Favorite Photo: #52ancestors

With Lois Smith Ney, about 1967.

Just one week into the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks and I am convinced this week's prompt will be the most difficult one for the entire year... write about a favorite photo. 

I have been agonizing and overthinking this for a week. Regardless of what photo I considered I finally realized the theme was the same... the importance of my grandparents to my childhood. Both sets of grandparents lived in the then-small town where my parents met and graduated from high school, bisected by the Northern Pacific railroad. Of course, who exactly lived on the wrong side of the tracks is another question.

According to MapQuest their homes were 1.5 miles apart. In some respects, however, it might have been a million miles. My paternal grandparents were eminently practical, while my maternal grandparents were decidedly less so. They differed in other ways too, Lutheran vs. Catholic, for starters. Yet all four provided indelible memories for their grandchildren. Each was creative in their own way. My paternal grandmother cocooned us, literally, with a steady stream of afghans and sweaters. Her love was expressed through food; mashed potatoes, pot roast and an inventive array of jello salads which contained everything from shredded carrots to marshmallows. My grandfather, a welder by trade, did woodworking and metal work and a variety of other hobbies that used his extensive ability to repurpose just about anything. He also painted; landscapes in particular. A picture of cows on a wooded path that hung in their living room is one of the first things I think of when I think of their tiny house, originally just 20x20 feet.

My maternal grandmother, in my opinion, could do just about any creative thing she set her mind to in my opinion. A masterful seamstress, she sewed beautiful clothes. She made me a treasured dollhouse filled with hand-painted furniture. She was less interested in housekeeping, however, and all that entailed. Summer visits with her meant I could eat Pop-Tarts for dinner. We got our ears pierced together when I was about 13, despite my mother's veto. It was years before I understood her vacuum was a Kirby, not named Kirby. By then it was too late, I had taken to naming things like cars -- Ernie -- and a variety of other inanimate objects. My grandfather was the life of the party, too much so for many years. But from him, I learned it's never too late to change and one can reinvent yourself in your third act. He and my grandmother were both crazy for Christmas. Their living room was the site of many Christmas dinners with a table created from plywood over sawhorses to make room for everyone... including my paternal grandparents despite the fact neither set quite approved of the other!

So, despite the fact, there are a number of photographs I could have chosen, the one I ended up with is a picture of me with my maternal grandmother taken when I was about 3. But really it is representative of a number I could have chosen. The roads all lead the same place, however, back to that small town where so many of my childhood memories reside. All my love and gratitude to Darlene and Bob, and Lois and Nick, for being quintessential grandparents, each in your own unique way. You are missed.