A Stitch in Time

Dear Diary,

Whereas I have lots of things from my mother's mother, who lived with us when I was growing up, I have very little from my father's mother, who died when I was only seven. In fact, these are the only two things I have to remember her by. A crocheted doily she made and a old, badly damaged, photograph.

My memories too of her are few and far between. I do remember I had a rather odd nickname for her. She was "Grammy in the trailer" to differentiate her from my other grammy. She did live in a little mobile home and raised rabbits. She lived across from the Lithuanian Club where she had the wedding reception for her third marriage.

She spoke broken English because she had immigrated from Europe. My other grandmother's family had been in America for 12 generations. Quite a contrast. I often wonder how it was for her, coming to a new country, not speaking the language, raising 8 children. A ninth child had died on the crossing and was buried at sea.

I would love to know more about this side of my family but two world wars have wiped out most of the records in that part of the world. During WWII my father sometimes did translation work with the allied troops and met an uncle, his mother's brother, who was then in the Russian army but then the iron curtain came down after the war and he too was lost to history.

Some stories, I guess, will never be told and we are left with only questions.