Thoughts on Step Families: part 1

Grandpa Ralph - Grandma Evelyn - her son Warren

Each person has their own experiences and their own memories. We can all share an event in the same time and space and come away with very different recollections. Ask any siblings anywhere to give their perspective of a single event, and you will hear different versions from each of them. Just like two people looking at the same landscape, but from different locations, or at a different time of day, with eyes trained to notice different things, the view will not be the same. It's interesting how our own perspective and attitude shades what we are able to see, what we believe to be true and what we remember. As I write, please understand that these are my memories, shared from the perspective that I know the best, my own.

My first experience with step families began before I was born. My grandfather Ralph, was a farmer in the Willamette Valley in Oregon. He loved my grandmother Valerie dearly and would walk for miles just to be with her. She was a school teacher. They were born 3 weeks apart in the spring of 1893 and were married at 21 in December of 1914. She died at 46, two days after their youngest child Ruth was stillborn. (They're buried together in a cemetary in Salem. I have taken my children to see their graves many times as I tell them the stories. ) As a widower, Grandpa had a house full of children and a farm to run. He hired a house keeper, Evelyn. Evelyn had three children of her own. (Her husband had been in an accident and suffered brain damage that caused violent and unpredictable behavior. They divorced and she found it neccesary to work to support her family.) After a while, the arrangement seemed like a good one, and they got married.

The day of the wedding, the family was involved in canning peaches. At noon, they stopped, got dressed up and went down to the river. There, Bishop Wall, the local LDS bishop performed the ceremony. After the ceremony, they went back to canning peaches. Grandma Evelyn told me that they canned about 700 quarts that day. (1/2 gallons & quarts combined) In the evening, she & grandpa and about 22 others drove to the coast for the honeymoon. Grandpa had many foster kids over the years and this was a family affair.

My father was 11 when his mother died and 13 when his father married Grandma Evelyn. Grandma Evelyn was 8 years younger than Grandpa Ralph. Dad had 6 older siblings, not all of whom agreed with their father's choice to remarry. But Grandpa Ralph was used to that. His family didn't approve of his first wife either and he married her anyway. They held a meeting to formalize their dissent, but Grandpa wasn't dissuaded. He credited his stubborn streak to his Scottish heritage.

I suspect that for some of these children, there would never be a person or a time that would meet with their approval for their father to remarry. They couldn't see past their own loss to the grief & loneliness that their father was experiencing. His desire to remarry was viewed as selfish, because it didn't meet their needs at the time.

Grandpa's first wife was a Mormon, but grandpa never joined the church while she lived. Eventually he and Grandma Evelyn did join the church and were married in the temple. When Grandpa Ralph was sealed to his first wife Valerie, Grandma Evelyn stood in proxy for her. I remember seeing a picture of Grandpa Ralph as a young man with Grandma Valerie by his side, hanging on the wall at the head of their bed. Another picture of him as a middle aged man with Grandma Evelyn hung below it. It just seemed so natural. Grandma Evelyn, my step-grandmother decorated that room. If a picture can speak a thousand words, the simple placement of those pictures spoke volumes.

I remember the day I learned that she wasn't my 'real' grandmother, but only a step grandmother. It was just assumed that everyone knew. Being one of the younger grandchildren, sometimes these things got overlooked. The difficulty came because it seemed that the 'step' part was designed to separate me from her, and I didn't like it. My maternal grandmother died when I was a teenager. I never spent much time at her home, she was ill and lived far away. I have very few memories of her. She remained a largely unknown entity, like Grandma Valerie. My grandmother was Grandma Evelyn.

Grandma Evelyn always had snacks available when grandchildren came to visit. She spent time teaching me to sew and can fruit and vegetables. I picked pie cherries in her backyard until the juice ran down my arm past the pits & on down to my waist. When you pick pie cherries, you squeeze the fruit off the pit and leave the pit & stem on the tree. It's a sticky job! We ate gravenstein apples in the side yard. She taught me how to cook an egg sunny side up and get it done on top without crusting the bottom. (She used a small cast iron pan, brushed it lightly with bacon grease, put the eggs in and then a couple tablespoons of water to make a lot of steam. Quickly cover with a lid, let the steam cook the top of the eggs for a minute, then serve.) She let me play her piano for hours and never told me that she would rather watch TV or listen to the radio, or that she was just tired of hearing me play. She loved the hymns too. She taught me to use ginger tea for an upset stomach. She knew a lot about natural remedies. I used to sleep in her basement in the spare bed in the summer, with my cousins. It was cool down there. The basement was lined with food storage. :( Sometimes we snuck cans of cooked bacon for a midnight snack. Sorry Grandma! We lived next door for several years while I was a teenager and I was richer for it.

Our family struggled in the years after my parents' divorce and I didn't have many nice clothes. We ate potatos and gravy a lot. I saved up my baby sitting money and bought a navy blue peacoat. I wore it everywhere. It was better than anything underneath. I even wore it in the blistering heat of summer. When others encouraged me to take it off, I told them I was cold. Just leave me alone already! Grandma Evelyn decided it was time to help me sew a new dress. She let me select the fabric, trim and pattern. When it was done, the peacoat came off, and I kept sewing. She fed & cared for my body and she nourished my spirit.

She worked on geneology and prepared books of remembrance for all of her children. She made one for my father with a hand painted family crest, pedigree charts, pedigree pictures, family group sheets and several pages of family history. I inherited this book from my father. It's a treasure and very helpful as I continue researching my ancestors.

She had over 70 grandchildren, blood line & steps. She was very short, under 5 feet tall. I doubt that she weighed over 100 pounds. She had Indian ancestry and her thick dark hair grew to her ankles. It was so heavy, she eventually cut it short to help relieve her migraine headaches. One of my most prized possessions is a lock of her hair.

My memories of Grandma Evelyn are a wellspring of love and acceptance and belonging that I still drink from. I so look forward to seeing her again. She is buried next to Grandpa Ralph, who is buried next to Grandma Valerie & baby Ruth.