Not all Grandmas are the same.
My Grandma Woodworth was always very formal. For instance, you were expected to knock on the door before coming in. Why, sometimes
she even kept the doors locked! Since she lived real close to us, on the Black Walnut Farm, I often used to stop there on
my way home from school. She may have been formal, but she kept cookies on hand and she loved me. I loved her, too.
Now, with Grandma Todd, there was no
formality, and there were no locked doors. She even seemed half irritated if you knocked and made her come to open the door.
She always greeted us with a big hug and a “why didn’t you come right on in?”
Grandma and Grandpa Todd had a 160-acre
farm. They lived on the same farm for at least forty years. Once my folks let me spend a whole week with Grandma and Grandpa
Todd. I learned more about them in that week than I did all the rest of the time they lived—and they lived a long time.
They had been married 75 years when Grandma died at 95 years of age. Grandpa lived on to 101.
In a way, I thought they acted like a
couple of big kids. They loved to listen to the radio. There wasn’t any TV then, and even radio was kind of crude by
today’s standards. Some of the programs they listened to were: Jack Armstrong,
the All-American Boy; Little Orphan Annie; The Great Gildersleeve; Fibber McGee and Mollie; Amos ‘n’ Andy; Lum
and Abner; Little Jimmy; and several more. This was their entertainment. There
wasn’t any other. I doubt they ever saw a movie or a stage play.
Anyway, back to the week I spent with
them. The first night—and every night—after the supper dishes were washed, dried and put away, Grandma started
preparing buckwheat pancakes for breakfast the next day. Grandma and Grandpa didn’t feel as though they had eaten a
proper breakfast unless it included buckwheat pancakes. (Dad must not have cared all that much for buckwheat pancakes, because
I don’t remember our having had them at home. White flour and corn flour pancakes, yes; buckwheat, no.) She mixed up
the batter, including yeast, in a big pan and set it on the floor behind the pot-bellied heating stove and left it overnight.
She made it all from scratch. There may have been a “starter” involved, but I can’t remember for sure.
The next morning the batter looked like
a huge loaf of bread. Grandma started working with it right about the time she figured Grandpa was finished feeding the livestock
and milking the cows. While thick slabs of smoked ham simmered in a skillet on a back plate of the big wood burning kitchen
stove, Grandma baked the pancakes. Great stacks of pancakes! In order to keep them hot as she baked more, they were put on
a big plate in the warmer. At the first sound of Grandpa coming in the back door, Grandma started cracking eggs and putting
them in a frying pan--six of them, two for each of us.
After he washed his hands and face, Grandpa
was ready to eat. The big foaming buckets of milk Grandpa had carried in didn’t get separated until after he had eaten
a hearty breakfast.
“Well, Teddy, I’m about starved.
How about you?”
“I was beginning to think you’d
never finish chores. Everything smells so good I can hardly wait.”
“Well, why didn’t you come
on out and help me then?”
Grandma got into the conversation. “Joe,
let the boy alone. Besides, he was helping me. Weren’t you, Teddy?”
“Sure was, Grandpa. I set the table.”
Finally, we sat down together at the
breakfast table. Not only did everything smell good, but it looked good, and more importantly, everything tasted good. Grandma
and Grandpa had coffee while I had “sweet milk.” That’s fresh, whole milk. (I don’t think we’d
heard much about pasteurization at that time.) I made a real “pig” of myself. First, two big pancakes. Then gobs
of fresh churned butter. On top of that came hot, thick brown sugar syrup. After I ate half of the two pancakes, Grandma put
a slice of ham on my plate and then two eggs on top of the ham.
Every morning, the same thing! About
the only deviation in the breakfast menu was the occasional substitution of thick slices of smoked bacon for the ham. Equally
delicious! No doubt Grandma Todd fixed an exceptional dinner and supper as well, but it is the breakfast that stands out in
my memory. She was one fine cook. I wouldn’t have minded a bit if Grandma had asked Mom to let me stay there permanently.
But, she didn’t ask, and it’s just as well—Mom wouldn’t have let me, anyway.
