Have you called your granny lately?

I’ve been writing about grandmas today, so I thought I would post a little of what I wrote and remind you to give yours a call.

My Grandma Wilt was a garment worker. That’s her in the front row next to my mom and dad.

In the summers growing up in Versailles, Ohio, she sewed the pockets on Lee bibs. “The more pieces you completed, the more you got paid,” she told me. She didn’t like the job and – to no real surprise – the money wasn’t very good. What is a surprise is that I never knew this. I traveled around the world to meet garment workers and here my very own grandma was one.

She’s not your typical grandma. For instance, she has seen every Death Wish Charles Bronson has made and she’s a fan of Walker Texas Ranger. But like any grandma, she is beaming with pride on a day like this.

Annie’s grandmas are on the other side of the aisle. Betty remembers the Great Depression and to this day it pains her to throw anything away. She has enough canned and frozen goods to survive a nuclear winter. Back then recycle and reuse wasn’t an environmental practice, but purely an economic one. In fact, Annie’s other grandma, Clara, used to make clothes from chicken feed bags for her family and herself.

 
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