My Grandma was born in 1899 on a farm in Iowa. She married my Grandpa when she was 14 and he was 44. Honestly that was not that uncommon back then. Especially if the man was financially secure and the woman was from a poor family. They moved to Oregon shortly after that.
Fast forward several years.
My Grandpa had died at the age of 99. He died from a blood clot in his lung. I don’t remember much about him because my parents adopted both my brother and I when my mother was in her early 30’s and my father was in his early 40’s. What I do remember is one day my mother told us that Grandpa Jim had gone to heaven. I really didn’t grasp what she meant because I was so young. I figured he had gone up to visit and would be back soon.
When it came to holiday dinners, Grandma didn’t hold anything back. She started preparations a good week or two in advance. She made everything from scratch including the cranberry sauce. The meal would consist of the usual turkey with dressing. But in addition there was mashed potatoes and giblet gravy, candied yams, creamed peas with pearl onions, homemade rolls with churned butter, a garnish plate with sweet pickles and black olives and pimento cheese stuffed celery sticks and finally dessert.
And oh the dessert! Pies pies pies. Pumpkin, pecan, and mincemeat. With hand whipped cream and hand churned ice cream. Grandma used real honest to goodness mincemeat that she canned using the deer necks we would bring her from hunting deer in the fall. Still to this day I can hear her telling us “If you get a deer don’t forget to bring me the neck” and we always did. I will never forget her mincemeat pies and cookies.
My grandma was a pusher at holiday meals…a food pusher that is. I always felt that even if any of us was 1000 pounds overweight she would still think we were not eating enough. And she loved to serve us. She would take a bowl of something off the side board and give each of us however much we wanted. The only thing that stayed on the dinner table was the gravy, the turkey and the garnish plate. When she saw someone’s plate getting empty she would start the round of food again.
After a while she would get up from her chair, grab another bowl of something and announce “Anyone want any more…*whatever she happened to be holding*?” “Oh no, Grandma” we would reply, “couldn’t eat another bite” But that answer was never good enough so she would start in “Robert? Do you want any more?” “Jimmy? Do you want any more” “Ed? Do you want any more?” “Marie? Do you want any more” and on down the line until she had asked all ten of us by name if we wanted any more. When we all, one by one, replied no thank you, then she would snort “OK then. But if you go away hungry it’s your own fault!” Apparently she felt she would not have been happy until we had to be rolled out the door.
We lost Grandma on Thanksgiving day four months shy of her 101 birthday. My family is all gone now. Just my cousin and I. But I can relive these memories each year when the holidays roll around.
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Reviewed by Ronald Hull
12/3/2023
What a wonderful true story about the way that most family thanksgivings used to be. When I saw the word "pusher" I was expecting something dramatic, as in fiction, because the word is usually associated with those who sell drugs and keep people addicted.
But the way you describe your grandmother fills the bill of someone who would even push food to someone who was addicted to food. My mother was like that. Unfortunately, she later confessed that she tended to eat any leftover that was not eaten by a member of the family after being brought back for lunches, etc. until it was gone.
Like your grandmother, mom made most everything from scratch except for a couple of things where she cheated, like using canned pumpkin for her pumpkin pies rather than starting from a pumpkin. She stopped making the lavish Thanksgiving dinners in her early 80s and died two years ago at 95, missed by probably a thousand family and friends.
