Grandma's Lap...a recipe for love in any family.......... Recipe two

My strongest memory of my Grandma Thelma was when I was 3 and half.  My momma was in the hospital, I got a sister,  she was to be my Sissy, and to this day she is.  We got to stay with my Grandma and Grandpa, I always speak of my mom's parents as my Grandma, but the reality is that I do not have one single memory of my Grandpa Martin.  One short year after this memory I am telling my grandparents were killed in a car wreck while en route to my Great Grandpa Glassey's funeral. 

My Grandma Thelma was the epitome of a Lady, she always wore dresses and one of those old fashion wrap around aprons, maybe it is just in my memory.  I do remember her in a waitress outfit as well because she was a waitress at the Cosey Café in Hamilton, but for the most part she wore an apron as I remember her.  She had lovely red hair like Sister and Red do.  She was a tall thin woman as I remember, I guess 5'4" can be tall if you are only 4.  She was soft spoken and full of hugs.  The memory I remember most was just before Sister was born she had Silver and Red on one leg of her lap and me on the other, she looked down at us with love and said, "where am I going to put another one?"  We all laughed at her.  She had wanted several children but only had two, my momma and her brother.  I remember the last time I saw my Grandmother.  She and Grandpa would be off to her dad's funeral the next day and we weren't to go see them that last day but I so wanted to see them that I had cried so mom and dad had relented and taken us to say goodbye.  The Lord be praised the we did.  I don't remember the visit but I remember the goodbye hugs and the yellow paint out lining my grandma as she waved at the screen door as we walked down the path to the car to leave.  We never saw her again.  My momma was devastated and I am not sure she has ever been the same again.

My Grandma Gladys was physically the total opposite of my Grandma Thelma, they had been friends I know but don't remember well enough to know if they were close.  Grandma Gladys was 5'1' and pleasingly plump.  She was soft and squeezable.  She was not all that cuddly, not in the same way as Grandma Thelma was, we were grandma Thelma's only grandchildren, Grandma Gladys had lots.  My Aunt Lynne is only 4 and half years older than me and the bottom of a stair step of kids, so like me she had over lapping grands and kids.  She once told my mom that she simply just didn't have the time to be the dotting grandma.  I am not sure that is true as implemented in her actions.  I don't recall sitting on her lap all the often because she was chasing one of my siblings or working hard at something but she had time to talk to you.  She didn't talk to you like you were beneath her, she talked to you, not at or down to you.  She taught me that I could use my voice and not violence to help with my siblings, and I had lots of them.  She filled a room with her love, she was the calm before any storm she was in, she was God's own and I can't remember her with out her love of God leading the way. She was so like my dad, or maybe he is a little like her. She loved my momma and I think because my momma lost her momma, Thelma, my grandma Gladys always sided with her even when she was wrong just to try and give her the loving support she had lost so young.  My Grandma Gladys journaled all of her life, and maybe that is why I have come to love it so, if you can call blogging journaling, and I think maybe you can.  I do remember once in a dark of the afternoon, when she had done all of her work she had time to let me sit on her lap just because, and maybe that was all the love I ever needed, she was special that way.  She died when I was in my senior year of high school, she had had ovarian cancer for 5 years.  She had been give 6 months to live, when diagnosed, but she lived 5 years, the last year in agony never complaining. She knew we would miss her so and that she had to endure such pain for us all, especially my Grandpa Jim, to let her go home to Glory.  She loved us through her pain, more than she loved herself, she was a wondrous soul. 

I lost both of my Grands by the time  I was an adult, but oh the memories and the examples that they left me with to share with my own are unaccountable and priceless.  I can cuddle a baby in that swaying way that only a mother and a grandmother know.  I can have a whole lap of babies, young and old, and still have room for one more, even if they are the neighbor's child down the street.   I know how to give a swat then a little bum needs one and wipe a tear when they are streaming down a sad little face.  I know the benefit of a sharp word and the softness of a whispered caress.  I can cook and feed an army in chaotic whirlwind of people. I have the patience to teach the nearly unteachable.  I know the joy of the Lord from the reading of the word.  I can share a story, find joy in book and write a tale all because I had the examples in these ladies who were my Grandmothers.

Baby Shrimp Salad----- Recipe two

Chopped Iceberg lettuce
Two chopped tomatoes
One sliced cucumber
One can of tiny baby shrimp

Dress with following dressing just before serving.

1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 tbsp. ketchup
1 tbsp. relish (dill or sweet to taste)

Mix together well.  Serve in salad bowls.


I don't have even one other memory of a recipe that my Grandma Thelma made except for the salad's she made especially for my brother Red.  He was only 2 and half when she died but he did love the little tiny shrimp she would put in the salad.  My Grandma Thelma was by all my memories a lot like Mrs. Cleaver  she made one pork chop for each person, a veggie and a potato, and each had a little salad in a bowl to the side, a nice napkin and silverware all in there place.  Large families don't eat like that as there is just not enough room on the table.  Grandma also had a nice little dessert after dinner and coffee.  I am sure that I missed something very special not getting to know her better, and do have sympathy for the sorrow her loss caused my mom.  I do cherish that I did get to know my Grandma Gladys much better and will forever be grateful for her love and just her special personage in my life.  Sadly my younger sibling knew neither, they are the lesser for not having known either.