Grandma Grace

• Grandma and the skunk
• Lilac perfume
• Depression glass
• Fresh bread
• Malt o meal
• 1951 Singer sewing machine
• Billy Graham
• Warp
• Rag rugs
• "Grandma blue"
• Coffee in a stovetop percolator-no basket
• Beet pickles
• Korv
• The brooder house and her chickens
• The orange truck
• Corn pudding

My gandma Grace was a quiet, unassuming little woman. "Oh, for goodness sakes." was her favorite saying. One day my Grandma Grace killed a skunk with her garden hoe.
She baked bread from scratch and would let me eat all I wanted. She wondered outloud why I never wanted butter or peanut butter on it. Grandma's bread was too good to defile with peanut butter or even butter.
She drank piping hot coffee made on her stove in an aluminum percolator. She prepared it by filling the pot with water and dumping the grounds right in, no basket. When it had perked she would let it rest so the grounds would settle to the bottom. She would take her coffee in depression glass coffee cups with milk. The family didn't understand why she used her "antique" coffee cups for everyday. She would poo-poo us ("Oh for goodness sakes") and tell how the cups came free in flour sacks.
When I stayed overnight she would make Malt-o-Meal for breakfast and it always had lumps. The lumps were my favorite. I don't know if they were on purpose, but now my kids HAVE to have lumps in their Malt-o-Meal.
She always made and ate beet pickles. She grew the beets in her garden.
Korv is Swedish potato sausage which she made every year, stuffing the casings herself. She would serve it on Christmas Eve along with corn pudding and Stove Top stuffing.
Her radio was always tuned to 'CCO.  She loved to watch Billy Graham on the TV. She pronounced his name "Gray-am."
She drove her old orange truck to Cokato, two towns away where she worked in a canning factory. The tail gate of the truck had pins that held it closed.
She would collect ripped jeans from those who would give them to her. Each pair was deconstructed and cut into strips. The strips were sewn together end to end on her 1951 Singer Sewing machine. With the sewn together strips of jeans, she made rag rugs on her rug loom. Sometimes she would let us kids help weave the rags through the warp. Then she would let us bang the big handle if we behaved.
She always dressed in blue. Her hair was silver. Her face was soft and kind.
She hated to be in pictures and if she was, she never smiled.
She smelled lightly of lilac and Jean N'ate.
My grandma died on her birthday in 1989. I miss her very much.