Grace Carter was born 90 years ago, on November 28, 1920. We lost her April 2009.
My mother (Danielle ) adored Grandma from the minute they met. Mom was sixteen at that first encounter, and had just begun dating my father (Grace's oldest son). Grandma and Mom were fast friends.
Below is a story Mom wrote about this incredible woman, excerpted from a longer piece that features Mom's mother (also born in 1920).
Enjoy. I did. Let's celebrate Grandma's 90th birthday by remembering her.
"Grace," A tribute by Danielle Carter
It was the first year of the Roaring Twenties: Flappers, speakeasies, bathtub gin, the Model-T, the first transatlantic flight, the League of Nations, Women’s Suffrage, Prohibition (hence the bathtub gin and speakeasies), and the birth of two very similar and very different women.
Grace’s Story
Born in late November, Grace came close to missing the year 1920—starting a pattern of being late for most events. The oldest in a small (by 1920s standards) family, she was the daughter of a railway engineer and a former school teacher. It was a cold day—or so I suppose. I don’t really know what the weather was like that day, but I suspect all late November days in Minneapolis are cold. I imagine her rearranging her cradle, sponge-painting the sides, and dying her receiving blankets purple immediately upon coming home from the hospital.
Harlem was experiencing a renaissance and so was the Ku Klux Klan. How ironic! Both the lie detector and “talkies” were invented—serendipitously. J. Edgar Hoover was appointed director of the FBI and I wonder how the lie detector invention influenced that—or if it did. Bubblegum and Disney cartoons, penicillin and sliced bread, flapper dresses and Mein Kampf, Winnie the Pooh and the first chemical rocket, the car radio and the first Academy Awards, the Kellogg-Briand treaty outlawing war and the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, rampant inflation and the stock market crash, Lindbergh flying solo across the Atlantic and a woman swimming across the English Channel. I know that last wasn’t Grace, since she never did develop a liking for bodies of water.
Grace’s mother had, in early 20th century parlance, “delicate health”. She began her lifelong take-charge attitude quite early in life as she took up the household slack. She probably both loved and hated the brothers she mothered at a young age. It was, however, probably good practice for her large (seven children—large even by mid twentieth century standards) brood of children.
She tells a story of painting her room. Her father could have been a stand-in for Monk—he didn’t like changes and wasn’t too fond of color. But Grace, being Grace, wanted desperately to sponge-paint her room. I can’t remember the color, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was purple. One day while her dad was at work she decided the time was ripe for that paint job. She worked hard, spending the entire day painting her wall. I’ve seen Grace paint—she probably splattered paint on the floor, the furniture, herself, and anyone or anything that happened to wander into the room. Nevertheless, she finished the job and was quite happy with how it looked. Then it dawned on her: her dad wasn’t going to stay at work forever. She anxiously waited, dreading the sound of his footsteps and the timbre of his voice. Her mother apparently ran interference—crisis averted and a lifelong appreciation for her mother was created.
The 1930s brought the discovery of Pluto and Auguste Piccard reaching the stratosphere, the Christ monument in Rio de Janiero and Hitler becoming Chancellor in Germany, FDR launching the New Deal and the first Nazi concentration camp, the Empire State Building being completed and the US officially getting a national anthem, scientists splitting the atom and the dust bowl beginning, Bonnie and Clyde being killed by police and Carnegie publishing How to Win Friends and Influence People, Alcoholics Anonymous was founded and Germany issued the Nuremberg Laws, Social Security was enacted and the Depression caused high unemployment, Lindbergh’s baby was kidnapped and Amelia Erhart first solos across the Atlantic then goes missing, the Golden Gate Bridge is opened and the Hindenberg breaks into flames when it lands, Chamberlain announces “Peace in Our Time” and Japan invades China, Hitler annexes Austria, during Kristallnacht mob violence against Jews in Germany and Austria may have started the Holocaust, and World War II began. In the 1930s, over half of the US families earned from $500-1500 per year. I read that $2000 per year was a pretty comfortable lifestyle. Amazing!
The same year as Kristallnacht, Grace graduated from high school. It’s unlikely that the horrendous events in Europe dampened the graduation joy. Grace, never content to merely follow crowds, began training as a beautician. It was a time of spit-curls, pin-curls, finger-waves, Marcelling, sun bathing, and more feminine looks. The fashion for curls probably influenced Grace’s hairstyles for the rest of her life. While keeping her stick-straight hair curled was time-consuming, she felt looking good was worth the pain—an attitude that led to wearing horrendously uncomfortable shoes.
Not only was Grace independent when it came to post high school lifestyle choices, she even chose to take long trips alone or with girlfriends. Once she went to Wyoming (or maybe it was Montana) and spent some time at what I can only assume was a type of dude ranch. My mind boggles at the thought of the ultimate city girl hanging around on a ranch of any kind. The most fateful trip, however, was to south Texas.
It was the mid-forties and World War II was in full swing. She traveled with a friend who was going to see her significant other who was stationed there. While Grace was in South Texas, she met the love of her life and the father to her children. It was in many ways a meeting of opposites: his moderately tall to her moderately short, his muscular body to her waifish build, his Southern to her Northern/midwestern, his country to her city, his slow-to-speech to her sharp-tongued talkativeness, her love of shopping to his love of hunting. And yet it seemed to work for them; they stayed married until his death more than 50 years after they met.
Grace told me that she knew he was the one for her when he spoke lovingly about his mother. As a young woman, I really didn’t understand this. From my point-of-view, his devotion to his mother didn’t seem to translate to good treatment of his wife. Nevertheless, to Grace it showed the capacity for love. On the other hand, it was a different generation entirely. She moved to an entirely different section of the country (away from her family to whom she was devoted) after marrying him and he changed religions after marrying her.
The day I first met Grace, I was brought to her house by her son, later my husband. My ex and I were on one of our first few dates when he needed to go back home to change his clothes (a story for another day). He quickly stashed me in the formal living room (who knows why—he was a 16-year-old male; they don’t need reasons understandable to the rest of the world). Fairly quickly the doors opened and the younger children came trooping in. Having had my own children, I can imagine the children’s announcements [“J.. has a GIRL in the living room.” “There’s a GIRL in the living room.” “J.. brought someone to visit” and multiple variations on that theme]. I’m guessing it wasn’t a common occurrence.
While I was being plied with all the wonderful things young children can think of to entertain visitors (the opportunity to feed a lazy cat with a baby bottle, toy trucks and dolls, pictures and etch-a-sketch, and about a bazillion questions), Grace was throwing on company clothes and preparing to check out the GIRL her oldest son had brought home. Just as he was breathing a sigh of relief at his escape from having to make his mother aware of the person he was dating and me aware of the fact that he had a mother (I guess teens think they’re supposed to be born from the head of Zeus), Grace came skidding around the corner and short-circuited his withdrawal. The rest is history—Grace and I were fast friends from then on. “Then on” translates to well over 40 years and many changes.
Grace was at our wedding (and they even showed up on our “honeymoon” weekend trip to another city an hour away). Grace and clan came up the day before bearing the baked cakes that were going to be turned into a wedding cake. Her husband and kids (except, of course, for the groom, who was at his bachelor party—another story entirely) went camping at the lake and she and her mother stayed with me and worked to decorate the cake and the room for the reception as well as gathering all the wedding goodies. One of the cakes was cooked in a new metal dishpan (had to be large enough for the bottom layer of the “tower”). With quarts of icing and acres (ok I exaggerate) of cake, decorating that cake seemed to take forever. I think we were both covered with icing and laughing hysterically by the time the cake was ready for the reception. The punch (unleaded) was something that would wait until the next day. Probably a good thing, considering how tired we were. No telling what would have showed up in the punch bowl.
The day after the wedding folderol, the bride and groom decided to take a short “honeymoon” in the next city. Having safely left his family safely camping in our city—or so we thought—we were wandering down the river walk doing whatever it is young married couples do the day after the wedding (it’s been too long for me to remember what that is). We heard voices shouting our names from across the river. Guess who? You guessed it—his family. For years after that, Grace and I joked that it was a family tradition to crash the honeymoon.
Grace was our first babysitter. We visited when our oldest was a baby a few months old and we reluctantly let our precious firstborn (who I’m sure we thought would be forever traumatized if her parents weren’t at her beck and call 24/7) stay with her grandmother. We came home to a sleepy baby with a red face and partially-bare bottom. It seems that Grace gave her Kool-Aid (eek—our “no processed sugar touches these lips” daughter drinkingn Kool-Aid!), which explains the red face and chest and… Further, it seems that Grace didn’t believe in making a baby stay still while getting her diaper changed, so she diapered her while in motion. Her diaper was like a kilt—which explains the mostly-bare bottom.
When a crisis loomed in our lives (her son and I), Grace was pretty much always there. When my ex was diagnosed with a fast-growing type of cancer, she was there with us, visiting the hospital, caring for our oldest so that I could visit the hospital, just being there for us. One day she was babysitting our daughter while I was at the hospital. When I got home that night, I saw that all the cereal in the house was crushed up on the pantry floor. The resourceful almost-two year old wanted to play “sandbox” and Grace thought that was a good idea.
Another late evening after visiting the hospital, Grace and I stopped to get supper on the way home. We were ravenously hungry, so we stopped at the first place we found that wasn’t closed; it was a hole-in-the-wall Italian restaurant. Our daughter/grand-daughter, Grace, and I sat down to supper. The adults hadn’t eaten for over 12 hours, so we were anxious for the food to arrive. Lasagne is pretty hot with melted cheese and I wasn’t patient enough to wait. Next thing I know I’ve got marinara on my face and a string of cheese from mouth to plate and across my face, chest, and arm. The not-quite-two year old laughed uncontrollably and it was contagious. Grace says “Usually it’s the kids with the food on their face and the adults who laugh”.
If I had a dollar for every time Grace and I (and sometimes children, husbands, and so forth) painted a wall, piece of furniture, or decoration, I’d have a really great Christmas! Grace loved to paint, but wasn’t extremely neat about it. Mention paint, however, and she’s there in moments. I don’t think there’s much of anything that she didn’t think would be improved with a little paint. Painting with Grace was an adventure and always full of laughter and fun.
That was Grace in a nutshell—laughter and fun. That doesn’t mean she wasn’t there for the sadness and crises; she was. Even at those times, she wasn’t one to doom and gloom.
Grace’s sense of fashion was always trendy—but it was always her own trends. I know of her fashion choices during the years before we met only by anecdote and photograph, but since she was in her forties, I’d been around to see her trendy apparel. Grace was a staunch member of the “if it’s worth doing it’s worth over-doing” school of fashion. Some of my favorite “Grace stories” involve fashion.
One of my favorite memories is of Grace visiting her daughter’s farm. That daughter was married to a Navy man and, this time when he was offshore, she stayed with her in-laws on their farm in rural North Texas. Grace and our family drove out to visit with her. While my ex and children were sitting visiting with the in-laws, Grace and I were taken on the grand tour of the farm. My sister-in-law was justifiably proud of what she’d accomplished there. Though Grace was short, I was a bit shorter and my legs were shorter still—I lagged behind. So, I’m watching my feet (I’m a bit of a klutz) and walking along behind and when I looked up there she was. There was Grace, tripping along the uneven grass and dirt of the farm wearing high heels, a picture hat, a “Streetcar Named Desire” type of fluffy dress and a feather boa. Green Acres meets Old McDonald’s Farm!
When my ex and I married, we were student-poor. I created the home-made invitations, decorated the reception hall (which the priest was able to get us free of charge if we finished the reception in time and cleaned the room for the next person), iced and decorated the cake, made the punch, etc. etc. etc. Grace was with me during all the later stages. Two of my favorite pictures from the reception are of Grace and a friend’s mother. Both were wearing picture hats, ruffled organza dresses, heels, and carrying parasols. As I said, she had her own style.
After Grace had been a widow for two or three years, she jumped back into the dating pool. She was happiest talking about men in a romantic sense: yours, hers, the cute guy at the grocery store or on the plane. But I’ve got to give her some serious kudos for jumping into dancing and dining in her seventies. She and one of her first boyfriends went out to paint the town every weekend that they could. He was probably 10 years younger than her but I used to tease her that she wore him out. That was perhaps a bit of macabre humor, since he did have a coronary while visiting his children in Arizona or New Mexico.
She loved parties of any sort. She was of the “more is always better” school of entertainment. She’d show up early for the decorating and stay late (sometimes even for the cleanup). Holiday get-togethers were always filled with a variety of people (some of which I actually knew) and tons of food. Everyone brought something. I used to joke that Grace flagged people down on the freeway and invited them to the party regardless of whose home was hosting the get-together. She really never got the concept that an invitation to an event (wedding, party, funeral, whatever) was not permission to extend further invitations. We all learned to plan casual get-togethers that could absorb extra people. Who wanted to spoil her fun? Besides, we got to meet the most interesting people!
It made good sense that Grace invited casual acquaintances and near-total strangers to any “do”. She never met a stranger. Within 30 minutes of meeting someone, she had their entire life story including ancestors as far back as they were willing (or knew) to go. There was always a connection, too! Forget “seven degrees of separation”. Having had a great-great-great whatever who once lived in the county in Ireland to which her ancestors claimed ancestry was enough of a connection to make a person kin! No wonder I never met a person who didn’t love Grace.
As a younger woman, Grace said she’d “rather dance than eat or sleep”, so we had that in common. Family meetings of any sort usually involved music and dancing. Grace taught me many dances—including some from her early childhood or before her birth! I remember a time in another daughter’s family room when we had multiple generations dancing like mad to a very eclectic variety of dances. We danced The Charleston, the Stroll, the Bop, the Chalypso (a cross between Calypso and Cha Cha), the Pony, the Pogo, and all the way up to break dancing. My nephew (her oldest daughter’s son) tried very hard to teach us to dance like Michael Jackson but we mostly fell down and laughed. But oh, we wanted to do it!
Many weekends found us at Sokol or Moravian Halls doing the polka or waltzing or at a quincinera doing the cumbia. Grace could dance the legs off a person half her age—and could she dance! When I think of Grace, I frequently think of music and dancing. And eating!
Grace wasn’t much of a cook (and she didn’t care), but she loved having parties and get-togethers that included food. I remember a girlfriend (later wife) of a grandson asking one Christmas if we had a wire whip. Of course we nearly laughed ourselves silly. The “Grace Cooking School” was lucky if there was a serving spoon and the range apparently only had one setting: high fry. While I’m slightly more likely to have a wire whip, I always found chopsticks to be the best multi-purpose kitchen utensil.
Another favorite memory was of Grace making Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader outfits for my (probably 10 year old) daughter and two of her friends. They then went out into the yard and practiced with their pom-poms (which Grace also made). Those mind-pictures (and photographs) are some of my favorite memories. After they practiced being cheerleaders for awhile, they found the styrofoam peanuts in a box that was going into the trash. It looked like it’d make good snow. So, we had styrofoam pellets and blue and white crepe paper in the yard for months after that.
Grace left a large influence in every life she touched. If any of us can be half the woman Grace was, we’ll be tremendously lucky. And it’s a large aspiration! Grace was our mother, grandmother, aunt, sister, cousin, and, always, our friend!
