My
grandparents did not have electricity, running water, a bathroom, radio, or
phone. They raised six kids in these conditions, one being my mom.
As a kid, I
enjoyed running all over the village with my friends, bathing in dirty ditches,
making mud bombs, catching small fish without a line, using grandma’s expensive
stockings stretched on a wire shaped like a funnel. We played with tadpoles,
frogs, climbed trees ate tomatoes from grandma’s garden, climbed trees to pick
walnuts too early and ripen plums, walked around the yard barefoot, stepping in
chicken and duck poo around the yard, happy as larks, never bathing except
dunking in the clean river on special days. The toothbrush and toothpaste by
the water pump in the yard was just a suggestion and was meant to be used by
everybody.
The outhouse
stood between the house and grandpa’s large garden, who fed sometimes my mom
and dad in the city and the animals in the yard. As a toddler, I stole boiled
potatoes and ate them unpeeled, potatoes meant to feed the pig. It was
delicious! Beyond the garde stood the corn field and the large walnut tree that
was still standing ten years ago.
Grandpa
built a modest adobe hut made of mud mixed with manure and straw to serve as
residence as the large, brick house was built. The adobe hut had two small
bedrooms, a tiny kitchen, and a hay loft. That is where I slept as a child.
Looking
through the tiny windows of the adobe house, I was amazed by rain drumming up
on the tin roof and the heavy snow falling in large flakes like a magical
dance. I imagined how huge the world must be and how much I wished to explore
it someday.
When the
nice brick home was finished, nobody moved from the adobe house. If company
came, they were housed in one of the smaller rooms in the brick home. The rest
of the year it remained empty, nicely decorated, and clean, with good
furniture. Grandma kept her valuables there, her one pair of good shoes to wear
to church during holidays, weddings, baptisms, and funerals. I loved to go
through her trunk when she was not watching. I admired grandpa’s silver coin
collection which included some Roman coins he had found in the digs outside of
the village.
A chifforobe
contained grandma’s good dress for special occasions and her stockings, neatly
folded by her black shoes. She had tiny feet to match her petite stature.
Underneath
the house was a root cellar where we loved to go cool off in summertime. In
wintertime the brick home was cold, and we flocked to the adobe house’s kitchen
where an adobe stove with iron clad top stood and warmed two rooms.
Grandpa
always got up before we did and stoke the fire and brought in a fresh supply of
wood for the day. On the same stove, grandma removed the round circles of metal
to make room for larger size pots that would sizzle on the stove for hours, our
lunch and dinner.
Breakfast
was simple, round, hard pretzels hanging on a string from the ceiling which we
toasted on the iron stove top before we ate it with marmalade and tea, or
smoked bacon sliced and eaten with mustard and pretzels. No telling how old the
pretzels were because they were so hard!
As a child, I
never understood why people kept a nicer, lovely home, never used, while the
family crowded in a temporary home with so little space. It was such a hard
life! I vowed that I would never be so cramped as an adult.
It was the
same for clothing. People had one nice outfit and pair of shoes but seldom wore
them. Women made their own dresses, skirts, and blouses out of cheap material
that faded in the sun and wore a head scarf to protect from the damaging rays
in the fields. They wore the same one day in and day out until they fell apart
and even then, some patched them to extend their life. Money was tight,
supplies were hard to find, and people lived like they were in a perennial
Great Depression. Life under communism was incredibly hard but it was much more
intense on the farm.
Grandma fed us
modestly considering that there were no stores of any kind in the village and
she had to make her own bread. We had no car and the only transportation ten
kilometers to the nearest town was a bike or a bus that only ran two times a
day and took over an hour to get to its destination.
I enjoyed
watching grandma canning vegetables and tomatoes in the summer and fall,
preserving food for the winter in large jars sealed with wax or whatever she
could find to do so. She grew her own vegetable garden, and I helped her open
the ditch for water flow onto her garden rows when we had no rain.
She made the
best “gogosari,” pickled red bell peppers with cauliflower, plum marmalade,
sour cherry preserve, and the best tiny green tomato sweet preserves stuffed
with walnuts. I wished I had the recipe now!
I followed
grandpa sometimes, watching him repair bikes, fix bike tires with glue, and
whatever broken field implements the villagers brought to him. He was an
amazing mechanic and historian who entertained me with war stories and his
exploits at the archeological Roman dig on the outskirts of the village. The
archeologists rented grandpa’s lovely home for three summers while the dig was
ongoing.
Before he
retired, he rode his bicycle to work and back each day for years, snow, rain,
or whatever inclement weather. He was tough as they came. He did not live past
the age of sixty-seven – medical malpractice killed him. He went in for a
simple surgery, and the doctor clipped his large intestine accidentally.
Gangrene set in, and he passed away.
Grandma
lived to be ninety and died in her own bed. Traveling from the U.S., my oldest
daughter was lucky to meet her. I captured the moment when she and my grandma
were standing by the water pump in the yard.
Getting my
first paycheck in my late teenage years I understood why farmers and
proletarian families stretched their clothes and shoes budget as long as they
could, for themselves and for their growing children wearing high waters.
As a young
adult I finally figured out that the soul of my grandparents’ home was in the
adobe house where the immediate family met around the warmth of the hearth.
