Visiting Grandma by Loretta

[Editor's Note: This story was written by Loretta]

From the time I can remember, I hated visiting my grandmother on my mother's side. She was German, decent and very strict. Children were to be seen and not heard. When we came to visit, Dad had to drive 60 miles to Oskaloosa from Fort Des Moines and it took about two hours driving time. In those days they didn’t drive like a bat out of hell.

When we arrived we had to sit on a leather divan, not speak, just sit. It took about a half hour to get up the courage and ask if we could go down to the school play ground and swing and ride the merry go round. We would stay there if we could but mom always gave us a time limit.

I remember mom left us with grandma for a day and grandma made mush for breakfast and set a bowl in front of each of us. My youngest brother, Mark, decided he didn’t like it but I was such a coward in those days, I ate mine. Lunch time came grandma made soup and set us all down to eat but Mark had mush. Mark still turned it down but we ate our soup. Dinner time came and you guessed it, Mark got mush; we got Goulash. Mark never did eat that day. That’s how stubborn he was. Thank god, mom came for us or Mark would have starved.

On our way home from Oskaloosa, we drove through Pella a Dutch town. Mom always stopped at a butcher shop and bought a ring of Pella bologna and the following day she would make potato soup with chunks of bologna in it. To this day, I still remember how good it tasted. I make potato cheese soup on cold winter days and also home made chicken soup. They're alright but they don’t compare to my memory of mom's cooking. You don’t realize until its to late sometimes, that writing down certain things would be very important to have later in life.

I’ll always remember when I was 13 and Louise my older sister got married, Grandma and Aunt Louise (my mother's sister) came for the wedding. Grandma was in her late seventies and over the years lost quite a bit of weight, she was frail and very petite. Looking at her then, I wondered why I was so scared when I was younger.

When it comes to respect, I guess size doesn’t matter.

Pella Bologna