Memories of Grandma Heiller ~ November 23, 1983

David Heiller

Our favorite photo of Grandma Heiller. 
Thank you Jeanne Roster!

THINK OF Α SONG FOR this season, an old favorite, not something that you might hear on a popular radio station. It’s too early for Christmas carols, and there’s no national holiday to sing about. But there is one song that fits Thanksgiving time, and it’s been on my mind this Sunday, November 20, 1983.

“Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go. The horse knows the way to carry the sleigh through the white and drifting snow. Over the river and through the woods, oh how the wind doth blow. It bites the nose and chills the toes, as over the ground we go.”

I’m thinking of that song today because I’m thinking of my grandmother, Edna Heiller. She shared many Thanksgivings with her eight children, with her 29 grandchildren, and even these last few years with her 17 great grandchildren. Sometimes she would be the hostess, and we’d all converge on her house, everyone bringing something special—cranberries, hot dish, vegetables, pies (pumpkin and apple). There would be coffee and beer, which the men would drink alternately through the afternoon and long evening. Tables would be zigzagged everywhere, covered with linen taken out for this once-a-year time. Kids would sit in the kitchen, teenagers would sit at their own tables, and the aunts and uncles and young adults would sit at the longest table, along with Grandma.

Grandma didn’t dominate the gathering. She didn’t bustle back and forth, entertaining, cooking, talking all at the same time. That’s something you might see on TV, but not many grandmas are really like that. Grandma was more of a presence. She was there, overseeing things without saying much. Asking if the potatoes were done and all the lumps mashed out. Wondering why Donny was late coming from the farm, but not worrying, having lived on a farm herself most of her life. Telling about some old time when there was a foot of snow on the ground many Thanksgivings ago. Watching the kids, and the grandkids and the great-grandkids, and trying to keep them all straight.

Mostly though, people would come to her at Thanksgiving, especially these later years. They would sit by her because they could talk to her, and she would listen. She seldom judged, and I never heard her condemn anyone, even when others in the family did. She was strong and content, and maybe that’s why people were drawn to her. Maybe that’s why I think she personified Thanksgiving.

Grandma was special to me, just like your grandmother or grandfather is or was probably special to you. I used to ask her questions, lots of questions, often the same ones, when I’d come home from college or work to visit. She was not a great story teller, but maybe that made her more believable. She would not say, “Did I ever tell you about the winter of 1933...?” Instead, I would have to ask her about these things. Then she would tell me. Like the time a rattlesnake bit their neighbor in the arm so they filled him with whiskey while they watched his arm swell up and take on a color just like a diamondback rattler, and the man lived, and the whiskey saved him, and every year his arm swelled up the same time, looked just like a rattler, Or the time at a county fair in the 1930s, during the depression, when a man came by selling ice cream for 10 cents, and they didn’t have 10 cents for the ice cream, not even 10 cents, and grandpa wanted to buy that ice cream so badly.

The only time I ever heard Grandma complain was about eight years ago, when I asked about living alone all these years, since 1953 when grandpa died. She said she didn’t mind, that she wanted to live alone and raise a garden, and not be a burden to anyone. And she did just that, so it must have been true. But she said something else, something on another level. “A mother takes care of her family all her life; but the family can’t take care of the mother.” I’ve never forgotten that, and I don’t think I ever will.

I’m telling all this, and maybe boring you as I do, because you may have a grandparent that’s special to you. You don’t have to go tell her that in words maybe, but I hope you realize it, think about it, and show it. I have in the past, as much as I could, and today I’m thinking it wasn’t enough. Maybe it never is.

Grandma Heiller died this morning.