Grandmother Brown loved to talk...and her penchant for liking to talk was well-known throughout the neighborhood and beyond. I have seen people cross the street to avoid getting caught up in a conversation which could last an hour or more. And although one might think it would be easy to discontinue the conversation and walk away they didn't take into account the death-like grip that grandmother Brown had on their hand, arm, sleeve, collar....
We lived with Grandmother Brown. She and her daughter Lillian lived in a basement kitchen and had a bedroom upstairs, situated next to where I and my siblings slept. Three of us slept in the same bed...we sweltered in the summer and froze in the winter.The room was attic-like, situated under the house's eave.
Of course, to get to our room we had to pass Grandmother Brown's door and she was already in bed for the night and watching the door like a cat eyeing a bowl of cream. We tried many ways to get past her watchful eye; oh yes, we tried. Walking on tiptoe and not breathing was one way, but useless. She would call to whoever was that night's victim and as the victim sat on her bed, blocking her view, the rest of us slipped into our room. We all had our turn. We loved our grandmother but being young, we lived in the present and didn't relish listening to stories about death, dying as well as the past. There were times when we would climb over the stair railing and make a dash for our room and if Nanny wondered why she hadn't seen us and happened to peak into the room, we pretended we were asleep.
Grandmother Brown was very nosy as well and had to know everything about everyone. Although she and her daughter had a kitchen of their own on the first floor and did their own cooking there she wasn't content until she found out what we were having for supper. She had to know!! And my father didn't want her to know. He felt this was an invasion on his privacy and I have to agree. As we all sat down to the table to eat our supper we would hear the steps on the stairs and we would all look at our father's forehead to see the large blue vein that popped out there. His face would turn a fiery red and we expected at any moment to see the vein burst all over our food.So we held our breaths.
The steps would stop just outside the kitchen door. The bottom half of the door was wooden with a small pane of glass at the top. There was a curtain on the glass which impeded grandmother Brown's view.So she took care of that. Slowly opening the door, she would put her hand and arm inside and actually pull back the curtain, close the door again and stand there until she knew every bit of food that was on the table.
By this time Dad was livid and poor mom would be in an awful state. One would think she'd be used to it but she never did reach the point where she could ignore it.I often wished I could have told my grandmother to leave us all alone and allow us to eat in peace but of course if I had said those words to her I would have been punished.
So there was plenty of tension in my home while growing up and it never did get any better. Despite the tension and arguments that nanny cost my family we never showed her any disrespect. Even when she'd grab our hands in a vice-like grip and talked and talked while we were eager to go play outdoors we stood there until she saw fit to set us free. Grandmother died when she was in her 90's. I'm certain she was talking when she finally drew her last breath and that some people in heaven can be seen hopping from cloud to cloud trying to avoid her.
