being a bit younger my story isnt quite as nostalgic. but ill give it a go.
my parents divorced when i was about 4 years old. my mother, an aspiring teacher at the time wound up moving us in with her mother in a large green house right across from the little red school house in hessville. while i didnt spend my whole childhood there, or in hammond (eventually we moved to griffith where i went to school) I do have some fond memories of that time for reasons ill explain in a bit.
from the age of 4 to about 8 i lived with my mother and grandma in the big green house on orchard drive across from hessville park. there used to be several houses on the street, but over time the church, olph which owned nieghboring land, bought most of them or tore down the ones they already owned while planning to build there new church on the land.
one by one the houses of my nieghbors came tumbling down. i was particularly saddened at the age of 5 when my best friend of the time, michael and his family, moved away leaving the next door property vacant for which the new olph church presently sits.
I went to caldwell school, which was convieniant since my grandmother was also the crossing guard at the school. that meant it was pretty easy to get too and from while my mom would go off to teach her own classes. my grandmother sat at that same corner for every school day for nearly 30 years before she retired in the early 90's. she took the job for the insurance shortly after she was widowed by the death of my grandfather in the mid 60's.
now not having any nieghboring homes on adjacent properties, one would think i wouldnt have had much of an appreciation for the neighborhood i spent some of my formative years in. but nothing could be further from the truth.
living across the street from a park, meant i was pretty much across the street from grand central station for 6 and 7 year olds. i pretty much lived in the park during the summer and warm weather weekends. there was always some festival going on or senior league games. it may not seem like something to do now...but at the time watching the bigger kids play baseball and shagging foul balls for them seemed like an entertaining thing to do. thinking back on it now. there was the first time i got stuck in the crabapple tree around age 5. there was the time i got into my first fight with a kid picking on my little cousin. now that i think of it, most of my youthfull firsts, happenned in that park. remember my grandmother lived there long after i moved, so i often returned to the park later in life too. eventually i recall having my first ciggerrette there to impress a certain girl. and my first kiss too with that same girl. (now kids you really shouldnt try to use that)
local taverns used to have softball games literally right in front of our porch. my grandmother loved to spend afternoons just sitting in a rocking chair listening to the cubs games and watching the men play softball. and i loved to sit out there too because it was a chance to here my grandmother tell me what was going on with everyone else in our large extended family. i think thats when i first became a cub fan listening to vince lloyd and lou beudrieux talking about the likes of jose cardenal, rick monday and george mitterwald. and im almost certain that porch is where i first learned the fact that larry bittner was the last remaining player from the old washington senators organization.
as i mentioned i had a pretty large extended family. all told 14 cousins all within about 10 years of each other in age. living at my grandmothers house this meant weekends were always family events. the cousins would come over and we;d wind up walking to the corner (now teachers federal credit union) for ice cream, although i cant remember the store. or on the corner of 171rst and arizona to sitnicks candy store...wow i can actually remember penny candy now that i think about it. or if we were really adventurous wed walk up to pow wow on 169th for a bite to eat (no mcd's or bk back then).
but what i really remember about that time was getting to know my grandmother. having lived in hammond nearly 50 years before her passing last april. she was truly a hammond charector. while i know much of this may not make much sense to you....if you'll allow me to post a eulogy i wrote for her than..... i think maybe you will get some of the flavor i experienced during my youth in hammond.
The woman we are remembering today lived an incredible life. born in a small town that wasnt even a town yet in 1909 grace toomey had to learn to work hard early in life. she helped build the family business, tomeys resort on cedar lake doing a little of everything to keep the guests entertained. she cooked and cleaned, tended bar, did whatever needed to be done, and to hear her tell it hustled some pool back in her youth to help make ends meet. obviously none of us in this room actually knew her back then. Which may explain the overly romantic image she sometimes painted to all of us when telling of her life at that time. obviously growing up at a vacation resort in the middle of nowhere during the teens and 20's couldnt have been all that pleasent. But whennever she talked about it even the complaints were fond memories. she said it made her tough, and strong, and prepared her for life.
eventually she met my grandfather. pete. who i was never fortunate enough to know. after twins came completing there family of 5 children they decided they needed a bigger home so they packed up there belongings and moved to a new house. the home we all know as grandmas house.
money was tight so grandma worked at hiawatha gardens, also a toomey family business. She was a working mother before there was such a term. she cleaned, cooked, worked and still had to scrimp and save. and somehow she endured. and later in life when she passed on her recollections, i never once heard her complain without a whistfull look in her eye. sure she'd tell stories which sounded like trying times such as when her son burned down the chicken coop or used his sister joan as a dart board but still she'd always end the story with a positive note such as those were the days or her trade mark Oh god!
Its ironic that she never really had enough money untill later in her life. most of us here never new her when her finances were a struggle.
but all of us grandkids have had a taste of her life back then. literally. im not sure how many people nowadays have ever experienced home made syrup. and lord knows what she used to put in her chop suey.
and then when the kids were just about grown, she was dealt the hardest blow of all. her husband died. suddenly a house that had been filled with noise since she moved in must have felt quite empty to her. but she went back to work. the job most of us grandkids remember her as, a crossing guard down the street at caldwell school. and some how she endured.
when my parents first got married. she opened her home so they had a place to stay. when they got divorced she did it again for my mother and me and helped raise me. in fact many of us grand kids personally benefitted from the importance grandma put on helping her family by staying with her for extended periods of time.
i can still remember when i was very little when my mother worked her second job in the evenings grandmas list of favorite tv shows which of course became mine because i was on her lap most of the time while she watched them. there was ironsides and that cute guy with the sideburns on hawaii 5-0. the rookies and barnaby jones. i dont really remember what we talked about back then but i still find myself wondering whatever became of that rachel from one life to live.
and then there were words and images that were uniquely grandma, ma, or grace to all of us. things that evoke different memories in the minds of all who knew her. things like pinnochal. spaghetti and candy corn on bunco club night, homemade bread, the davenport, her homemade humidifyer (hesitate) a pan of water on the hot air vents.. chefarobe, cream spaghetti and salmon patties on fridays. pancakes, the last rotary phone in use in the state of indiana, those wine bottles that were in the basement for at least 30 years, nerf basketball in the kitchen, we never told the price of anything. glory glory halleluja on the piano. pin curls, numerous shades of red. which almost prevented one cousin in law from joining the family. when she first met grandma she was cursing up a storm about a recent bad die job. i guess she thought granma was a little crazy and was worried it ran in the family.
watching hessville go by from the porch. a partridge in a pair tree at christmas and poker in the backroom, sitnicks candy store. lady, rocky, patches, and yoda the three legged cat.whiffle ball where in the tree was a ground ruled double and bird bath was second base. goulash, square bowls, the mislabled faucet, chrisy was stevey and lisa was jenny and karen was kelley. ping pong paddles, although we never saw a ping pong table, the ice cream place on the corner, graham crackers and frosting, mayonnaise cake, dwayne upstairs, her friend joe, irene, juanita, bobby, aunt marg, aunt florence, and tiny, that darn flowergarden clarence and i spent are childhood cleaning out.
that reminds me. i remember one summer shed been after us all year to work on that garden. finally she offered to pay us to do it, so clarence and i spent a whole day in 90 degree heat cleaning it out. and she wound up giving us two dollars.
Another thing that was uniquely grandma was her unusual form of insulation for her home. shed just jam old rags into the cracks of her doors. karen was telling me how one night when her and laurie were little they were staying over. and they feared grandma was going to punish them once and for all when she started stabbing the rags into place.
she was very sensitive about her cooking. everyone always tried to tell her how great there food was. clarence tells the story of how one time he told her how much she loved her dumplings (which were pretty good by the way). then one day his dad decided to splurge and brought home steak and lobster. clarence says grandma and his dad really enjoyed it, but he'd never know how good it was himself. you see granmda had made him a special plate of dumplings that night.
as you can probably tell the one constants in grandmas life was her family. nothing meant more to her in life.she worked to support her parents and siblings, then her husband and children, and eventually even there children.
all of this culminates today in the family you see in this church today, the wilsons. to date there are 29 of us who can trace are bloodlines directly to her and many more who have joined voluntarily by marriage. and it seems like there are more of us every year. in my last stint in grandma's house i think i became luckiest of all in the family because i actually know how proud she was of each and everyone of us. Grandma didnt always tell us so directly. but believe me, i know how much she loved everyone in this room. how proud she was of all of our achievements. how much joy she got out of hearing and telling stories about each new great grand child.
and i know how proud she'd be, how proud and thankfull i am, of how so many of you sacrificed in this past year to make sure that she had the best care possible.
All of us here today know grace wilson by a different name. to some its simply grace or mrs wilson. to others mom, grandma or grandma grace. but we all remember her for the simple things that she appreciated so much. sitting on a porch looking at her beloved park. a simple bouquet of flowers for the kitchen table, or listening to the cub game on the radio to her lou buedreu, jack brickhouse, vince loydd and later harry carey and later ron santo.
speaking of the cubs they say that in chicagoland you are a cub or sox fan by birth passed down from father to son. my dad's a diehard sox fan. its a testiment to granmas presence that i am a cub fan.
when i lived upstairs the two of us shared a signal everytime the cubs did something good. she'd hit the cieling with a broom to tell me to make sure i had the game on. on sunday night, the day she had passed on, when michael barret hit a grand slam to beat the cardinals some fans started throwing brooms on to the field. to most watching i know that was just a sign of someone who'd been overserved celebrating the pending cub sweep of the cardinals. but to me it was a signal that grandma was watching.
and i know that she is. and right now she's saying they shouldnt be making so much of a fuss over me. the casket is too expensive, there are too many flowers..... but behind all of that i know she's thinking deep down how happy she is to have so many children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and friends who after 96 years still feel they are being cheated by her passing at such a young age.
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