Grandma

A lot of things in our personal history affect our lives today. This is my grandma. She collected salt and pepper shakers which I now own. I was the only granddaughter and she always told me the collection would be mine. I just love this picture with the 1940's wallpaper and the old radio in the background. My grandma was also the one who taught me how to hand embroider. I used to sit on the floor behind her wastebasket when I was little and I would pull out the little thread ends that she had thrown away when she was embroidering. I would line up the colors and then rearrange them again and again. Embroidering pillowcases kept me busy all summer on the farm when I wasn't out riding my bike. Mother didn't drive so we were pretty isolated 5 miles from town.

To go with yesterday's story, the first country school I went to in first and second grade was 1/4 mile down the road. We walked to school every morning, my brother and I, and I had perfect attendance, from all that fresh air I'm sure. Then the second school which I showed yesterday was several miles away also out in the country. When I was in 5th grade they started building a community school that would encompass all 5 districts that no longer could support a school in their own district. We didn't move in until the middle of 5th grade and there were 50 students, WOW, all in one place. I rode a school bus starting that year and all the way through high school. I graduated from 8th grade in a class of 4, 2 boys and 2 girls.