By Dave Crow
Conversations
David Crow
My mother’s mother was named Amy, and that made her my “Grandma Amy.” Grandma Amy was the daughter of French immigrants who moved to the US just around the turn of the century. Born in 1907, Grandma Amy was the last of seven children. She grew up in West Harford and married my Grandpa Herman, a German who had immigrated to the US between the two world wars. They moved to East Hartford and raised two daughters, the oldest of which became my mother.
Grandma Amy stood about five foot nothing and she was petite, almost to the point of frailty. She tended to wear great big rings on her skinny little fingers, and she never let her purse out of sight. In pictures I have of her, she looks like a Norman Rockwell rendition of “grandma.”
However, the Grandma Amy of my memories was the epitome of the expression “looks can be deceiving.” Grandma Amy had the soul of a fighter and the tenacity and grit to take on all comers. When her dander was up, she fought with the ferocity of a hungry weasel and would back-sass the devil. Once she made her mind up, she was unshakeable. Woe to those who lined up against her. Grandma Amy was a pint-sized dynamo.
Her grit was hard earned. By the time she started her own family, Grandma Amy had endured the losses and privations of two world wars, survived the Depression, and carved out a life for herself in the aftermath. In my memory, she was a living callback to a world before the Wright brothers flew who would grouse “Get a horse!” at broken-down automobiles.
When Grandma Amy told us stories about “the war,” she meant World War I. The first US president she could recall was William H. Taft. During the Depression she stood in line to get her money out of the bank and walked past the bread lines when she went home empty handed. She was in her mid-30s when Pearl Harbor was attacked and her 60s when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, two months after I was born.
That tenacity made her socially bold as well. In the 20s, a young Grandma Amy wore her blonde hair in a boyish bob, dressed in the latest trends and danced enough, drank enough and smoked enough cigarettes to provoke a minor scandal. She also applied herself to her studies in school and, when she was unable to afford college, worked several office jobs in accounting.
Grandma Amy’s family life also defied convention as she married a German man over the disapproval of her French family, and waited to have her two children until her 30s. After her daughters were born, Grandma Amy once again bucked the trend and continued to work and save her money in case there was another Depression.
One arena her fierce spirit always shined brightest was politics. Grandma Amy was a New Deal Democrat and seemed to view politics as something just short of a contact sport where opposing sides got together and hashed the issue out. She positively tore through every newspaper she could get her hands on each day, and she was always on the lookout for live opponents to debate. She trained her great big eyes on her adversary, always gave them the first say and diligently listened to their opinion. Then it was her turn. After a few salvos of her informed opinions, most live opponents were cowed. When she couldn’t find a live body to spar with, she would turn on PBS to watch news shows with names like “Agronsky & Co.” and “Face the Nation” and vociferously agree or disagree depending on the hosts’ take on the issues of the day.
She was never mean spirited or degrading to her opponents. To her, political opinions were something a person earned through experience and study, not what they heard on TV or other media. Her own politics were based on her experience and the information she collected, and she never once identified herself with any kind of “ism.” As I recall she didn’t have a lot of patience for what we would call “identity politics.” Grandma Amy seemed to take the view that politics was an intellectual enterprise and that her opponents were either misinformed, uninformed or could be convinced.
Grandma Amy’s attitude applied to her health as well. Whenever we asked how she was feeling, she would always chuckle and respond, “By this time next year, I’ll be eating the dandelions from the roots!” Yet despite her protestations, she lived a long, healthy life with her legendary wits intact. In fact, she lived long enough to see me graduate from high school, university and law school. She attended my wedding in 1996 just after her 89th birthday.
Finally, after suffering three massive strokes in two weeks, any one of which would have dropped an ox, Grandma Amy passed away in her sleep at age 92, just a few months before my first son, Joshua, was born.
Sometimes I wonder what Grandma Amy would think of the world today. What would someone like her, who lived through and recalled almost every major event of the 20th century, think of the 21st century?
On my cynical days I think she might be disappointed by our predilection to use our great access to seek out those who agree with us rather than engage in discussions with those who disagree with us. But then I think that it is more likely that she’d simply train her big eyes on us and listen to our opinions before she pointed out where we were wrong and what we failed to consider. Then she would nod and go back to her newspaper, and everyone would just keep on living.
Until next time, y’all come out!
David Crow lives in Orange with his wife and three children. He practices law and he asks everyone to call him “Dave.” Only his mother and his wife call him “David,” and only when they’re mad at him. You can contact Dave at Sit.a.Spell.and.Visit@gmail.com. He’ll always find a half hour for a good chat.