my grandmother

[Absaroka]

I've been thinking a lot lately about the topic of what does it mean to be a woman and related issues. I apologize if one of my strongly worded posts offended anyone and also want to offer any possible support to those who are struggling with this and express my gratitude for the times they bare their souls here. I am learning a lot.

Now first off I have to agree that of course I can not know what it is like to be anyone but me.

I have to agree with one of the posts that there is a natural selection of particpants here, limited first of all to those who speak English well and have a computer. Narrows things down real fast I guess we can agree.

There has always been something I thought wasn't getting said and today it came to me. I want to talk about my grandmother.

She grew up in a whistle stop in the North woods. Did all the stuff that this implies for life a hundred years ago. Chop wood and draw water from a frozen well in the winter, killed the food running around the yard and so on, all in a dress. Took a bath every spring whether she needed it or not. In her own way she was quite nurturing although I remember this as involving her having quite a hard hand. She thought that by age 5 children should be pulling their own weight. And the only thing she really needed a man for was to get pregnant although a good one like my grand father came in handy when he was home which was seldom due to his being a lumberjack. They were not farmers so he didn't stay home to plow the fields and so much for that stereotypical aspect of family on the frontier.

By time I was a child they had things like electricity there and I truly enjoyed going to visit them in the summer. She was a gentler person by then also as the times were less harsh. Still not very emotional. How much emotion can you have left after losing a couple of children to diptheria? And although she never talked about this I later learned from reading things she had written that she took great displeasure in the idea of raising her sons to be cannon fodder and viewed the neccesity of this as clear evidence that men were failing badly in their self imposed task of running the world even as she took pride in her sons willingness to serve.

It's far too late by now to ask her what it means to be a woman. However I have no doubt from reading some of the things she wrote that she took tremendous pride in being a woman.

Delicate, vulnerable, sexy, and needing to be cared for would not have been womanly in her view in any way. She would have considered them that worst of all things, frivolous. Pretty was nice but not important. She would have been the first to say that ugly women make the best wives even though she was not unattractive. Nurturing and affectionate, yes. But most of all what she would say that what being a woman meant was strength. When all else fails, when the men run off or are killed or locked up or drafted, a woman endures. When the children are all dead and she isn't sure there will be more later she endures anyway. Endures because she has to, because if she does not endure, who will?

No wonder men want to be women. And I'm sure there were folks with gender ambiguities back then too.


Andrea

[Anita]

Hi Andrea--
That post moves me, and I'm not sure all the reasons why. I have not thought much about the emotional life of the people of my grandfather and grandmother's generation, because there doesn't seem to be much of it there. Life in Ohio farming country was all about work, as far as I can see. Man/woman relationships were not talked about, not in the way that I needed to hear about them, and whatever writings were in my family have gotten scattered after my mother's death in '94.

You say that it's far too late to ask her what it meant to be a woman. That is certainly the case with both of my grandmothers, too.

I knew both of my grandmothers, but I didn't know them as women, not really. They had both been farmer's wives, and both had raised two children. The families they came from, though, had more than 7 children in each family.

One of my grandmothers was featured in a book about a small community that was evacuated to make way for a government-created flood project.
Her account of her life was pretty matter-of-fact. She would have resented a therapist saying, "But how did you FEEL about that?"

My other grandmother also did not show much emotion. She was pleasant to be around, and always smiled, though. I have a large painting hanging over my mantle, that she did when she was 18, in 1888. It is of a grinding mill by a waterfall, and it's a rather stormy-looking night scene. The moon is starting to disappear behind clouds. I loved that picture as a child, and inherited it when our house was sold.

People look at that painting and say, "An eighteen year old girl did THAT?" I'm not good on painters, but it's the emotional equivalent of a Brahms symphony, very dense and majestic. Where did all that emotion go? The woman I knew was rather tired and frail. I never heard anything about what her life had been like--maybe she would have told me if I had asked, but I never thought about it. The things I really wanted to know would not have been things she would have been comfortable talking about.

So I don't want to hijack the thread, but I had to look at my own grandmothers pretty closely after you mentioned yours. I see that there wasn't much emotion with either gender in my family. Certainly not with the men--they were very stoic, and didn't have any time for children.

As for what my grandmothers, or yours, would have thought about our lives, I really don't know. In my case, it would have shocked them. How they would handle it after that is a mystery to me. Good topic, Andrea. I'm sorry that I don't seem to have had more input on your original post.
This is what came up for me.

[Virginia]

Grandmothers like "we" relate too are becoming few and far between anymore! I guess when they "grew up" that is the way it was. My father's mother was half Comanche, lived in a dirt floor home outside Leveland,Tx. I remember her putting a bonnet on me and a potato sack dress and "letting me" sweep her dirt floor home. Yes, we swept a dirt floor. You know I only saw her once in my life when I was 5 or 6. Can't even remember her name, if I even ever knew it but her image is burned into my memory. My mother's grandmother was a rather staunch sole. Rumor has it that her mother ran a "cat house" in Bristol, Tn primarily for the railroad men. My mother and her mother evidently gave me my genetics to present Virginia, as the pictures that I have of them - they were beautiful. I have said before, I think they would be proud of their "daughter." I feel I can honor them with my chosen name, "Virginia Irene."
The story goes that my grandmother was pregnant at 16 -17 and her husband went off the "the War to end all Wars" sometime in the fray he told his best friend that "if I don't come back I want you to marry Irene!" Well he didn't and Arthur Taylor Elliott did as he was asked (thye did not have any more children) He raised Virginia as his own and when she became an alcoholic and died of it at my ripe old age of six, they raised me as best they could. I must have been a handful because I spent thirteen straight years in military schools! But that is another story -Grandmothers are unique unto themselves and are nothing but big balls of total love!!!
Virginia
Ps sorry if this was TMFI

[Absaroka]

I appreciate the replies and it's not surprising I think that we had such similar memories.

I remember her as reserved. But the emotion was there and although "how do you feel about that" would have struck her as an odd question, there was no doubt that she did feel things and I think expressed them if only one knew how to listen. She wrote well and movingly also. And as Anita says things like paintings can say an awful lot.

The men were no lightweights in the we must endure dept. either. That type of person didn't last in the North Woods. But still I wonder if a recurring theme in some of us is not that we want to be delicate and cared for like women so much as we want to be as strong as we know they really are.

She'd be horrified if she knew I think. Missouri Lutherans didn't even drink or play cards. But she'd probably defend me to the death if someone else attacked me on general principals.

Andrea

[Anita]

Hi Andrea--
I'll have to guess that my grandmas would not have shut me out--they weren't that kind of person, either one of them. My painting grandma might have been amused that there was a revival of the middle name she gave my mother--Anita. My oldest sister was the original first-name Anita, always went by 'Dee,' and later, 'Dina.' "Grandma McVey was the only one who ever called me Anita Dee," said my sister.

I'm very fond of Missouri Synod Lutherans. I lived in one of their churches, in a loft built around the organ pipes. I paid a little rent, protected the building, and in return I got to practice guitar all day long in that church, and my band practiced there once a week. Given their conservatism, it was a wonder that the arrangement worked.

[DonnaT]

My Grandma (Mom's mom) was the second wife to my Grandpa, and he already had 5 kids still alive and she gave birth to 4 more. They lived in the hills of WV and even though she had a great since of humor, she was one tough bird at 5'2". She had to be to be able to control those kids and to control Grandpa and keep him out of trouble. He had a still.

One noticeable thing with her was, apparently due to being part Indian, she had no body hair, and never had to shave her legs, for example. One trait I really wished I had inherited.

My Grandmother (Dad's mom) was a very kind woman and raised in the city. She always seemed to be quiet, subdued and seemed frail to me. I was surprised to learn, however, that she was quite different than that. Seems she and her twin sister were quite the dancers and use to teach dancing, like the Charleston etc.

[Anita]

Interesting how this gets into different generations. My grandmother had my mother at 37, and my dad's mother had him at 34, and both of these ages were unusually old for the early 1900s. Then my mother had me at 43, also very different back in the 50s. So my parents did the Charleston, and my uncles went off the fight in World War I. My grandparents were already in their 50s and 60s during those years.

[Absaroka]

There have been some topics again on how to be a woman and so on, such as the "best advice on how to be a woman" topic in the dear GG forum. Since this reflects a lot of my thoughts and feelings on the subject I thought I would revive the topic. I'd especially like to hear from some of the GGs here.

Absaroka

[Stormy(SO)]

Because I am a woman it is difficult to tell someone how to be a woman. I just am. I was raised by a very reserved German woman (I was adopted when I was two months old). She would say things like, "if you're going to cry, go to your room! We don't cry in public!!" Laughing however was ok (go figure). Little girls were to be seen and not heard and I attended a Lutheran parochial school. I was, and am, outspoken, fun, a Capricorn born under the sign of the grand cross (for those of you that understand astrology) which basically means business first, serious, silly, rebellious, confident, trendy, inquisitive, intelligent and can be meaner than a snake. The flip side of that snake is that I can be generous to a fault. We are everything on a moments notice - depending on what the situation calls for. So there you have it - not one step closer to how to be a woman except the advice I posted before - be yourself, watch and learn.

Go sit in a mall - you will see every "type" of woman alive. Rude, obnoxious, shy, friendly, well dressed, some very masculine looking, some very slutty looking, some cheerleader types, some with serious attitude, others you won't notice at all. We just are. We really don't think about it or over analyze it - no reason to.

Stormy

[Absaroka]

Every year or two the subject of would you want to be a woman comes up and why. So I thought I'd revive this thread yet again because for me this says an awful lot about what I think being a woman really means. I don't live in the north woods or anywhere near it but I look at my wife and how she feels about our family and our children and she has it in her if need be to be every bit as tough as my grandmother. That women endure beyond all others because without them there is no more humanity is what I think sums up being a woman more than anything. Because sure children need fathers and after all men are needed to get pregnant, modern science not withstanding. Women live longer than men for a simple reason, they are the stronger of the two genders. No disrespect to men intended in any way.

Comments from any of the relative newcomers to this forum anyone?

Absraoka

[Ann Stef]

My aunt had a similiar life on the farm. she took care of everythink around the house, veggie garden, killing and plucking chickens, all while in a dress.

My uncle had the heavy job, pulling calves out of cows at birth, plus the heavy duty of running a dairy farm.

[Absaroka]

In reference to Ralitsa's thread in another forum I thought I'd resurrect this. Thoughts?

[Andrea Elise]

My family were farmers, dairy men and loggers. My great aunts and grandmothers all had lives that required hard work and long days.

I would think that if any were to answer the question of "What does it feel like to be a woman?", candidly, they would have replied that it just feels the same as like anyone else. Or, maybe, as my father used to say "Ah, you think too much!"

Why do I want to be a woman? It feels like a more natural thing. I don't believe I would gain anything other than inner peace and comfort. I am not given to weakness or in need of protection. Fully capable of taking care of myself. I want and need a more beautiful, gentler life and I work toward that every day.

Andrea Elise

[Carolynn]

I did have the pleasure of spending afternoons at my grandmother's (my paternal grandmother) house, talking to her about her family, her early (14 yrs old) marriage (she was the second oldest of 9 kids and wanted out of the madness after her eldest sister married before her) and what her life had been like. She was born in 1901, part Choctaw/Cherokee (1/2 at least) and the recipient of much lore about how to survive hard times from her mother and grandmother. She was tough, and always busy. During the influenza epidemic after WW1, she nursed her entire family through their illnesses, while being so very ill herself, but she had the fibre in her to put it aside and do for the others. She described dragging them on blankets to the spring house to immerse them in cool water to keep their fevers down, milking the cows that would likely have died if she hadn't, and fed the milk to the family members as they began to be able to take nourishment and the spoiled milk to the hogs. As they got better, so did she, so some members of her family said she never had the flu since she took care of them. They did know about her miscarriage though, likely caused by her fever from the flu. She was so out of it, she has never recalled where she buried the stillborn child.

She married my grandfather, almost 8 years her senior, when she was 14, and she had her first daughter when she was 20, (though she said she had a miscarriage during the flu, which she had to handle alone as the others were too sick to care). She was a farmwife and mother, she milked cows, canned fruit and veggies, and even meat, chopped wood and made do with surprisingly little to keep her family fed. She taught my sister and I the safe wild plants to gather in the spring, to make salads or greens with. She could tan a hide, wring the neck of a chicken or duck, or shoot and butcher a hog, make sausage with a hand cranked meat grinder (until she had kids and grandkids to do the cranking for her). She made lard and lye soap (important to keep those straight, ya know) in her black kettle in the back yard from the tallow of some of the hogs. In her garden was 4 types of corn, some of it a small eared Indian corn like popcorn that she brought to western Oklahoma from their home in Eastern Oklahoma and Arkansas and it was ready early in the spring. She served us all corn in the milk, as roasting ears, and pounded cracked dried corn from the fields and smoke house, making hominy and grits. Her hollow log corn mortar was always by the house, and the stone and log pestal were heavy when our childish arms tried to pick it up.

She would send us out scavenging the heads of sunflowers and singe the petals and heads to recover the seeds, and she mixed cattail pollen with pancake or corncake batter to give them a pleasant nutty taste.

In short, she was a blend of Native American and EuroAmerican in her knowledge and skills, and was a wise and empathic woman when she needed to be. She was also very subservient to my Grandfather, and she worried that he would be disappointed in her if she bought something for herself. We all regretted that. She deserved so much more.

She was just 5' 4 " in ht., physically, but I always knew her to be a giant of strength when needed. During the depression, she made meals for her family, often out of very little (her recipie for vinegar pie using black strap molasses is amazing, always tasted a bit like chess pie to me) and ruhbarb pie and tomato preserves were pleasures to consume.

I do miss her, and I miss the opportunity to ask her more.

Carolynn

[Ralitsa]

Maybe we have too much tendency to think that women are fundamentally different from men. I'm not sure they really are, in the ways that matter. Women today have some tendency to be frivolous and lazy because they can afford to be, but men do as well, at least as much. Years ago women were tough and strong because they needed to be, and so were men. I think in every era, people do what they need to do to survive. My mom is tough and very matter-of-fact, not at all like the younger generation. I would not say that she is tougher or harder working than my dad was, they each pulled their weight.
I guess it's easy to forget that there was a time when women had to work just as hard as men, and that they were perfectly capable of doing it. But it wasn't so long ago.
So I don't understand at all why some people care that I like to dress as a woman. It doesn't make me weak and frail, I don't accept that women are necessarily weak and frail. I like what Andrea Alise said about "what does it feel like to be a woman". When I wear a dress I don't think that I feel like a woman, I just feel happy. And I don't even know if "feeling like a woman" is anything other than some modern construct that we believe because we watch too much TV. Of course there are physical differences between the sexes, but that doesn't really translate into character differences. I think there is more difference between individuals than there is generally between the sexes.