Grandma and Grandpa Simon! How I loved them both. I never knew my mother's real father, he died three years before I was born. I've always wondered what he was like. But when Grandma married "Uncle Art" as my mom's sisters and brothers all called him I got a really great grandfather. My Grandmother, Margaret Mary, was a wonderful grandmother, ask any of her 23 grandchildren. When I was born Grandma was still quite young (especially viewed now from my own age of 50...) for she was 47, younger than I am now. I could do a whole other website on my grandmother, but for now this will have to suffice. I used to stay over for a couple days ever since I was very small, being the second oldest grandchild and the first grand-daughter I was definitely spoiled. And when you come from a family of six children it's nice to be spoiled occasionally but the best was having all of an adult's attention on you the whole time. I also usually had all my aunt Alice's attention in those days, too, because she was only 10 when I was born and lived at home with Grandma and Grandpa until she was 21 (and I was 11). She was a fifties teenager with a ponytail and I adored her. I certainly was discombobulated when I went to school from 1965 through 1968 and it was a whole different scene. Colleges forgot about panty-raids and parties and focused on love-ins and political causes. I was crushed; I had so looked forward to a fifties style teenage life and the one I had certainly turned out disappointingly as far as I was concerned. But, back to "Marg" , as my Grandpa called her. She took turns having all of us over there at different times. We could eat on TV trays in the living room right in front of the television. Grandma woke you up in the morning with a little glass of juice to tell you to look out in her yard to see the birdies bathing in the birdbaths and the squirrels trying to steal their food. She took dolls and made a "doll hospital" by cleaning them up and doing their hair in lovely ways. She said she wished she'd been able to go to cosmetology school herself. Grandma always had birds (parakeets) in her house with names like Joey and Mickey and Pepe. She's bill and coo with them and darned near seemed to speak their lingo. Grandma loved to dance and so did Grandpa. When I was little there was no family get together that they couldn't roll back the rug, put the records on the record player and do some serious dancing. I hesitate to say they did some serious drinking too, but they did for a fact. Always keeping their fun-loving personalities and never dragging in any sturm and drang. Dad's family on the other hand, discussed world affairs, one -upped each other in conversation and drank a little beer, too. Each family was fun for us, but Dad's family had the one girl cousin who was my age that I could play with, Janet. We always had fun even though she was a tomboy and I was a prissy doll-loving scaredy cat. She seemed to tolerate me remarkably well!
I have wonderful memories of family get-togethers at holidays and small ones at various times. Cousins visited back and forth at each other's houses all summer long. And in those days the summers seemed equally as long as the school year.
Staying at Grandma's meant having your own room or, better yet, sleeping in Aunt Alice's bed upstairs (probably she could have lived without a curious 6 year old watching her every move and with a million questions, but she was always gracious). It meant you could have as many eggs as you wanted for breakfast. You could sit in the front seat in the car with Grandma and Grandpa. Grandpa took me down to the school park and let me go on the swings and the slide, my nemesis. I always got to the top and then froze. Someone would have to come up and guide me "over the hump" while other kids got knocked out of line, "Oh, gee, what is her problem--just climb over it". Grandma had naturally curly hair and she would let you spend hours combing it with a wet comb, making waves as easy as pie. That's how small I remember being, a sprite climbing around behind her in the purple velvet wingchair. Grandpa would scratch your back for you and Grandma would put polish on your fingernails. Everything she had at her house was different from ours and so it was "exotic" and fun. To this day the delicious aroma of "Leg of Lamb" with all the trimmings takes me right back to her front room. Grandpa would be sitting up close to the T.V. on his ottoman, watching Tigers baseball and yelling out unheeded opinions at the umps. Baseball reigned supeme at that time in America. He was the first one I knew to get "remote control" for his T.V. and it turned him into a tyrant! Grandma always made little bowls of ice cream with cookies on the side for us. I ate things I never ate at home because everything tasted good at Grandma's. Sometimes I got to sleep with Grandma herself, what an honor. Grandpa grew the biggest beefsteak tomatoes and beautiful roses you ever saw in a little patch in the back of their tiny yard. Grandma couldn't drive so she and I would take a taxi (how exciting even thought it reeked of cigarette smoke from previous travelers) and we'd go shopping for this and that.
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