One final lesson from Grandma ~ February 2, 1989

David Heiller

Grandma Schnick taught us many things.

Grandma taught us to love Colby cheese, long-horn style, cheese that broke like a jigsaw puzzle in little hands. She taught us to love hot dish and hominy and soft ice cream from her old refrigerator, and Jello with apricots on Sunday when company came, “Eyeball Jello” we called it, and chicken which we had to eat all the meat off the bone the way Grandma said Grandpa always did.

Stella Schnick a.k.a Grandma Schnick
September 3, 1895- March 8, 1989

Grandma taught us to play cribbage, and though she always pegged a double-run-of-eight every hand, she let us win often enough to keep playing.

She taught us to watch baseball games on her Zenith TV while she chattered on the couch in the background and we groaned at Sandy Koufax throwing a 2-0 shutout in the seventh game of the ‘65 Series.

She taught us Mother Goose, reading while we sat on her lap in the rocking chair from a thick book without covers which she kept on the bottom of her treadle sewing machine.

Grandma Schnick and Noah

Grandma taught us to say things like “For Heaven’s sake,” and “For goodness sake,” and “For pity sake,” when our friends were saying other phrases like, well, yes, we said them too.

She taught us to take care of tools, to put hammers and saws back in their places, to keep a whetstone handy to touch up the scythe like she said Grandpa used to do.

Grandma taught us to give a slice of bread and an egg to the bums who slept in the fire hall across the street at night and called on our house, an easy mark, in the morning.

She taught us to watch Jeopardy, and Hollywood Squares, and to listen to Paul Harvey every noon on the radio after the whistle rang.

Grandma taught us to say “Thank you” and “Please” and to talk to old people, because she always told us when some young person would not stop and talk to her, and when they would, until we knew which was the proper thing to do, until we knew the difference between a polite person and a “whippersnapper.”

She taught us to listen for her come creaking down the 17 steps from her home upstairs, then hit the porch with her click-clack-clickety-clack hard heels across the cement porch, sparks a-flying, or so we’d imagine.

Grandma taught us how a mother helps her daughter without a husband raise eight kids, ages one to 10.

She taught us what a grandmother was all about.

She taught us as children, and as adults, and she taught our children too. For 93 years, she taught.

She taught us each something different, yet she taught us one thing the same: she taught us how to love, and so how to live. Now, as we kneel one by one like pilgrims at her side and hold her thin hand, and stare at her china face and see her eyes glisten and her mouth smile slightly for one last hug and kiss, Grandma has taught us one final thing: how to say goodbye.

Thank you, Grandma, for that.