Remembering Grandma

This post is a reprint of an essay from my book, Thoughts of a Fried Chicken Watermelon Woman. Although I don't celebrate Mother's Day, I would like to take this moment and submit this post to honor all the mothers and mother figures

My grandmother, Mary Liza Holmes Seavers, was the single biggest female influence in my life. My mother died when I was six. Although I have memories of her, the woman who taught me to be a woman was my grandmother.

I was a lucky girl. I grew up in an age where grandmothers were not 40 year old women trying to vie with their 20 year old daughters for the attentions of a man. My grandmother was married to one man for over 30 years and when I arrived on the scene I had the luxury of having both of them in my life until my grandfather died when I was nine.

Mary worked for over 25 years at Mercy Hospital in Chicago in housekeeping. We’ve all seen these seemingly faceless men and women who come into our hospital rooms to mop, make up beds and empty the trash. They do their job efficiently and quietly and move on to the next room as quickly as they came into ours. Every day, she awoke at 5am and quietly went about her morning routine which included combing my hair and drinking her coffee. She left at 6:15am and took three buses to work. She refused to take the el train as she didn’t trust them. She worked her eight hours, took that same three bus ride back home, made dinner, washed dinner and prepared to the next day to do it all over again.

Like so many women in my Englewood neighborhood, she worked hard. She drank Schlitz beer and smoked Salem cigarettes. She played cards and was a member of a social club that met monthly. They planned club sets at various southside lounges and divided the proceeds amongst themselves. She disciplined me and the neighborhood kids with a yell and a hard smack on the butt. She also handed out fresh fruit and shared homemade ice cream with my friends. We never once talked back or thought it was odd to be chastised by adults on our block. We were raised by the village on 73rd and Sangamon.

Grandma enjoyed travel although she refused to fly. She and my aunt Mary rode Amtrak to New York for the World’s Fair. We took Amtrak to Dallas to visit my mother’s relatives and took Greyhound to visit her brother, my great-uncle, in Michigan. We took a chartered bus to Indiana to attend the Indiana state fair and my first trip to Great America was a chartered bus trip she planned to St. Louis.

My grandmother took me to the legendary Amphitheater to see the Ice Capades, Ringling Brothers Circus, Peter Pan with Mary Martin and wrestling matches. Before Operation PUSH, there was Operation Breadbasket and we went to the expo every year and saw the blues show. She took me as often and to as many places as she could. We had wonderful times out and about town including riding the bus downtown to visit Sears and Goldblatt’s. We took a cable line bus to the west side to visit my great-grandmother. Even riding the bus to the grocery store or making a trip to the bank was an adventure. What I remember most is what she taught me. Girls today don’t have any idea what they’ve missed especially when it comes to the kitchen. Holidays were the best when Grandma cooked and I was her helper. She did the hard work and my job was to cut the vegetables she put in her dressing and potato salad. I also stirred the sweet potatoes mixture for her wonderful sweet potato pies. She always let me lick the spoon. To this day, sweet potato pie is my favorite although I have yet to find one as good as hers.

She also taught me to be a lady and a woman. She always stressed to me that there was a time to be a lady, a time to be a woman and a time to be a whore. She told me smart girls are the ones who know when to be what and never get the three confused. I learned to act like a lady whenever I was out. I learned to be a woman at work or when faced with a problem or an issue. I learned to be a whore in private with my husband. Today’s young women seem to have no idea of when to be what.

As a mother myself, I catch myself bemoaning the good old days. Those of us who do this aren’t thinking about segregation or the Viet Nam war. We aren’t thinking about gang wars and partisan politics. We aren’t thinking about the assassinations of the Kennedys, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King. We’re thinking about summer nights catching lightening bugs, cold watermelon and snowmen. We’re thinking about a time when you could play outside four seasons of the year without fear. We’re thinking about knowing your neighbor and the store owners in your neighborhood. And we are thinking about the smells and the feel of grandma’s house. We remember Grandma, Big Mama and Ma Dear. She remains in my memories and my heart and I am a better person for it.