So, in looking through old photographs, I came across an old black and white picture of Rose which I may use in the quilt. In it, four of her grandchildren, including a much younger me, surround my grandmother. We are all in our best Easter clothes and hats, smiling for the camera. She is not smiling. But then, she seldom smiled, I remember.
The oldest of eleven children born into a farming family in Illinois, my father’s mother, Rose, married and moved east, settling in Somerdale, NJ, where she raised three sons. Her husband, my grandfather, died when my father was only seventeen. I can only imagine the effect it had on her. I know the effect his death had on my father and uncles.
I see Rose’s stern German face in family photos from that time. She had my trouble-making father still at home and a younger son, not yet a teen. The oldest son was away in the service, eventually fighting in World War II. To make ends meet, she had to go to work and got a job cleaning and cooking at the rectory of her Catholic parish. I suppose that’s all she was qualified to do – cook, clean, keep house, and probably quilt. She still worked there when I was small. As far as I know, she never talked about it. After all, it was a job and an income.
We saw her on holidays and special occasions and infrequently at other times. If she ever enjoyed her grandchildren, we never knew it. Visits were not casual things or particularly warm. They just were.
By the time I was in high school, my grandmother had Alzheimer’s. We would get calls sometimes from the police in Somerdale when they found her wandering about. We also got calls from police departments as far away as Philadelphia. If my father or uncle could get her they would but on workdays that wasn’t possible. With young children to watch, it was hard for my mother or aunt to pick her up. So the police would take her home, handing her from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. At her house, a neighbor would meet her and sit with her to make sure she was all right. It took a village, more times than not, to help her remain in her own home as long as she could.
My grandmother soon started giving things away, even to strangers walking by the house. Frantic calls from neighbors alerted us that the silver and china were put out in the garbage, piles of coins sat on the porch and furniture was being dragged to the curb.
While my father and his brothers debated what to do, I began to visit her after school. Two or three times a week I made the drive, checking first with the neighbor for any news. I was seventeen. My grandmother didn’t know me and occasionally thought I was a daughter-in-law. Those were her good days. On bad days she didn’t remember her children, their wives or her grandchildren. She did, however, remember she had one great-grandchild, a girl named Crystal. How and why that stayed with her when everything else was gone, I don’t know.
Still, even on bad days, she let me in and we would visit, walking around the house looking at things. She would name all the things she remembered and look at me for approval. I checked the cupboards for food and usually made her a simple meal, keeping her company while she ate. As often happens with Alzheimer’s, Grandmother Rose passed away not long after she finally had to leave her home.
Looking back, I am grateful for the time with her, just the two of us, even though she didn’t know me. She smiled when I was there and that memory makes me happy. That’s what I want to pass on to my grandchildren – a memory of a smile.
I am a grandmother myself now with four grandchildren, blessed to see them often. In fact, I plan to include them in the making of this small quilt. They may not know anyone with Alzheimer’s but they will remember the experience. It will be a labor of love for me. The children will enjoy seeing me as a child and maybe feel a connection to their great-great grandmother Rose. Maybe, just maybe, their grandchildren might someday remember me as more than an old photograph or dusty quilt.
Susan Wagner
Susan Wagner
