Grandma Remembers: Silent and Strict

Flo interviews Grandma

My grandma’s got better ratings than CNN. Here’s why — she’s got real stories.

I asked my grandma about her dad this week — the man who ran the farm in Homestead, who raised five hundred baby chicks every spring and kept a close eye on everything and everyone. He was silent and strict. He kept a close eye on us, she said. Not just to make sure the work got done — he cared about us. He needed us too.

When her oldest brother went into service during the war, it fell to her, her sister Vivian, and another brother to keep the farm going and care for their mom.

Her dad worked hard. Every spring he’d drive to Green Bay and bring home five hundred baby chicks. They’d go into brooder coops — three of them — and my grandma and her siblings would feed them, water them, protect them from owls and foxes and other predators. He also had about thirty milking cows. Sometimes a fox would get in and kill fifteen chicks at a time. Sometimes the chicks would crowd together and smother themselves from fear. Sometimes the cold would come and someone would forget to shut the doors, and chicks would die.

Her dad didn’t punish her for those failures. Just a look was enough. You knew you’d let him down. That look taught her more than any words could.

Her mom was easygoing. She made beautiful pies. She was a good mom. When the stroke came and she couldn’t walk anymore, she never complained. Not once. My grandma didn’t fully understand that then — she was just a kid doing her best to keep things running. But she understands it now.

Between her silent, strict dad and her easygoing, never-complaining mom, she learned the same thing they both lived: accept what comes to you, and do your best.

That’s the whole story right there. That’s Florence County before the war.