Grandma

When you think about an Italian grandmother, what image comes to mind? A short, plump woman in a housecoat who loves to cook and bake and watch people eat what she cooked and baked, right?

My grandmother fit most of that stereotype – except I never saw her bake – but she hated being in the kitchen. She cooked to please my grandfather and, every Sunday, she’d make a pot of gravy (a.k.a., “sauce”), meatballs, spaghetti, baked chicken, etc. for our family’s weekly “dinner” at 2:00 p.m.

Before she retired, though, Grandma worked as a forelady in our town’s sewing factory. That’s where she developed a talent for projecting her voice so it would be heard over the din of multiple sewing machines – a trait that remained throughout her life and made my ears ring after any prolonged period in her presence.

I think she got married and had children, just because that’s what was expected back in the 1930s. But she seemed happiest when she told me about her work as a forelady where she earned more money than Grandpa, as I write in my memoir:

“Remember, Maria, when you start working, it’s best to be salaried. That way, you’ll always get a paycheck each month.” Conspiratorially, she leaned closer and lowered her voice. “You know Grandpa wasn’t salaried; he worked on commission, but I was salaried.”

Straightening she’d continue in her normal tone. “And when you get a raise, make sure you save half of it; just put it in the bank and forget about it. You were doing fine before you got it, right? So you won’t miss it if you put it aside, and then you’ll still have the other half to do with as you please. That’s what I always did.”

The third of eight children, Grandma’s father died when her mother was pregnant with Grandma's sister, Dehlia. As a widow – before Roosevelt’s New Deal and social security benefits -- great-grandma re-married soon afterwards, but her new husband turned out to be an alcoholic who routinely abused his wife and children. Grandma never trusted him:

“I was so afraid that one night he’d kill Mama and all of us,” Grandma said, her eyes wide. “I’ll never forget the night I saw him go down to the furnace room and come back with a hot poker! A red, hot poker! I struggled with him and that poker until everyone else woke up and called the police. Never forget it…”