Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Grandparents, part III



I have only vague recollections of my paternal grandmother. Her house, however, I remember well. It was a small, two story traditional house, sitting on a tiny city lot. 504 Orchard Street was the address. I didn’t think it was small back then however, because I was small too. It had an outhouse and a garden shed in the backyard. I don’t remember if it had an inside bathroom, but it probably did. What I remember best is the staircase leading up to the second floor. It had narrow, small wooden steps that spiraled around and forced anyone over 5’8” or so to bend over on their way up to avoid hitting their head on the ceiling. The walls were painted in pinks, tangerines and yellows.

My paternal grandparents were Pennsylvania Dutch, and the house sat in a neighborhood consisting of other Pennsylvania Dutch people. Back then every ethnicity was segregated. Polish, Swedish, Italian, Greek, Black. Whatever they were, they each had their own neighborhood, and there were fine territory lines that were rarely crossed.

My cousin and I spent a lot of time at her house. We each had one of those little peddle cars and we would speed up and down the sidewalks for hours on end. We made “pipes” by sticking a toothpick in an acorn and then went door-to-door selling them for a penny each. After we had made a nickel or maybe a dime, we would walk down to the corner store (every neighborhood had a corner store) and blow it on candy. You could buy a bunch of candy with a dime back then. And, you didn’t have to have an adult with you when you walked down to the store.

My grandmother developed Alzheimer’s and moved to a nursing home when I was still very young. My cousin and I would accompany his mom to go visit her but I don’t remember her talking to us or anyone else for that matter. I just remember her lying silently in her bed. The house grew decrepit and was torn down some years later. Every few years I will drive over and stop in front what use to be 504 Orchard Street. I try to imagine the old house that sat on the narrow strip of land that remains but cannot fathom how any house could squeeze in there.

I have only one item from that house - a mirror, with hand painted roses, that hung on the back of one of the bedroom doors. The mirror now hangs on one of my bedroom doors where, sometimes when I look into it, I think about my grandmother and the times I spent at her house.

Friday, April 25, 2008

The mystery of the unknown graves



has been solved…sort of. I will never know exactly who is buried in the graves, nor will anyone else, but how they ended up in the cemetery I now know.
The answer was related to the big old brick building, as I suspected.


I began by asking a few of the town locals about the cemetery and building and found out that the building was originally the county poor farm and the cemetery was where they buried the people who died at the farm. No one that I spoke with could tell me when the building was built or why there were so many headstones marked unknown in the cemetery. Poor people had names too after all.

Next, I called the County Historical Society and spoke with a very nice lady who told me that she really didn’t know anything about the farm but she thought she remembered seeing an old book that contained a little article about it, and I was welcome to come down and look for it. She added that they are open on Wednesdays only. Between 10 am and 4 pm. Hmmmmm….I would think that someone working at a historical society would have some actual knowledge of the town history. Or at least be willing to look it up and call back. Why is she working there anyway?

I explained that I live about an hour away and work everyday so it wouldn’t be easy to get over there. I went on to explain that I was just looking for some general information such as when it was built and why so many graves were marked unknown. She had no idea when it was built and thought that since everyone back in that time period was poor, there was not any money for carving names into headstones. So, they had enough money to engrave “unmarked” but not a name? I don’t think so.

I gave it one more shot. I asked if she knew anyone that might have some knowledge about the poor farm. Finally, I asked the right question. She provided me with the name and number of a cemetery aficionado who might know something.

From her I was able to find out the following information:

The County Farm, originally the poor farm, existed in every county in Michigan. They were built by the state in the early 1880’s, although some were built in the late 1870’s. They were all closed in the early 1970s. Many now serve as rental units or homes for the aged or handicapped.

The farm accepted anyone who didn’t have a home, regardless of age or physical ability. Children that were orphaned or abandoned stayed here until either a suitable home was found for them or they were shipped off to other facilities to learn a trade and were sometimes adopted. Older people with mental illnesses who were non-violent and could be cared for without great difficulty might stay here; others were sent to the state asylums. Great fires sometimes sent large numbers of people to the farms until other arrangements could be made. Unmarried pregnant women, tramps, women of loose morals (including, sometimes, those convicted of prostitution) all found shelter there.

Sometimes families paid to have their daughter sheltered at the Farm until after her child was born and adopted.

Those that were able, were expected to work. Many farms had sizeable dairies, fields and gardens.

Most of those buried at this particular cemetery were buried with a grave number and not a name. The original records of burials were lost in a fire at the Farm some time ago.


Interesting. I will have to return to see if the graves have a number on them. And figure out a way to get to that damn Historical Society to learn more.

Sunday, April 20, 2008

I love old junk




Not all junk. For example, I hate the junk that is thrown out on otherwise scenic back roads by low life idiots. I mean good grief, can’t they at least wait until dark and sneak it into a store or rest area dumpster like regular idiots? What is wrong with them? I picture these toothless, big bellied, beer drinking, tobacco chewing guys (and girls) in huge 4 x 4 trucks, or maybe a Ford Taurus sporting a doughnut wheel or two, creeping down back roads looking for “just the right spot”. I bet they drag their kids along too, which will assure us of idiot behavior for another generation.

The kind of junk I love is the mostly buried junk piles, holding good old antique stuff that I stumble across when I am hiking through unexplored woods and fields. The junk left by people long since gone.

Every country house threw their garbage outside in piles before trucks came along that could transport it to dumps. Most people would dig holes, throw their garbage in, and when full, cover it with the dirt dug for the next hole. Others simply constructed junk hills.

I will always pause my hike to conduct an amateur archaeological excavation of a site. Sometimes I find some good stuff – a pretty colored bottle or maybe a glass dish. But, for the most part, everything is chipped or broken. Occasionally I will pack an item and carry it back with me, but usually I leave everything for the next explorer.

As I dig, I wonder about the person who left it – who they were, what kind of life they had. I hold a broken plate in my hand and try to imagine the last food it held. A single small shoe tells me that at least one child probably stood in the same exact spot where I stand. A smoking pipe inside a rusty tin box hints at the possibility of an agonizing death.

Eventually time forces me to move on. Sometimes I will look forward to returning. Sometimes, knowing I will never return, I stand back and try to carve the view into a spot of my brain where, on a lazy rainy day, I can sit and visit it again.

Monday, April 14, 2008

I have questions.......


about this.

I came across a small and very old cemetery. In it, there are a number of these graves - 10 or more, with only one word printed on their headstones. Unknown. How sad is that?

How can it be that so many of these people are unknown? NO ONE knew their names? What did they do, find dead people laying along the road and bury them? It was surrounded by farmland - maybe a farmer dug them up when clearing or plowing his field? Seriously now, I suspect it has something to do with a big old brick building across the street but still...why didn’t they at least engrave a date on the stone?

Somewhere there must have parents, brothers, sisters, children, friends. Somebody. Somebody who spent the rest of his or her life wondering what happened to them.

I don’t think I will be able to rest until I find the answers. I am going to have to investigate this cemetery further.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Grandparents part II

I insist that I have a memory of my maternal grandfather who died the day before my first birthday. No one believes me. They say it is impossible to remember anything at that age. They're wrong.

My memory is of me in my mother’s arms, and we are standing on my grandparent’s porch. My grandfather reaches his arm out the kitchen door, grabs for my nose, and does the old "I got your nose trick". I didn't see the humor in the trick. I swear I can see it in my mind as if it happened yesterday.

My grandfather was 100% Swedish and, by trade, a house builder and mason. The stoneworker mason, not the secret society mason. He could pick up a rock, roll it around a little to study it, and with a swift tap of a hammer in just the right spot, split it clean in half. He built each of his children a house, most of my neighbors houses, along with many others spread throughout the town. He was especially well known for his fireplaces.

I now live in the house that he built for his family. Every year when I wander around the property I find all kinds of items that belonged to him - sharpening stones for his garden tools, old cement trowels, moss covered decorative bricks and blocks. In one of my flowerbeds I have accumulated a little pile of these items. My own little tribute to him I guess.

He was 57 years old when he died of a heart attack. According to my grandmother’s diary entry for that day, he thought it was just heartburn.

Every year, as I plant flowers on his grave, I ask him questions that, so far, he has not answered:

Why did you always cover your beautiful hardwood floors with carpeting?
Where did you get those gorgeous chunks of glass that you incorporated into y(our) fireplace?
Did you really squirrel away lots of money and hide it somewhere in the house like Grandma always claimed? If so where, because I think I have checked everywhere now.
Where did you bury your old copper still after grandma found out about it?

I hope that one day I will find out the answers. It would be nice to find out about the money now though.

Tuesday, April 8, 2008

Grandparents, part I

I did not grow up with a grandfather.

My paternal grandfather died of cancer shortly after I was born; my maternal grandfather died of a heart attack the day before my first birthday.

When I think about it, I feel cheated. Everyone should be able to grow up sharing his or her childhood with at least one grandfather. Someone to take you swimming on hot, summer days. Someone who lets you tag along on their vacations. Someone to hide behind when your mom’s chasing you down for tracking mud on her freshly mopped floor.

I am embarrassed to admit that, literally, the only thing I know about my paternal grandfather is that he traveled all over searching for a cure for his cancer. My dad said he spent every last penny he had on snake oil cures. He died in a car on his way home from a trip he had taken with my uncle. They had gone out west to visit a doctor who assured him that he could heal his cancer.

As I sit and write this blog, I realize I could know so much more. Not only is my dad alive, he lives right next door, and could answer all my questions. I don’t even know where my grandfather is buried for crying out loud! How can I have a business planting flowers on the graves of strangers, but have never so much as visited my own grandfather’s grave? I know it’s right here in town somewhere. What is wrong with this picture?

Mental note to myself: tomorrow, get my ass over to my dads and ask him about my grandpa.

Sunday, April 6, 2008

I am not young or old,


but somewhere in between.

My age is relative and changes depending on whom you ask. A twenty year old will describe me as that older lady, the seventy year old as a young lady.

I am at that age where I am no longer immortal. I am reminded of it many times a week when reading the obituaries. People my age and younger are dying, some “unexpectedly” but most “following a courageous battle”.

I am at that age where I hesitate when I hop down off a chair because I fear hurting a knee or ankle when not so long ago, I would put on a pair of shorts over a pair of tights, pin a towel around my neck and jump off the neighbors fuel oil storage tank, arms outstretched, screaming SUPERMAN!

I am at that age when, sometimes, every headache is a brain tumor and every chest twinge is an impending heart attack.

I am at that age where, in my mind, I am still 25, but after a day of gardening my body screams otherwise.

I am at that age where, as I walk through the cemeteries, I realize that one day, I too, will be in the ground with them.

And it scares me.

Tuesday, April 1, 2008

They're going to find a dead cat

When they bury my dad.

Shortly after my mom died, one of her two cats died. It never occurred to me, but it did to my dad, to take the cat to the cemetery and bury it with her.

In the cover of darkness, my dad drove my brother, the dead cat, and a post hole digger to the cemetery. My brother dug a skinny, deep hole just slightly to the left of my mothers grave. And, when I say slightly to the left, I really mean in my dads plot. My dad put the dead cat, head first, into the hole and then my brother covered the hole back up.

I don't know why it didn't occur to either of them that when it came time to dig the hole for my dad, they wouldn't be able to do so without disturbing the cat. It was the first thing I thought of. When I conveyed my concern to my dad, he said "why do I care? I'll be dead by then."