread!
I spent quite a bit of time with my mother and grandmother as a small child. In the summertime, Grandma Delphia would do most of her cooking, canning, and baking either in her summer kitchen or on a stove in her basement. The summer kitchen was a small building with two main rooms. You entered into the room that held the stove. The back room was where Grandma kept her gardening equipment and her painting supplies. (I have previously told how Grandma would paint anything that didn’t move fast enough in bright primary colors.) In that summer kitchen, Grandma would turn out apple sauce, rhubarb sauce, pickles, jams, jellies, and a variety of canned vegetables. In those days, no housewife woth her salt would dream of BUYING jam or jelly; the home – made variety was far superior. The same thing held true for store – bought cookies; no proper housewife would offer somebody something that she hadn’t baked herself. That summer kitchen held a delicious combination of odors, and I remember them vividly to this day.
Both of my grandmothers and my mother sewed. Grandma Delphia generally stuck to mending and creating aprons; however, my mother sewed much of my clothing when I was a small child. I began sewing when I was about seven or eight years old and continued to sew as a 4 – H club member. I sewed clothes for myself while I was in college, and I remember being part of an all – night sewing bee at one point. Two of my college friends were marrying each other, and the bride couldn’t find bridesmaid dresses that she liked, so she airily announced that we would simply combine two different patterns and SEW our dresses. There were to be 6 bridesmaids, and only 3 of us sewed very well – all of us veterans of 4-H, of course. The wedding was taking place at the end of finals week and we were all supposed to have already completed our dresses. Right! The three of us who sewed well began sewing the morning of the day before the wedding, broke long enough for the wedding rehearsal, and then continued through the night. I completed the last hem on my dress twenty minutes before the wedding; fortunately, the wedding was held in the college chapel a 2 minute walk from our dorm.
One of the things I learned from my mother was gardening. Mom loved her garden, and she made it fun for us kids. When I read accounts of people complaining how they were forced to work in the garden, I can’t relate because working with Mom was fun.
My dad loved being outdoors on the farm and working with animals, and I loved being with my dad. Friends who remember Dad remember him as a wonderful guy with a great spirit. Those were the days when people whistled or sang as they worked, and both my parents were singers. We sang while milking cows. We sang in the pickup truck on the way to or from the hog pasture. We sang around the house while doing dishes. I used to sing while hanging out clothes. These days I still whistle, but not long ago, I learned that some groups in Ghana believe that if you are whistling, you are trying to steal people’s souls. Oh dear!
I’ve mentioned Grandma Delphia a lot. Grandma Delphia was married to Granda Edmund. Grandpa Edmund was a sweet man, but he was shy. On the other hand, Grandpa was kind and patient and good to work with. I spent quite a bit of time working on the farm with Grandpa when I was young. When I needed someone to drive me to weekly piano lessons, Grandpa was always there. Grandpa and Grandma faithfully attended band concerts, choir concerts, and school plays. When I graduated from college in Minnesota, Grandpa made sure that Grandma and he drove 500 miles to see me graduate.
COVID – 19 has created all kinds of problems for people and I don’t wish to belittle those challenges. But perhaps one good thing that might come from having to shelter in place is that children may get to spend more time learning things from their parents. It’s terrible that children have been kept from their grandparents, but there really is no substitute for working with someone if you are going to learn things.
Working alongside adults gives kids a sense of worth and self – esteem. We never had any doubts that our contributions to the family were necessary and of value. When kids are allowed to assume responsibility, they learn valuable life lessons. It is a mistake to refuse to give kids age – appropriate jobs, and most kids can do far more than you would suppose.
I am grateful for every moment I got to spend with my parents and grandparents. In my mind’s eye, it is late afternoon on a warm summer’s day. Grandma and I are sitting in her swing in the back yard and we are snapping green beans and chatting. I can smell the corn ripening in the field and the flowers that surround Grandma’s house. And wrapping us like an invisible blanket is the pure love of a grandparent for a grandchild and a grandchild for a grandparent. It’s a small taste of heaven.
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