Happy Birthday II

 Today is my other Grandma's birthday. Her name was Gertrude and  she was born in 1889. The family history document says she was born on June 5th but we always had her down for June 4th. She was married in 1911 and she died in 1969. She was of German descent and could speak German and some Polish. She had eleven children. Eleven children! What do I remember about my other Grandma? She had nice gams. Her legs were shapely and beautiful. She was a little stout on top but great legs. She had pretty white hair and long ear lobes. She had a double chin and kind eyes. I watched her sew on her sewing machine with the foot treadle. She taught me to cook vegetables and how to bake cakes on her wood burning stove in the kitchen. The stove was a beautiful cream and blue wood burning stove and it's still in the basement at her house. She had a nice garden. I remember picking carrots and potatoes and onions that she kept in her root cellar. She kept a bucket of well water from the pump house on the kitchen counter. The bucket had a ladle and the rule was you could drink out of the ladle if you drank all the water or poured what was left into the sink before putting it back in the bucket. The water tasted good to me. She worked on the dairy farm where they had cows, pigs, chickens, cats, and dogs. The animals stayed outside or in the barn. My Dad always said she preferred to work outside rather than inside. They grew alfalfa, hay, corn and oats. They had a burn barrel for trash. I remember once during a car ride with my Dad, Grandma and my Aunt Dorothy my Grandma got sick and vomited into a paper bag. Someone threw the paper bag into the fire in the burn barrel. Somebody yelled, "Her teeth are in that bag!" My Aunt Dorothy, to my utter surprise, reached into the flames and grabbed that bag thereby saving Grandma's teeth. I thought my Aunt Dorothy was a super hero whose strength was the inability to get burned. Grandma was a snazzy dresser. In reviewing some 3D slides I saw her wearing hats with nets to pull down over the eyes, fashionable pumps, and classy wool coats. She took me to the church festival a few times and I would sit next to her as she played bingo. She loved bingo. She also loved eavesdropping on the party line telephone. Each customer would have a special ring. She would look at me and put her finger to her lips so I would be quiet as she picked up and listened in on other people's conversations. She had a favorite spot to sit in the kitchen between the fridge and the counter on a tall chair that had feet that could fold out and be used as a step stool. She wore dressed with an apron on top. She went to church regularly even though her husband didn't. She had deep sorrows in her life. Her fourth child, George, died as a baby when his baby buggy got bumped and rolled into the stove while she and her husband were milking the cows. Her fifth child, Lorraine, died at age 11 when she caught a cold walking home from school.  She also had good times. She traveled to Seattle to visit her daughters. She told me once that her girlfriend dated Lawrence Welk. She loved to talk and I loved to listen to her talk. I sat by her side while she told stories. Sometimes she told the same stories over and over again. She had a HUGE fear of wolves. She could hear wolves howling on her way walking to or from school in Urbank and it scared the living daylights out of her. She was never attacked by a wolf but she sure didn't like them. If only I paid more attention to her stories when I was younger I would be able to remember more of them now. For a time she was in the hospital in Parker's Prairie. She was there when we moved Grandpa out of their house to come and live with us. Grandpa was a little confused at the time and it was cold out. I remember because I was wearing my very beautiful reversible winter coat. One side was green and the other side was green and blue plaid. As my Dad, my Grandpa and I were walking from the car into the hospital, Grandpa slipped me his bottle of brandy and told me to hide it in my pocket. I put the bottle of brandy into the pocket on the inside of my winter coat. I felt so COOL carrying a secret bottle of brandy! Once she recovered in Parkers Prairie she moved into our house. In the morning she would tell me how poorly she slept. She said, "I heard the cuckoo at midnight. I hear the cuckoo at 1. I heard the cuckoo at 2. I heard the cuckoo at 3. I heard the cuckoo at 4." She must have had insomnia. She couldn't hear well or see well. I feel bad about this but sometimes we would crawl under the braided rug to see how close we could get to her chair before she saw us. That wasn't very nice. My job was to make her lunch. She loved head cheese. Golly, gag me with a spoon. I hated the smell of that head cheese. It's no wonder I am a vegetarian. She and Grandpa slept in a tiny bedroom. She was there when he passed away. Toward the end of his life he was confined to bed. My Mom had to use a suction tube to aspirate his lungs. I knew something was up when he died. My Dad opened the stairwell door and hollered, "Kids, stay upstairs!" I looked out the window and saw the hearse parked in the driveway. Such a sad day it was. After that Grandma moved to a nursing home. I'm not sure if she didn't move back to the nursing home in Parkers Prairie or to the one on Lexington and Hwy. 94 in Saint Paul but she died of colon cancer at the one in Saint Paul. I really miss her. Happy 132nd birthday! I am grateful we had so much time together.