My Grandmother's Gift - Part 3

I recently wrote about receiving my grandmother's manuscripts. I just finished reading one of her novels entitled The Humble Ones. It turns out that the reading of this book couldn't have been more timely. The setting is a small Pennsylvania town, probably in the early 1940's. A major part of the plot concerns a young girl who befriends the town's only black family. She desperately wants them to join her church and is met with racial prejudice and bigotry that shocks and upsets her. My grandmother did a wonderful job of portraying a variety of townspeople and their reactions to meeting black people for the first time in their lives. The story continues to contrast the innocence of an unknowing child to the realities of our society before the civil rights movement. As the girl grows into a young woman she continues to befriend this family and advocate for their rights. Some of what my grandmother wrote would be considered politically incorrect now, but her true desire for social justice shines through the entire book.

Here is a brief excerpt that I found particularly interesting:

"Wouldn't it be wonderful if in some time in the future we hear of a great negro leader, or statesman, or even a president, you and I could say we predicted it. Both girls laughed and Laurie added, "And we would be proud too, and remember that we had been his friend."

My grandmother has not been around to witness all the changes in America in the past two decades - but this week I think she would be amazed - I'm sure she would be proud.

My Grandmother's Gift - Part 2

Nostalgia by Elsie Heberling
(This was written about her childhood in the 1890's. She probably wrote this piece in the 1950's or 60's, but she did not put dates on her writing.)

Nostalgia can be a devastating thing; and after wrestling with its gnawing, which at times brought a form of sickness that could no longer be denied, on a bright and hot August morning we set out for the hundred mile trip to visit my childhood home. The early sunrise was just beginning to stain the eastern sky with all its color and glory as we drove out onto the highway. It was not the distance that had prevented me making such a visit, but I was afraid it might be changed; and I never wanted it to change, and besides, I wanted to see for myself.

Perhaps it was the poor quality of the fruit that the market stalls were offering, with their tough wooden texture, that caused me to go at this time when I knew the fruit trees would be yielding their burdens of lusciousness. I had visions of plump red and golden peaches hanging heavy with ripeness in the hot sun. As children we had plucked them fresh from the trees, all for free, just for the taking, and if we sometimes acquired a bellyache from an over abundance, why that was for free also, and we accepted it as a matter of course and well worth the discomfort. A peach ripened on the tree, fresh and delectable, provided an ambrosia that the ancient gods could not surpass. I had prepared myself to once again partake of these delights.

When we arrived, the sun was high and hot, but the big white house standing back from the road on a higher level, seemed cool and serene. The first glimpse of it through the trees caused the lurch of homesickness to creep over me with greater intensity than I had ever known. As the car moved slowly to where we could have a better view, there was much evidence that it was not the same at all. Many changes had been made. The wide porch that had spread full width across the front had been enclosed in glass. On the same porch we had sat together as a family, in the evenings. The cool breeze would waft down the creek valley and bring relief from the day's heat, and as twilight deepened, we children would count the stars as they appeared in the sky, until there would be so many we could no longer count them. We listened to the hum of the night insects and the forlorn croaking of the frogs. A little later we would sit entranced, watching the lemon colored moon slowly rise into the velvet sky, directly over the church steeple. And each time in its never failing rising, it would appear to us as a new and wonderful revelation.

This is only the first part of her essay on Nostalgia. I think her descriptive writing is beautiful and insightful. And so, my grandmother's first essay is published on the Internet, on a blog - two things she never heard of or could have imagined in her lifetime.

My Grandmother's Gift

In August we hosted the annual family reunion as we always do. Everyone graciously thanks us for doing it, but I am so grateful to them for being such an amazing family and for making the effort to come from all over the country so we can see each other.

This year I received an additional gift when my cousin turned over my grandmother's manuscripts to me. In several old boxes I found many short stories, essays and articles with my grandmother's thoughts and opinions as well as four full novels.

My grandmother lived from 1889-1978. My mother is the last of her six children born over a twenty-one year period. My grandfather died before I was born and my grandmother lived a very humble existence in a number of small apartments in a little town in Pennsylvania. I knew she was a writer and I read one or two of the handwritten novels as a teenager. I was fairly young when she died and she lived 100 miles away, so I didn't know her as well as I wished I had.

I sat down on a summer day and read page after page of her precise handwriting (and some pages typed by someone else because she did not have a typewriter) and suddenly I felt so close to her. When giving me the boxes my cousin said "You're the writer in the family, you will take care of these." Well, she was right about that. I treasure them. I learned from them and I was truly impressed by her ideas and her writing talent. She must have worked so hard on those never-to-be published novels. I complain about revising my writing, but try to imagine revising an entire novel several times by hand!

So this gift unexpectedly landed in my possession and I am very grateful for the chance to know my grandmother all over again, as an adult and a fellow writer. The photo is from the day I sorted out the manuscripts that had become a little disorganized in the boxes. I will share some of her writing soon.