Faerieluna

Married this month in 1928

My paternal grandparents

Edgar and Irene

I was a fortunate child, the first child

the first grandchild.


My Dad, all of 21 and in the Airforce,
stationed in Montana
met my Mom, 17 and the youngest of seven girls.

That little butterball in her arms is me.

Sometime before I turned two, the three of us moved
back to Connecticut and lived with my paternal grandparents.
They owned a three family house
and we took the first floor.

Needless to say, I was upstairs to the third floor

A LOT!

Throughout my life I had the gift of extended family,

even when my Dad & Mom bought our family home
a short time later in a small, bedroom town in Connecticut
about a half hour from my grandparents.

I remember the smell of the basement where my Grandfather puttered
and the rhubarb sauce cooking on Grandmother's stove

..the way she set out the plates and cups the night before,
for the breakfast she always made my Grandfather
before he went to work carrying a sandwhich
she had made the night before, wrapped
in the plastic bread wrapper.

The colorful round dots of Wonderbread.

how I stood handing clothes pins to Grandma as she
hung the clothes on a long clothesline off the back porch
how they all spoke French and even sang in French

I was so very fortunate.

I had my grandparents into my thirties
and how they loved me and I them.

Unconditional,

wonderful love.

It's quite special to be the first child, the first grandchild.