My great-grandmother died two weeks ago, just three months shy of her 100th birthday. Everyone in my family called her Nanny. I don't think she had heard her given name in years. Nanny was a quilter. Everyone in the family has at least one quilt hand pieced, and maybe even hand quilted by Nanny. I even have a quilt top that needs backing and quilting. Nanny was my source of information on the "old days." The first time I heard about carding and spinning (cotton) I went to Nanny and asked. She dug out some old carders for me, and explained how they worked. When I was little, hopping across the US with my military father and mother, we would always come back home, where the rest of the family was. I would walk up the driveway from my grandmother's house to Nanny's. She let me (and usually Cousin J) in the garage door. We would procure a cookie from the jar in the kitchen, and go sit with her in the living room on her vinyl sofa. There was always a puzzle half worked on a card table in the corner of the room, and masses of family pictures on every flat surface. I swear, every time I walked up to her little house, I would ask about the little green dress hanging in the kitchen. I vaguely remember the story (remember, I *did* need to ask all the time) that she wore it as a little girl, but when I asked my aunt about the dress, she said it was a "holder." Of what, I don't know, but that dress and sitting with my cookie in her living room are what I think of when I think of Nanny. My daughter got to meet her great-great-grandmother, twice, and for that I'm thankful. I still haven't shed a tear over Nanny's passing, but I think that's because I know she had a full, happy life with her family. The family reunion was just a month before her death, so she got to see us all one last time. I just wanted to remember Nanny to someone else, and let my daughter know who that little old lady was in the pictures from when she was one.

Labels: misc