Grandma passed away 28 years ago when I was just a young teenager. She was born in the early 1900s, lived through two World Wars, raised children through the Great Depression, and saw the explosion of technology in the eighties and early nineties. She was born & raised in southern Indiana, married a Swedish farmer in Iowa, and they migrated to Missouri in the fifties. I got to know her during the golden years of her life. Now, like your grandma, I’m sure she did gradma-y things that you’ll recognize just like these adorable things.
She wore those plastic scarfs to protect her hair.
I vividly remember mom, Nancy, and I picking her up from the beauty shop one stormy afternoon. When she got into the car, she smelled of freshly permed hair. She was wearing one of those plastic scarves to protect it from the elements. Mom then drove us over to the corner ice cream stand. It was grandma’s treat. She pulled out her plastic oval shaped coin purse and squeezed it open. She pulled out some change and handed it to mom with some bills. Mom hopped out in the pouring rain and ordered us all ice cream cones. It was a torrential down pour. Mom was soaked, but still in good spirits. She got back into the car and we all got the giggles over the silliness of getting ice cream in the rain.
She had metal cookie tins full of old buttons.
When she babysat us, she would get the tin of old buttons out. Then, we would get to string buttons over and over on a piece of yarn, but we always had to put them back when we were done. This kept us entertained for an hour or so. I remember sitting on her avocado green sleeper sofa chatting away and stringing buttons. Often, she was sitting opposite me in her comfy rocker sewing or crocheting.
She always had a treat for us.
Whenever we visited, she almost always had freshly made cook-and-serve pudding with a dollop of cream on top. We would open the fridge and there they would be, green depression glass cups covered with sheets of plastic wrap. (She always washed and reused the plastic wrap.) Sometimes, we got a honey-bun from the freezer or other times she had Brach’s candy mix inside her pressed glass candy dish. The dish always sat on Grandpa’s hutch.
I had to be super careful around the hutch as not to scratch it, dent it, or break anything. (that might be because I knocked it over a couple of times!!! Lol.) Anyway, that’s beside the point, so we would get to choose three pieces from the candy dish. I always loved the Cinnamon Bears, the butterscotch hard candies, and the Milk Maid Royals.
She would make a cherry pie for just about every holiday.
She made the best cherry pies. She would bring her pie over inside a brown pie safe. It wasn’t until I was older that I figured out it was actually an old movie reel tin! I love the silly thing and keep it on display in my kitchen. Here is her recipe for cherry pie written out in her own handwriting!
Grandma’s Cherry Pie Recipe
Filling:
- 1 can cherries
- ¾ cup of sugar
- 2 ½ tbs flour
- ¼ tsp almond flavoring
- ¼ red coloring
- Butter (Dot top of filling)
Crust:
- 1 cup of flour
- 1 stick of Oleo
- ¼ tsp salt
- ¼ cup of milk