On becoming a Grandma

Any woman who has been a mother of teenage boys may relate to spending some serious time hoping that the title of "Grandmother" would not be bestowed on them any time soon. By the time my boys had entered their thirties, I was more sanguine about the whole thing, and it being outside the sphere of my control anyways, pressed on to worry about a myriad of other things.

When our youngest hinted that a surprise might be imminent, the news took a bit to sink in. It is kind of nice that it takes nine months; gives you time to get good and worked up. My daughter-in-law was patient with the tummy patting and my son began to adjust to the back seat he will now be taking to someone as yet unseen. That big day arrived and we saw and held him for the first time. There was a sense of the familiar as I saw my son in his wee face, but an unexpectedly overwhelming feeling that was new and different. It was of course, joy, and love, but more profound and elemental too; a sense of continuity, of those past and present coming together in this little person.

As the keeper of the family tree, I probably spend as much time looking back as in the present, so my perspective might reflect that. Something about being a grandmother made me pause to think about the women of my family and how they may have shaped me. 

My great grandmother Margaret Nixon Thornton, (light dress, bottom right) was born in 1853 and was a first generation Irish Canadian, her parents immigrating from Northern Ireland in the early 1800's. She was one in a family of twelve children, and one of only three who lived into the 1900's. I never saw a photograph of her until my dad passed away and a few pictures and tintypes were discovered in a family Bible.

Great Grandfather Francis Leonard Thornton, Great Uncle Allanson, Great Grandmother Margaret

My great grandmother Flora McEachern Paul was born in 1848 on the Isle of Islay, Scotland, and immigrated to Canada in 1858. They settled up around Georgian Bay along with many others who had immigrated with their families at the same time. They formed many small communities and spoke Gaelic as they always had. Flora bore twelve children and eleven survived to adulthood which is pretty astonishing. I may not know what Flora looked like but I have visited her grave at the East Nottawasaga Presbyterian Cemetery, on land which the Pauls separated from their acres for the purpose of a meeting place and a burying place. Not every immigrant's story ended in survival or prosperity.

My paternal grandma, Isabella Jane Paul Thornton, was one of Flora's older daughters, and was born in 1882 during a short period when the family lived on Manitoulin Island. This photo was taken in 1910 and Grandma is holding my father, who was their firstborn. Dad was only 3 pounds when he was born and Grandma kept him warm in the drawer of her stove. I think it is a miracle that he survived, but he lived to his 90th year.

By the time I came along, Grandma was 75 and she and Grandpa were living out their retirement in a little town called Beeton. I thought it was a magical place with a swing in the barn and rooms to explore. I loved her red kitchen and the snapdragons in the garden. Grandma always set a formal table and served tea biscuits that she had baked and pears that she had canned that had a slice of orange in them. It took a while to drive to Grandma's house so that was part of the adventure.

Grandma was 94 when she died and I was still a teenager. It seems unfair to me that I could not know her when I was an adult. My older brother Alan, and his wife Barbara, used to go and spend weekends in Beeton, visiting with my grandparents, and helping out if they could. I wish I could have done that too; I have so many things I would like to ask her. I have one remaining aunt and whenever we speak, my Aunt Heather always says how she loved my Grandma and that my Uncle Frank was a "lovely man" just like his father. A sweet tribute, I think.

My mom, Lillian Catherine Downey Thornton, was born in New Glasgow, Nova Scotia in 1917, in the middle of the Great War.

This is the only picture that my mom had of herself as a child. I imagine that this photo was taken for my grandfather to carry with him overseas, but it essentially tells a more significant story about two sisters; an older sister, Marguerite, standing watch over her younger sister Lillian, and they are alone.  

My grandfather, Patrick Downey was born in Newfoundland and came to the mainland to work in the mines like many other young men. He married Elma Blanche Rudolph and they had three children, and their last, my mom, was born while he was at war. Patrick did not come home from the war, thus my mother never knew him. When Patrick died, my grandmother, who had recently lost her oldest child as well, took the two girls and went to her mother in Sydney Mines. Tragically my great grandmother Margaret, was not well, and died in October of 1919. Elma having no resources at this time, did the only thing at her disposal, and put the girls in care, with the intent of finding a solution to her poverty and then retrieving her children. It did not work out that way. By the time she was settled in a home with support, the children did not know her and the system refused to return the children to her care. The impression I had was that my mom and aunt had been abandoned and were in an orphanage. Mom rarely spoke of it.

My dad was an "Upper Canadian" and took Mom away from the East Coast to the cold and unfriendly north in Toronto, but Mom always wrote to the foster families that she had stayed with, and I met them on visits "home". Many years later I took the names of my mother's parents and began to build a family tree. I found that Mom had Huguenot roots with ancestors that came to Canada in the 1700's. I was also fortunate to email my mother's cousin for a little over a year, and hear a story from my grandmother Elma's perspective. It was one of sorrow and loss and the missing little girls. No one knew what had happened to my mom and my aunt and she was stunned to hear from me. She tried to fill in a family for me, and I grieved that my mother could have met her grandfather, aunts and uncles had she known. I heard how my grandmother cared for her niece and also adopted a boy to care for, and it was clear to her family that she always mourned the loss of her girls, and that they were never far from her thoughts.

Mom raised six children of her own and as well had a busy church life. I remember the smell of coffee as the harbinger of impending company. We had foreign missionaries stay in our home and I still have my mom's guest book that documents those visits. She learned to drive and we had many adventures in her black Rambler. Mom was generous with her time and resources and she wrote hundreds of letters over her lifetime. About herself, she was intensely private. 

As time went by, it was all about the grandchildren; every birthday was remembered and cards were sent. She knew where everybody was and what was going on in their life. Seeing them became more and more important.

As I was the caboose of the family train, I spent more time with my mother, and my experience of her was different than my older brothers and sister. I cared for my parents into their last years, and they passed away within three months of each other, having spent over sixty years together.

My mother-in-law is very special to me. I think she is the definition of feisty, although on occasion we have been known to insert the word stubborn. She raised five boys on her own, made a living cleaning houses, walked everywhere in a city where all the streets go uphill, and at 94 still lives on her own on the fourth floor of a walk-up apartment. She has been my mom in the twenty years since I lost my own. I am grateful.

Now I am a grandma. What have I learned from these extraordinary women that I can pass on to my grandchildren? 

You can survive change.

You can thrive anywhere.

Give what you can.

Love who is put in your life.

Be only yourself.

Some things in life will hurt, so cry, then go on.

Have fun and make time to laugh.

I want Grandma's house to be a place of love and welcome; that Grandma will always be there with a hug. And that while my grandchildren will keep me young and in tune with the changing world, that I will show them what is valuable that came from the world I knew. And hopefully I can teach them how to grow older with grace and a touch of spice.

my Grandma's house