My Grandparents

By Judy (Ran­dall) Garland

When I was lit­tle, I thought every­one had grand­par­ents, but I found out as I got old­er that not every­one did. In fact some peo­ple had none and some peo­ple had only one set or one grand­par­ent. My fam­i­ly was very lucky — we had two full sets of won­der­ful grandparents.

Grammie and Grampa Root
Gram­mie and Gram­pa Root

When I think of Gram­pa Root, I think of how he made one feel very spe­cial. I can still hear him cheer­ing me on when I was lit­tle in the bike races at the 4th of July in North Danville. He was big and burly, almost a full-blood­ed Irish­man, and I loved him.

Gram­mie Root was so sweet. I nev­er heard her curse or swear. She had long flow­ing hair that she wore on top of her head. When she would comb it out, we were mes­mer­ized. She would sit in a straight-back chair for hours cro­chet­ing away. Then she would give us her hand­i­work for Christ­mas, which I must say was­n’t very much appre­ci­at­ed at the time, but now we love her work. I don’t remem­ber her doing any­thing with us but we still loved to go there.

Grampa and Grammie Randall
Gram­pa and Gram­mie Randall

We always begged my par­ents for a chance to go down to our oth­er grand­par­ents’ home, the Ran­dalls, in St. Johns­bury in the sum­mer. That was our vaca­tion, and we rel­ished it. And besides, we got out of doing dish­es! We could swing on the tree swing or walk on the trail that went up through the woods. Our aunts, Bet­ty, Glo­ria and Joanne, Gram­pa and Gram­mie’s youngest daugh­ters, were there, too. Joanne espe­cial­ly would walk us to town when we asked her. We would walk on the cement walls at the Fair­banks Muse­um on our way down. I also remem­ber get­ting caps for the cap guns or buy presents for the rest of the fam­i­ly. I remem­ber buy­ing Evening of Paris for my Moth­er. She act­ed like it was her favorite, but now that I smell it, it stinks!

Gram­pa Ran­dall was very sto­ic but nev­er lewd or las­civ­i­ous. In fact, when Jini, my sis­ter, and I were both there, she would go with Gram­mie into anoth­er bed­room, and I would sleep with Gram­pa. We would play a game—whoever goes to sleep first say, “I.” He would always win!

Gram­mie Ran­dall, too, was a sweet­heart. I nev­er heard her use a curse word either. She did so much for my fam­i­ly. When Paul, my broth­er, broke both legs, she had him stay at her house. She bought my par­ents an auto­mat­ic wash­er when the twins were born. She was always bak­ing and mend­ing our things, too. We could go to Gram­mie’s at any time. Though that was a time that “love” was nev­er spo­ken, there was such a feel­ing of love in that home. I think Gram­pa said it best after she died, “She was a won­der­ful wife, a won­der­ful Moth­er, and a won­der­ful Grand­moth­er.” I only hoped she knew it. We nev­er told her just how won­der­ful she was.

When my cousin Dale called Gram­mie “Gram­mie,” I was so mad! How dare he call my Grand­moth­er “Gram­mie?” My jeal­ousy was stu­pid. Of course he would call her “Gram­mie.” That’s all he ever heard us call her.

When I think of Gram­mie Ran­dall, I think of her as a mod­ern grand­moth­er. Sure, she did a lot of things that were a throw­back to her time — like bak­ing bread, mak­ing quilts and can­ning, but she would also go to our bas­ket­ball games and cheer us on. For a while she even worked out­side the home.

We did­n’t know just how lucky my fam­i­ly was to have two full sets of won­der­ful grandparents.

 

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