On one October Saturday in 1972 or 1973, I was in college at Kirksville. On that day in Missouri … a crime went on the books. A young college student kidnapped her mother and her Gramma Minnie.
Not literally, of course. I told them ahead of time to keep Saturday open, but I didn’t tell them the reason. Bright and early I drove down from Macon in my ‘72 blue Impala, mysteriously picked them up, and drove us all to Kirksville.
First stop on this magical day was a trip to the Kirksville McDonald’s. I introduced them to what I considered at the time to be one of civilization’s finest achievements: the Big Mac sandwich. Gramma and I loved the special sauce. I knew my mother would not because Mama hated mayonnaise with the depth of feeling one usually reserves for serious moral atrocities. I had hers specially made without the sauce. The three of us sat with sunshine streaming through the window and enjoyed our two all beef patties, special sauce for Gramma and me, lettuce, and cheese, pickles, onions on that sesame seed bun. Mom and Gramma seemed sufficiently impressed with the menu.
Afterward, we drove out to Thousand Hills State Park. Our purpose was to drink in the Autumn leaves – great big perfect Autumn leaves – Scarlet and gold and orange, the kind we picked up because it seemed almost criminal to leave them lying on the ground. Missouri weather cooperated that day, and it became a treasure in our memories. Whenever I think of October, its bright blue skies, and those crisp gorgeous leaves, my mind quotes Helen Hunt Jackson and her words, “October‘s bright blue weather “ And a part of my mind goes to the three of us in Thousand Hills park … gathering fallen leaves.
Gramma took her keepsakes home and pressed them in an old dictionary. For years the pages bore the imprint of those leaves, Mother’s Day carnations, and special pansies collected with four leaf clovers. My gramma pressed her memories along with those flowers and leaves. She saved them.
For years afterward, those leaves hung from a little thread on a hook upstairs in the closet of her house. That east bedroom was part of the magic of going to Gramma’s. We reached it by a private stairway so steep that I cannot believe anyone ever approved its construction. We had no proper handrail. We held onto the wall. Grandma, as she got older, went up partly on her hands and knees, and she came down the steps backward. My grandfather, due to arthritis, never went up those stairs in my lifetime. At the top was what grandma called her plunder room. And oh, there was plunder.
Old books lived on white painted bookshelves and reminded me of my mother‘s younger days. I read all the books she had read and loved: Freckles, Girl of the Limberlost, Laddie, Saint Elmo, Little Women, Little Men, Jo’s Boys, the Elsie Dinsmore series. There, on every surface I could see, a box or basket held a memory. An old library table was home to a pile of Look and Life monthlies and a treasured stack of Ideals magazines. A wooden rocker had no room for us to sit because my grandma had loaded it to the top with old quilts and pillows. This room contained keepsakes, treasures, old candy boxes, turtle back trunks, and remnants of the lives that had already happened.
My frugal little gramma had painted the old linoleum floor with enamel. The bottom coat I believe was a brilliant blue, and then she sat and sponged vibrant pink, green, white, and dove gray over all of it. I know it sounds questionable when I describe it now, but I remember it as beautiful. The floor was glossy; the woodwork was white; there were white curtains at every window. And when I opened the white enamel door to her extremely full closet, I saw those once-beautiful autumn leaves from our October day …hanging on a string on a hook inside the door. Gramma was a saving type of woman
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Grandma was tiny – somewhere between 4 foot nine and 5 foot – and she had soft gray hair that she permed. As the perm grew out, her hair became wonderfully wild and wispy. When she was younger, she sometimes corralled it under a bandanna. When she was older, she frequently just let it do whatever it intended to do. My gramma could wear a dress beyond any reasonable definition of “worn out.” She retired some Sunday dresses to the Everyday. When the front of one dress became threadbare from rubbing against her work, she pinned an apron over the worn place with safety pins and kept right on wearing it. Eventually, when the dress became too disreputable even for grandma‘s standards, it entered its final stage of useful life. The dress that had once been saved for church days, delegated to everyday, referred to workday, and then apronned, became a nightgown.
I remember staying all night with Gramma and Pawpaw and seeing her and those old dresses, turned into night clothes. Her soft gray hair was sticking every which direction. Gramma had false teeth, and sometimes late at night right before bed she loosened them somehow – I never understood the mechanics – and clicked them at me, making them stick out of her mouth while pretending she was “gonna get me.” I remember shrieking wildly and running around her house. My little 5 foot nothing gramma chased me …even when I was taller than she was, and I was more than just a little scared.
Years later, after my gramma passed away, Mom and I went through her things. In one drawer we found many beautiful nightgowns that we had given Gramma over the years. These gorgeous lace gowns were still in their boxes with tissue paper. Gramma was saving those nightgowns. For what? For a time when she might be sick, perhaps. For a time when someone might see her and she needed to look nice. For some occasion more deserving than an ordinary night at home. Meanwhile, Minnie Samantha had slept quite happily in dresses that were well into their third or fourth incarnation. I thought about that for years.
Mama was a saver, too, although in a somewhat different way. Mom loved her china and her quilts. She loved her Fostoria crystal. Mom loved knowing it was safe in the cupboard, beautiful and unbroken. And I don’t think that was a tragedy to either one of them. That is important. It would be so easy to turn this memory into one of those heartfelt little essays that tells everyone to “use the good china because tomorrow may never come.” But I don’t think Mom or Gramma did life wrong. They genuinely enjoyed knowing their treasures were safe. I believe their pleasure was partly possessing something, preserving it, opening a coveted drawer, and knowing: “Oh, there it is. I still have it.”
I’m not built exactly that way. I have dragged that china out. I pour tea and Diet Coke into the Fostoria. I pull all quilts from safe places and throw them across the backs of couches. Then my cat Callie immediately decides they’ve been placed there specifically to collect calico fur. Sometimes a treasure breaks. Sometimes a fabric gets stained. Many things have been stolen or vandalized, and that’s another story, not one I care to wander into today.
I think my idea of treasuring something is mostly to let it participate in my life. Mom‘s pleasure was often in knowing the beautiful thing was preserved. Mine is usually in taking it out and using it while remembering who once owned it. Neither way is entirely safe. A crystal glass can break when we use it. A beautiful nightgown can remain pristine in its box until no one who remembers giving it to you is left alive to see you wear it. And then I think again of those autumn leaves. Gramma, the great saver, first ventured out and used the day. She rode to Kirksville with her daughter and granddaughter. She ate a big Mac with special sauce. She wandered through Thousand Hills State Park in October’s bright blue weather. She knelt down and gathered the most beautiful leaves she could find. And then she went home, pressed those leaves, took her black thread and needle, and she saved them. That is probably the balance I’ve been looking for.
Go out into the day. Use the china, sleep in the good nightie once in a while. Let that beautiful, spoiled cat lie on the treasured, handmade quilt. Gather the leaves. But if something is precious enough that you want to, tuck a little piece of it away for a Someday, whether it happens or not.
Of course, I don’t have Gramma’s string of leaves anymore. But more than 50 years later, I can still see them hanging upstairs in her plunder room.
And I still have that October day when I kidnapped my mom and gramma to experience the great big Mac – Autumn leaves – bright blue weather… yes, thankfully, I still have that.
