I was much closer to my father’s parents than I was to my mother’s. My mom’s mother died before I was born, and my mother had a strained relationship with her father. The few times we were together, I remember an old person who was missing part of one of his fingers. Once, he terrorized me by trying to put his stub in my ear! He had had bright red/orange hair, but I only remember him having slight whiffs of grey hair. He had the freckles of a redhead, but to me they looked more like age spots. I really never got to know what he was like as a person until later in life while researching our genealogy. He also was the first person I saw dead. We had a private viewing before his funeral. I was probably about 10 or eleven years old.
My dad’s parents were who I called Grandpa and Grandma. I loved them very much. My grandpa wasn’t the warmest person, but was one of the hardest working men I have ever known. I don’t think he paid much attention to us kids as I was growing up, but I was able to get to know him better when I was in high school and college. Once, I interviewed him on tape for a college project. He had grown up in Jacksonville, Oregon, near where I was taking a local history class. He told me of when he was a teenager and was hired to sleep in a barn on especially cold nights. When the temperature dropped to near freezing, the orchard owner would wake the teenagers who would then go throughout the orchard and light fires to keep the developing fruit from freezing. This was the beginning of the use of smudge pots. I also remember a time when Grandpa and Grandma came to our house to babysit us while our parents went out on a rare “date.” My parents went to a double-feature at the movie theater. Grandpa and Grandma came with all of the ingredients to make pull taffy. We had the best time making the taffy. We were in the middle of pulling the taffy when our parents returned. They came home early because the decided not to watch the second movie. We were all very disappointed that they arrived so early, because we were having so much fun.
My grandma is someone who taught me what unconditional love is. She just loved me, no matter what I might have done. This was a big difference from my mom’s love. My mom was very conditional about doling out her affections. I seemed to get as much of her wrath as her love. This became more true as I got older and questioned some of her “rules.”
Grandpa and Grandma lived on a dairy farm, and it was always a treat to go to their place. We always joined the big family gathering on Thanksgiving, but we also would visit a few other times during the year. I remember picking berries in Grandma’s berry patch so she could make a pie. We had to fight the bees and wasps for the berries. I loved to go to their farm or just to be with them.
Swagerty-Aldrich Family Web Site 