Great Gramma
By Shawn Redden
My great-grandmother impressed me greatly. Harriet Stowe Johnson Miller was her name. Gramma lived to almost 99.
In 1961 at the age of 77, Great Gramma was widowed. She went to the Okanagan Valley in British Columbia to visit her sisters. She stayed and made a new home there.
I am impressed by the courage of this woman who had the guts to move across the country from Nova Scotia.
I recall the adventure of three family vacations travelling across Canada to visit Great Gramma, and her few visits back home while I was growing up.
I was touched by her kindness. She wrote lovely letters. I remember the things she sent me in the mail: a small crocheted pocket bag for change, a beautiful embroidered handkerchief and I still have the teacup and saucer she purchased for me in the gift shop in Westbank, BC one time we were visiting.
I can still taste her amazing biscuits and see her cooking in her kitchen well into her 90’s. I recall her introducing my mum to an electric frying pan. She considered this a wonderful invention and something she thought my busy mum definitely needed in her kitchen.
I remember her laughter, incredulous that a young girl like me couldn’t touch her toes. She did her exercises every morning, and my scarcely 5 foot tall, 95 year old grandmother could touch her toes, and I couldn’t – never could – and still can’t!
Her quiet, steadfast faith moved me. I remember the impact of her wisdom, spoken in few words and small pronouncements, but with a quiet assurance. All these memories shape who I am. I doubt she ever imagined she would have such influence on someone in the last quarter of her life, but she did.
—- Spiritual Memoir: Tell us a story about a significant person in your spiritual journey!
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