In the spring of 1962 I was a sophomore in high school. We lived in a quiet little Oregon town and I was active in band, track and Girls League at school. My dad worked at a local company called Ore-Ida Foods of which he was a founder.
I had brothers and sisters at home and my mother’s mother, Dot Allred Werry, lived with us. My grandmother was named Dot because, I think, they ran out of names…she was one of 12 living children. Or maybe it was because she was so small. At barely 5’ tall she was as sparky as the Henna blue hair she wore in a bun on top of her head.
I was six when Grama taught me how to ride a bicycle. She was 60 and ran along beside me as I teetered on the big old Schwinn bike. My mom was her only daughter.
Born in 1892 in Utah, Grama had been a seamstress all her life. During World War II she sewed parachutes at Hill Field in Utah. Every Christmas she sewed nightgowns for each of us five sisters on her old treadle sewing machine. As our family expanded, so did the number of nightgowns until she was making dozens each year.
Grama had three children and three husbands. I only knew Grampa Chris, her last husband. He was an old Dane that smelled of cigars and liked us to sit on his lap. At his funeral viewing Grama wouldn’t even look at him. Mother had to shush her up during the services because she was saying some very unkind things. Chris hadn’t been very nice to her.
My Grama Garden made the best cinnamon rolls ever...pans and pans of them at a time …and froze them. They never lasted very long. She was just a really great cook.
One day my sophomore year I was called down to the school office. I never got called to the office. I was just a regular kid who didn’t get into trouble. The school secretary, Charlotte, was my next door neighbor. She had strange eyes…one was blue and one was brown. When I entered the office, I greeted Charlotte. She got up from her chair and with tears in her eyes hugged me. I was surprised and shaken. But then she said words I didn’t want to hear. “MaryAnne, your grandmother died.” I stammered questions while my head spun. All she could say was that someone had called the school to say my grandmother had died and I needed to go right home.
In shock I stumbled to my locker and got my things. Blinded by tears, I ran the entire 3 blocks home. My chest heaving as I turned down the tree-lined street to my house, I saw my Grama’s little Corvair in the driveway next to mom’s car and realized my dad hadn’t arrived yet. I was sick at heart to think that my mom was alone in the house with my Grama’s body.I raced up the steps and yanked open the door yelling “Mom!” She answered immediately from her bedroom. I knew she would be in there. It was her sanctuary. It was there that she read and rested and sometimes just sat.
She also hid food in her bedroom from her large brood of kids. I once found a whole German chocolate cake under her bed…hard as a rock. I’m sure she meant to use it for dinner some evening and put it there for safekeeping. Another time I followed a strangely sweet smell to the tall linen closet and found a huge bunch of brown, speckled bananas. I slept on banana-smelling sheets for a long time. Mom had a bad memory about hiding food from us kids.
Our house was very unusual. I heard it was built in the 1920’s by a lumber man. It was unique having three stories with seven levels. From the entry one stepped five steps down into the huge sunken living room with its tall windows, or three steps down into the ridiculously large upstairs bath, or up three steps into the small upstairs bath attached to my bedroom. There were three bathrooms upstairs and one on the main floor.The house had nooks and crannies and lots of dusty places with built-in book shelves and cabinets. Mom and Dad’s bedroom was no different. It, too, had an extremely high ceiling with tall circular windows.
My sense of fear heightened by hearing mom’s voice, I dropped my school bag and hurried down the hall. As I arrived at the door of the bedroom, I stopped in my tracks! The scene was shocking! My mother was facing me, kneeling by the side of her bed. Her head was down, her hands appeared clasped in front of her. I was sure she was weeping as her lips were puckered and her brow knit. There was a large mound in front of her stretched out on the bed and I knew it must be my grandmother’s body.
But most startling of all was behind mother.
There stood my grandmother five feet in the air with her arms outstretched. She faced mother and the sun, streaming through the tall windows, back-lighted her. She was hazy to my sight as if I was seeing her through a mist. Her arms stretched wide from her sides as she looked down upon mother. I knew I was seeing my grandmother’s spirit as she was about to enter the heavens…and I fainted.
When I came to both mother and grandmother were kneeling over me calling my name while patting my hands and face. It seems mother had decided to make new curtains for her bedroom and Grama, of course, was helping. The mound on the bed that mother knelt over so intently was a pile of fabric. She pinned it from the pins tucked in her puckered mouth. My grandmother, standing on a stepladder behind mother, was holding a piece of sheer fabric, stretching her arms wide in front of her, measuring it for width and length. She looked down as she took in the materials length to the floor. It was a very ethereal sight.
Well, I didn’t have to go back to school that day. All my strength was gone. We never found who the prankster was that called the school. But to this day, I can see my Grama in the air and my mom by the bed and the light fading as I fainted dead away!
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