My Other Grandmother

“Nonna”, my mother’s mother, was a constant presence in my life until I married.  Nonna was only 43 when I was born.  Mother spent every day with her mother. Nonna was still a vigorous 66 when I married and moved to Illinois.  My children knew their great-grandmother as well as they knew my mother.

As a small child, I had another grandmother.  My father’s mother, whom I called “Mama Pattie”, was 71 years old when I was born. 

I remember “Mama Pattie” as a little woman with gray hair pulled back in a tight little bun at the nape of her neck.  She always wore long, black dresses, an archetype of an old Victorian lady.  Her shoes were black patent leather with a single strap across the instep, just like the “Mary Janes” my daughter Martha wore when she ten years old.  When Mama Pattie and my grandfather listened to the radio, she sat in her rocking chair and patted those “Mary Janes” in time to the music.   

My father went to see his parents one weekend every month, a perilous drive on wretched roads from Fort Worth to their home in Comanche County.  I often went with him.

Only once I remember Daddy’s parents coming to Fort Worth.  A mouse was caught in a trap by his tail.  My little grandmother picked up the trap, and I followed as she carried it, mouse wiggling as he dangled, out into the backyard.  As a five-year-old, I watched fascinated, as Mama Pattie placed the mouse on a log, picked up a brick, and smashed down on the poor little creature.  My little old lady grandmother was a formidable woman, not to be trifled with.   

Recently I cleaned out the closet in my second bedroom.  I found a box I had not opened since I moved to Texas in 2006.  Most of it was junk, which I threw away.  One thing I kept was an old letter, the fragile paper faded to brown, the ink barely legible.  When my son David saw it, he said, “What beautiful handwriting.”  This is what the letter said:

                “Thursday – 14 – 1935
        Dear Little Granddaughter,
            Enclosed find $1 for
        your birthday.  Decided Mother
        would be more able to get what
        you need or what pleases you
        better than I would or could.
                Yours for a Happy
                Birthday - Mama Pattie”

Less than two years later, Mama Pattie died.  I was seven.  I am probably the only person alive today who still remembers her.  

As I held her letter, I marveled that I held something written by the hand of this grandmother born in 1859.  I took it to the safety deposit box.  Will my grandchildren treasure it the way I do?