by Trisha Mcfadden

Created on: December 02, 2009

One of a Kind

My grandmother was born in December of 1901. She was raised with her two sisters in an affluent town outside of Philadelphia. Her father was a photographer who took pictures of the wealthy socialites. The stories she told of her teen years conjured up visions of a pretty girl with many suitors.

She married when she was twenty-three years old and was widowed by the age of thirty-one. My grandfather died from tuberculosis and prior to his death spent his years after the diagnosis in a hospital facility. She had one son, my dad.

After her husband died, she and her son moved in with her recently divorced sister and her three children. Her father also lived with them. My great-aunt took over the household choirs and my grandmother went to work.

She was hired at by a large accounting firm is Philadelphia. It was no easy task to get to work. She had to walk two miles to the train station and then six blocks to her office. She left for work early and got home late. When she was hired she only knew short hand, when she retired at age sixty-five it was necessary for the company to hire three people to replace her.

She remarried once when my Dad was sixteen but it didn't work out and she divorced five years later. When my Father enlisted in the army, she moved into an apartment in the city for an easier commute to work and remained there until she died.

My grandmother was never lonely. She had her bridge club and her lady friends. She also had a male companion named Pete who became like a grandfather to us. She never married him, stating they were both too set in their ways. But they traveled extensively and she was by his side when he took his last breath.

I can still remember Sunday dinners at her place. As you stepped out of the elevator, the delicious aroma from her apartment greeted you in the hallway. There were eight of us at dinner but I don't recall ever feeling cramped in her three room apartment. She was a gracious host and she taught not only my mother but my two sisters and I how to make your guest feel welcomed.

As I child I was in awe of my Granny. She was younger than all the other grandmoms, or at least she seemed so. She had jet-black hair and wore stylish clothing. Though she never learned to drive, she could get anywhere on public transportation so she didn't have to rely on anyone to get her where she wanted to go. Miss Independent!

When I was in my teens I would go to lunch with her once a month. How I loved that

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