Modern invention has banished the spinning wheel, and the same law of progress makes the woman of today a different woman from her grandmother. ~ Susan B. Anthony
My grandmother turned 99 this weekend.
Yes, that’s NINETY-NINE.
Here’s a fashion plate from the winter of 1913, when my Gramma was a bitty baby:

Fashion plate illustrating a dress by Jacques Doucet Title: “Le Soir Tombe” (from Wikipedia Commons)
She is a second-generation German American who grew up in a New York City tenement, and she retains the accent to this day. She talks (too-ahks) a little like this fella:
She always told us that she dropped out of high school at sixteen because of the Great Depression, but we suspect that it just provided an excuse. She’s not an academic — smart as you’ll get, but not much for the book-learning.
She worked as a receptionist in various places, and if she earned $10 per week, she always sent $5 home to her mother. The rest provided lunch at automats, subway fare, and the occasional new dress.
Gramma always told us that she met my grandfather when he was working in a basement office, and she would walk by his window every day. She said that he fell in love with her legs, and that one day he went up to meet the rest of her. Later, she revealed that their meeting was much more prosaic — they worked together, and they would argue about the petty cash. It was true love.
They couldn’t get married right away, because for some mysterious reason his family thought she wasn’t good enough for their youngest son. Eventually they just went to City Hall and got married anyway, my Mehrmama and Mehrpapa be damned.
My grandfather was a successful entrepreneur, back when that really meant something — he had a coffee business, and made a whole lot of money selling coffee to big brands like Chock full o’Nuts. They went to swanky parties and rubbed elbows with swanky people. Gramma tells a story of going to a reception for General MacArthur, in which the ice sculpture of the Big Chief’s head was melting and dripped water from his formidable nose.
Eventually they moved to New Jersey, to live the American dream in a big house in the country. They had two daughters, nine years apart. Why the gap? I don’t know. I suspect that there may have been some miscarriages, but nobody ever talks about that.
When my mother was ten, my aunt was nineteen, and my Gramma was fifty, my grandfather died. That was the year that Gramma’s hair turned white.
She has never for one minute stopped missing him.
He left her enough money that she never had to work, and she was able to send their two daughters to college. She wasn’t much for book-learning, except when it came to her daughters.
She complicated our family tree considerably when she married my grandfather’s nephew, who was actually a few years older than him. They had been like brothers, and my mother and aunt always called him Uncle. Gramma said he was her Husband Numero Two-oh. I was at the wedding, sort of — I provide a baby bump under my mother’s late 1970’s party dress.
By the time I came along, Gramma was already old, or at least I thought she was — she was sixty-six. My earliest memories of her are of a woman in her seventies, who looked fifteen years younger, with snowy white hair which was kept meticulously coiffed. She was a bit vain: she wore contact lenses, and before she left the house she would put on blush and lipstick, because otherwise she looked “like death warmed over”. She took great pride in not looking her age.
After my parents split up, when I was four, Gramma took care of me and my brother several days a week. She would drive us in her horrible tan Oldsmobile to doctor appointments, dance classes, tae kwon do lessons. When I had an ear infection in first grade, she stayed home with me, putting my head in her lap (with a cloth under the infected ear to let it drain) and petting me until I slept. When I was older, and missed school because of my terrible menstrual cramps, she would arrive with a bottle of blackberry brandy and give it to me by the tablespoonful. It helped.
Like many older people, she had her own language. If I was getting ahead of myself, she’d tell me to “keep your shirt on”. If I was taking too long, I was “as slow as molasses”. If I didn’t want to eat something that she put in front of me, I “just don’t know what’s good”. She always said, “If it wasn’t for me, you kids would shrivel up and blow away.”
Her language gets crazier than that, though. Adulterated German words and phrases that have been passed down, almost unrecognizably German. I don’t have earlobes, they’re “ear loffels”. The little bits of meat that fall to the plate when you carve a pot roast? They’re “gribbas-grabbas”. Tiny bits of paper are “schnipples”. Babies in our family are regaled with rhymes that start, “Gehbten tallah, geh auf deh Mart” and “Hop so lang kein mush mir gesse”.

If I was messy, she’d call me a Stribblepadder. (From ‘Der Stuwwelpeter,’ photo from Wikimedia Commons)
Her second husband, my mother’s ‘Uncle’ and my Poppop, died when I was twelve. Gramma never married again.
She was vibrant and active for a long time, but eventually age and illness caught up with her. At 99, she has difficulty walking and hearing, and she requires full-time, live-in care. She has become cranky in her old age, and I believe that she has also succumbed to the family curse of depression. But on her face you can still see her hard-won smile lines, the apple cheeks, and the soft skin that comforted me so much as a child. Her hair is still white and coiffed. Her old, familiar smile still lights up her face, especially when she looks at my son, her great-grandson. She says that she’s fully intending to see her hundredth birthday, and I’m confident that she’s strong and stubborn enough to see it through.
She’ll never read this. She won’t touch computers, and if I told her that I write a blog she wouldn’t even know what I was talking about. Never the less, this is a love letter to her. To my Gramma. Who has seen the events of a century, and lived through it all with a smile, a Manhattan in her hand and a dirty joke on her lips.
Happy birthday, Gramma.
I love your Gramma.
I love her too. She’s a pretty awesome lady.
That’s just beautiful. Happy birthday to your Gramma!
Thank you! I’d say that I’ll pass it on, but the response would be, “You wrote about me? On the computer? Who is Cynthia? I need more wine. What’s your name again?”
Beautiful, Kathy. Your Gramma sounds like a wonderful lady, with character, style and lots of charm. I like her alot and Happy Birthday to Gramma.
Thanks, Brigitte! She is pretty wonderful. Don’t get me wrong, she’s not perfect, but still. Pretty cool.
Perfect is overrated and boring. Pretty cool is way better. :).
Great post Kathy! An awesome lady, I’m so glad to have gotten to know her!
Thanks, Ken!
She really has had an interesting life. And it so good you know her so well.
She has had an interesting life. There’s a lot that I don’t know, but what I do know is enough to make for some pretty great stories. A lot of colorful characters in that generation of my family.
A lovely post for an incredible lady. Your post made me think of my own grandmother (my father’s mother – the only grandparent I ever met…). She was also tough as nails and full of love. Hope your grandmother makes it to 100 and enjoys some years beyond.
I told her that I expect her to make it to 110 at least, and she just waved at me and said “Get out of here.”
Thank you for that lovely tribute to my Ma. I hope Sausage thinks as much of me when I get to be 99.
I’m sure he will, Mom.
This is such a wonderful tribute to your Gramma….just loved reading it…such a delightful gathering of memories for future generations who will be able to “see” her thru your writing this.
Thank you.
Peace,
Siggi in Downeast Maine, USA
Thank you!
Awesome. My husband’s grandparents are 96 and 93. They will be married 70 years this year. It’s amazing to know people who have lived so long.
And to have lived so long together! That’s pretty special.
Happy Birthday Gramma — you are blessed to have her in your life!
Yes, I am. More than you’d think — she potty-trained me. If it weren’t for her, I’ve still be in diapers.
What a wonderful piece. You should submit it somewhere. You’ve got a great writer’s voice. Keep up the awesomeness!!
Thank you, Karen!
Your Gramma sounds fantastic. What a great tribute to her. You’re both lucky ladies. Are you going to print this out and show it to her, since she’s not going to log in to read it here?
I could, but I’d be embarrassed. We’re not really an emotionally expressive (to each other’s faces, anyway) family.
I gotcha. Mine is that way as well.
You are the best, Gramma. And you make pretty damn cool Grandbabies.
Yup, she is and she did.
What a great tribute. What great memories. Sounds like a book deal is in the making……..or even a movie.
I love the hushing nun avatar. I’ve never been hushed by a nun and one better not try. I did get some frowns from the preacher once when I made the comment that I thought dancing was OK.
This was a street sign that I saw in Germany. I think that being hushed by a German nun must be particularly horrifying.
Crossing off Germany as a fun place to go. lol
No, Germany’s great! Just don’t be noisy around the nuns!
I think you meant “noisy around nosy nuns”
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