“Mary is a Grand old Name”

Mary Marguerite Dearing Gilbert Dekarske, my grandmother, was born in 1890. This was shortly before George M. Cohan wrote his famous song. If he’d have known her, he might have written Mary is a Grand Old Dame. She was admitted to the world the same year Idaho and Wyoming were admitted to the Union. She preceded the gasoline-powered car. Ellis island was not yet processing immigrants. The president who reigned over her home in Michigan (and the other 41 states) was Benjamin Harrison. She lived until 1984, pre-car to post-moon landing. She couldn’t vote until she was thirty but lived to see nearby Michigan coeds burning bras on the Diagonal. She rolled with it.

Grandma Mary and Aunt Ellie plowing

Mary was not a delicate rose. She was a big, sturdy girl. When she hung her bloomers on the line, we thought the sun had gone behind a cloud. She drove a team of horses to plow fields on the farm on North Territorial Road near Chelsea, Michigan. She raised four children without plumbing nor electricity, sending them off on horseback to Pumpkin College, a country school. She married a Scottish immigrant, and they toughed out a life without luxury and without security.

Women who had a rough marriage in the ‘40s just had to suck it up. Divorce was scandalous. My grandma forgot to read that chapter in the marriage handbook. She ran off with the hired man and married him. He was a very congenial fellow and of a stature that rivaled Mary’s. My sister and I recall one weekend when they came to visit and went upstairs to bed. The bed was in the hallway. It had an uncomfortable compressed mattress that sat on metal rails. Soon after they said their goodnights, we heard a huge crack! and then a crash coming from upstairs followed by their hysterical laughter. The portly couple had bent the bed rails and ridden the mattress down to the floor. My dad had quite a time extricating them. Herm and Mary lived in a third-floor tenement in Detroit. When we visited, we could see her bloomers hanging out to dry, now from the railing on the exterior staircase. Lucky it was in the pre-HOA era.

Mary was a big girl (with my dad and Aunt Mary)

Mary took care of her daughter who had MS for years in their Ann arbor home. They watched soaps and played euchre. A portrait of the Kennedys hung above the couch, as it did in many homes. It hung between two strange parrot paintings and a framed, embroidered poem:

“You don’t have to thank us

or laugh at our jokes.

Sit deep and come often,

you’re one of the folks.”

Grandma loved to fish, and bluegills feared her. She was wicked at cards, and it was a good thing, because she was not such a gracious loser. She was never happier than when one of us brought over a new great-grandchild for her to hold. Mary was not a scratchy, bony grandma. A baby would just sink into her as though her house dress were full of whipped cream. She had a strange little lullaby she always sang to babies as she rocked them. The words were “dy dee, dy dee, dy dee, dy….” but the babies seemed to understand. As the kids got older, Grandma could not stand it when we scolded them. When my older sister was a child and visited her in Detroit, there were lemon pies on the table. My sister licked off all the meringue, but she was not chastised. Grandma simply replaced the meringue before company arrived. How lucky to have someone who was always tickled to see you and thought you could do no wrong. How lucky to eat lemon pie without knowing its history . . .

My dad (eldest child and only son) and my grandma were not effusive people, but it was clear they had a mutual admiration society with two members. I consider the timing of their deaths to be one of our family’s luckiest moments. As we were preparing to go to Grandma’s funeral, my dad died after a long illness. Neither knew of the other’s death. They took their last breaths without suffering the loss of  the other.

And now, in my new little house, I have the Grandma Mary room. Her house number is on the door–928 Rose Drive. The hooked rug has pink roses as does the wallpaper border. There’s a chenille bedspread, some depression glass, and many family photos. She wasn’t the kind of grandma you want to forget.