I was near the end of her long line of grandchildren; eighth out of eleven. By the time I came along she was 66 years old. Her parents and husband had long passed, her brothers had both moved North and her four children had scattered to different ends of the earth or, as they may have liked to say on the farm, "flown the coop".
A city girl gone country could have been one way they described her? Hmmm... well, Dassel, Minnesota was not exactly a boom town when she was growing up in the early years of the 20th century. With her 8th grade education she moved fifty miles away from her family home to Minneapolis, and went to work as a maid for a doctor and his family. She had to do this in order to support her little sister, Ella, who had been deemed the caretaker for their ailing mother. It was there, in Minneapolis, that she met the love of her life, John. He had been a Navy man, was working at Western Union and told her his intention was to return home to Iowa, but only after she became his bride. By the time she went to live on the farm she was approaching her 30s.
Anna Cornelia Josephine Anderson Roberts... Josie to those who knew her, Grandma Jo to me. She was not a fast moving woman as she had been born with one leg shorter than the other and had to wear a special shoe to accommodate that. People learned to live with their disabilities back then - that's how it was and nobody made a fuss. In my eyes, it was just one of the many unique qualities that defined her.
She was soft-spoken, gentle and kind with tender loving arms which were perfect for cuddling and hugs. She made incredibly delicious peanut butter cookies and always included a fork impression for definition. She played a mean game of Solitaire every morning and was undoubtedly a master at shuffling those cards; I liked watching how she skillfully cascaded them into a neat & tidy pile so that she could play another round. She would quietly shuck corn and prepare green beans with the other women at the picnic table on those lazy, humid, long summer days while we grandkids ran around in the soft, green grass.
Scrabble was another one of her games. She and Mom would sit for hours at the table together. Wordsmiths the both of them. They would let us girls sit with them to try our hand every now and then. Of course, she was the victor most of the time - the words she figured out - the average Joe wouldn't even know existed!
As an Artisan quilter, she used the outgrown clothing of her own children as her fabrics. My mom, her youngest child, loved to point out materials she recognized as dresses and shirts that they (her sister & brothers) had worn back in the day. The wonderful patterns and beautiful color combinations of each quilt Grandma created are an amazing testament to her incredible abilities. Every single stitch Grandma took was a labor of love.
Today, March 14, 2019, I am reaching out to my sweet, wonderful, long departed Grandma Josie who would have been 120! Her beauty, inside and out, was well known to all whose lives she graced. She raised my incredible mother, who in turn taught me to have a gentle hand, a kind word, patience, genuine appreciation and warm respect for others.
Thank you for stitching yourself into my heart, Grandma Jo.
Love,
S.
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