The Last Grandma

Got a call on Monday, Grandma Una Ferne Jones had passed away. She was 89 years old in December, living in a nursing home in Morton, Illinois. She went in her sleep.

I have many fond memories of Grandma Jones - Dad's mom. She was the wife of a man who worked as an engineer at Caterpillar Tractor back in the day when you got one job and did it for 45 years, and then you retired and visited grandkids and national parks in your motorhome. As most wives did back then, she 'volunteered' instead of having a job-type-job. Her job was with the PARC, as it was known in those days; the Peoria Association for Retarded Children. She used to bring home her 'kids' as she called them, men and women who were actually adults, but who had the temperament and apparent mental age of a child. They were nice people, friendly and they loved Grandma Jones. She would keep one or two over a weekend - I think she also had them do housework and lawnwork. I hope I'm not misremembering that, I don't mean to sully her memory. Things were different then - she felt that she was teaching them job skills, and she paid them some minor amount of money for their time, which they usually spent on candy, as I recall.

She was quite a bit overweight, and didn't move around much. She used to tell us jokingly to call her "Granny Grunt." She had a princess phone with a 50-foot cord, a rarity in those days, and she would travel around the house with it and talk for hours to her friends. My granddad was a little wiry guy, she absolutely dominated him and he worshipped her. He'd ask if he could have a cup of coffee and a cigarette after he got done cleaning the kitchen (he cleaned and cooked) and she'd say "Just one cigarette and half-a-cup of coffee, on the porch, and you'd better not spill any!" He had the shakes - later I guess we'd call it Parkinson's Disease. His coffee would slosh all over as he drank exactly half a cup in a china cup with a saucer, while standing on the porch and smoking.

My granddad died years ago, and Grandma Jones had to learn to do things she had never done before in her life - like drive a car. How you live in the midwest (central Illinois) and not know how to drive a car is beyond me, but she never had, and to give her credit, she learned.

I have so many memories, and I'm still trying to sort them all out. I suppose I'll have a little time for that, as tomorrow I am driving from North Carolina to Illinois, to my past, to the cornfields I grew up in, to say goodbye to a Grandma that I loved, respected, and did not visit enough (to my shame). I'll be offline for awhile, ya'll take care.

Your Pal,

Wiggy