Hard work was nothing new however. As a child, she spent her summers in the cotton fields helping her family eke out a living. Growing up with 5 brothers, she learned at an early age to not let them see her cry.  She eventually became a professional seamstress for a manufacturing company. I remember her telling me of the times that she sewed right through her fingers. I am cringing now thinking about it.

When my grandfather became seriously ill, she became the sole bread winner. She suffered from arthritis but instead of letting it slow her down, she fought back. Somewhere she read that fire ant venom was a possible cure or could help lessen the pain of arthritis. Since she lived in southern Alabama, fire ants were readily available. I remember that she would go stick her hands in a fire ant hill and come back to the house with her arms and hands covered in bites. If you have never had a fire ant bite, then you can't understand how painful those bites were. It must have helped her though because she did it until the fire ants would no longer bite her. Maybe after all those bites, she began to "smell" like a fire ant to them.

She loved to cook and could make a dinner for surprise guests without a moment's notice. Her pecan pies were known far and wide. She didn't rely on recipes, but seasoned based on taste and experience. She rarely used measuring cups either. There was one recipe that got the best of her though. When I went off to college, she wanted a pound cake that I had often made for her. She made that cake three times and three times, that cake didn't turn out. It is a good thing that she had her own chickens because that cake took something like 5 eggs and 3 or 4 cups of flour. When I came home at Christmas, I barely made it in the house before she had me in the kitchen making that cake. When mine came out fine, she about blew a gasket. We finally figured out that she had been starting with a preheated oven but that cake required that the cake be placed in a cold oven.  She was a tough old bird and she did things in her own way and in her own time... I still miss her.

Shellie

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My best memories of my grandparents (Oma and Opa) are the simple excitement of visiting them in the city of Philadelphia where they lived. They would take us for a walk on Fifth Street where my brother and I could spend hours in the five and dime store. The smell of German food cooking in the kitchen, Oma's flowery apron, and the mismatched dishes we ate on. I loved that I could actually choose the plate that I used. Just being with them for a weekend or a week are some of my happiest childhood memories. Now that I'm a grandparent, I hope that time spent with my grandson will bring him fond thoughts in the future.
Susan

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My Gramma lived in a brownstone a couple blocks from Wrigley Field in Chicago. She was a tiny Hungarian woman who stood approximately 4'11", with a petite frame and long gray hair gathered in a bun. When I was 6 years old my family lived in Chicago and Cubs games were part of our routine.

On the day of a Cubs game, Grandma would get up at 7:00 am and sweep an area on the street for us to park, until we arrived for the game. As this tiny elderly woman swept the parking space she was saving for us, full of vim and vigor and, sometimes for hours, no one dared shoo her off her cleaning!

Because of Gramma we always had the best parking for a Cubs game!

Susan