Inspired By...

Who inspires you?  I was reading some blogs I follow and saw this on 2momstalk blog... and I began to think about my wonderful grandmother.  Not to take away from others who have inspired me along the way or even in a moment, but my grandmother was a case of inspiration to me for many years in my life. I don't even know where to begin when talking about her except to show you glimpses of her as I remember her.


When I was growing up my grandparents lived next door.  I have lots of memories of her hanging laundry on her clothesline, washing windows, planting petunias in her front porch boxes, sitting on her back porch in the white painted metal chairs that rocked, making curtains, writing letters, and cooking...oh how I remember the cooking!! I would finish dinner at my house and head over to her house where she was in the kitchen doing "two vegetables and a meat" for my grandpa...who was always sitting in his worn out recliner watching something on TV.  I would sit at the kitchen table and watch her cook and talk her ear off (that is a very old fashioned saying, but it fits here ;).  My grandpa, not a patient man at all, would yell into the kitchen..."Cut out the talking and get some food on the table!"...to which my grandma would reply "It's almost ready Spider."  Spider was my grandpa's nickname because, well...his last name was Webb...  
 
                                             


I loved her homemade everything...gravy over hot mashed potatoes, creamed Lima beans, fried chicken, Cole slaw, and meatloaf to die for...you know the kind that the next day is perfect for slicing for a meatloaf sandwich with ketchup.  And desserts...she could make fudge and all kinds of pies and cakes and cookies...from scratch.  I am surprised they ever had leftovers with me around...my grandpa would always say I had a hollow leg to eat two dinners a night!

As a mother of three rambunctious boys my grandma got involved in the PTA.  Most of us moms have done our stint in this very worthwhile program.  My grandma did it to the hilt!!  I won't go into the details of her rise through the ranks of PTA-land but by the end she was the West Virginia State PTA President (1963-65) and traveled all over the country to important meetings of PTA-ers!  I was very young at this time and don't really have any memories, but I have looked at the scrapbooks and read enough of her letters in the State PTA newsletters to know my grandma rocked!!

When I was 10 years old my grandmother, then 55 years old, decided to go to school and become a nurse. Talk about a change...talk about forward thinking...my grandma didn't know how to drive and depended on my grandfather for everything (they got married when she was 15 years old, YIKES)...I wonder what those conversations (about  going to school and  getting a job) with my grandfather were like?  She studied, took an entrance exam and wouldn't you know it she made the highest score (up to that point) on the test!  So, never afraid of a new challenge and making it look easy...she became a nursing student!  I remember her spending hours and hours studying a huge golden colored anatomy book.  Sometimes I would help her study and she would have me look up something in the book while she was reviewing. That book was something...it had the most detailed pictures of...everything!  As the months passed I watched as she worked at keeping up with a home and school work.  She would collapse on the couch after supper and the dishes were done and then when my grandfather went to bed she would start studying and sometimes would stay up all night.  SHE LOVED IT...EVERY MINUTE OF IT.  To this day I have never met anyone with the same level of devotion to learning that she had.  I think it was probably because it was the first time in her life that she had something that was just for her...though I don't know for certain, as I never asked.  After a year of sleepless nights, hospital rotations, and test after test she graduated...top of her class, and went to work at St. Joseph Hospital.  She was loved and respected by everyone...the nuns who ran the hospital, the doctors who would sometimes request her to do rounds with them, and the patients who received real bedside nursing. She worked in the ICU of the hospital with the most critically ill patients and during her time there the new state of the art computer technology arrived.  Can I just say that on more than one occasion she would remark..."It will never replace good bedside nursing!"  I don't think she was knocking technology...she just didn't like sitting in front of a computer to monitor her patient!! 

 My grandpa was very sick during the summer of 1972 when I was 13.  She went to working every day and I would at times sit and keep my grandpa company while watching TV.   He died in July of that summer. By the end of summer things settled down and then my grandmother's at home habits changed. She took driving lessons and got her license in 1973.  She worked different shifts and was often at work all night and slept most of the day.  I remember looking out my bedroom window to see if her shade was up on her bedroom window...a sign that I could go over (and probably talk her ear off).  She cooked less frequently and was the master of leftovers.  She traveled more after my grandfather passed and went to visit family in Florida and Texas but also went to Hawaii and Mexico.  I remember a crate of pineapple showing up at her house after her trip to Hawaii. She would cut into that fresh pineapple and we would eat and eat... I ate so much pineapple during that time, my mouth had ulcers!!
                            


When my grandmother reached the mandatory retirement age she was anything but ready to retire!  She went through every channel, filled out mountains of paperwork and was granted the first extension past retirement in the state of West Virginia.  She worked until the age of 70, retired,  and worked as a private duty nurse for Bernie McDonough (a rather famous tycoon who lived in my hometown)  She cared for him until she took a spill at a gas station during an icy West Virginia winter and began having health problems.  Not to go into the downside of her health...she did end up with her leg amputated just below the knee.  After rehab she was back at home in her small cottage style home... the whole house was a huge challenge for her but still she persevered! A few years passed and by then I was married and living here in Panama City along with several other family members (her youngest son and 3 grandchildren).  After a few visits to Florida my uncle convinced her to move to here and into a new house built to suit her. 


I loved once again having my grandma right in my hometown and spent loads of time helping her get settled into her new home.  Not long after she moved in she began meeting all of the neighbors and honestly had more of a social life than I!!  When Nicole was entering elementary school I decided to finally get my college degree in Elementary Education (I had changed my mind at least 3 times and had enough credits for a masters by the time I graduated from Florida State in 1990...my husband is a saint).  I would not have been able to do this without my grandma's support.  She watched Nicole after school 3 days a week and cooked fabulous dinners for Nicole and Rich while I went to classes and worked away at finishing my degree!  Of course this was a very good thing for Nicole...she would spend time with grandma reading, doing homework,  and looking up any word she couldn't convince my grandmother that she knew (grandma had a giant dictionary :) 


My grandma lived a very fulfilling life up to the end.  Even after she could no longer wear her prosthetic leg and walk, she managed with a wheel chair.  She was stubborn and didn't like having to rely on anyone.  When she began having trouble getting in and out of bed by herself did she tell us...her family...NO OF COURSE NOT...she convinced the neighbors to cut the legs off of her beautiful but very high bed.  So imagine my surprise the next time I went to her house and there was the bed...about six inches off the ground!  That's my grandma! 


She passed away in January of 2001...she was 88 years old.  I miss her so much at times...and wish she were still just a phone call away.  She would love where we live now and would have spent afternoons here sitting out back by the pool and down on the dock...she probably would have figured out a way for us to get her on the boat so she could enjoy the water too. She would have loved seeing Nicole get married and oh my if she had laid eyes on Claire Elizabeth (my grandmother's middle name was Elizabeth) no one would have heard the end of how wonderful and smart baby Claire was :)  She would have loved to see Chelsea (Chelsea's middle name is Elizabeth after my grandmother) and Katelyn grow up into the wonderful young women they are.   She would still be opinionated as ever about politics and would love sparring verbally with Rich about the ills of the Republicans...but at the end of the day she would bake him his favorite cake or at the very least make certain there were Oreo cookies in the house!!

One of my favorite of grandma and my three girls taken in 1996

I learned a lot from my grandmother...some lessons and bits of wisdom were hard to swallow at times, but much of it has become a part of who I am. Other things I learned were just good old fashioned know-how...like the simple things about keeping house...how to make a proper bed with "hospital corners"...for streak-free windows clean them with vinegar and water and...newspapers. Baking is exact...always measure.  Cooking is an experiment always try and taste! When sewing, always baste and always press the seams open...and...there is a right way to sew on a button!  

 One example of my grandmother's teaching and fondness for a "job well done" is the very simple act of wrapping a gift.  When I was a teenager I was deemed old enough to help wrap Christmas presents.  Now, she treated this position of helper much as an apprentice was treated back in the day. Every job was measured out in small portions and the apprentice practiced under the watchful eye of the master day after day!    It took a good two Christmas seasons before I was left alone with wrapping paper, tissue paper, ribbon, boxes, and tape... There was a right way to do everything and in her world if something was worth doing... then do it well!  I was quite proud of myself when finally she left me to wrap gifts while she went to tend to her fruitcakes (another fascinating story...but I will save that for Christmas time).  Wrapping a gift is such a simple thing...and made simpler still with the invention of the gift bag (she turned up her nose at those things).  But to this day I love to wrap a gift.  At Christmas I spend time picking out the papers and ribbons and tissue paper that I want to use (actually I buy after Christmas clearance gift wrap stuff at Target every year).  I reserve wrapping holiday gifts to times when I can pull out all of the "stuff" and put on a good Christmas movie or some Christmas music and have a ball!  I smile to myself even now cause I know grandma would inspect a wrapped gift of mine and  say "THAT is so beautiful...why, you don't even need to open it!"

This inspirational blog could go on and on...but I am thinking I have given you a vision of my grandmother and what I found inspiring about her.  If you have a blog then I challenge you to go to www.2momstalk.blogspot.com and grab the header and write your own inspirational piece about someone.

One more thing on the subject of grandma whose middle name was loved by all...she did have a first name...Beulah (Booie was her nickname).  Need I say more ;)