The parents of today are usually the grandparents of tomorrow, and the grandparents of yesterday live on in our memories. Let me tell you about my grandparents, beginning with my grandmother, Marie (Turek) Stach.
As a child, up to the age of 5, I was living at 2435 S. 61st St. in Cicero. And during that time, my family, my Uncle Leonard and my grandmother were all living in a 1919-built brick bungalow.
My grandmother, who I called “Gramma,” was a small but energetic woman whose lined face still smiled. When she looked at me with her wide-awake, sparkling dark eyes, I knew that I was the center of her attention.
When I was around 5 years old, she used to let me have coffee with her, in the morning. She gave me one-quarter coffee and three-quarters milk in a small cup, and I felt very grown up. Years later, I realized that this was also an excellent way to get me to drink my milk.
My “Grampa,” Otto J. Stach was very often at the Downey Veteran’s Hospital in Downey, Ill., taking treatment for shell shock that he received during World War I.
Every so often Grampa would come home, bringing a lot of Christmas or Easter candy that he had been given at the hospital to us kids. He would also bring little bars of soap back for us.
The only problem was that he lumped everything together in his bag, so that when we finally got it the candy and chocolate smelled like soap-and tasted a little like it, too. But it was candy, after all, so we ate it.
Our Cicero house got quite crowded after my second sister, Patricia, was born. So in January 1958 we moved, leaving behind my Gramma Mary and my Uncle Leonard, a real character in his own right. I really missed them both. Every Sunday we drove out to visit them for a few hours during the afternoon.
The moment we came in the front door, Gramma would always guess we were hungry and would feed us hand-sliced chunks of prasky followed by milk, or soda if we were lucky.
Sometimes she took me, just me, over to Frejlach’s ice cream parlor, over on 26th Street. My sisters were too little. But south of 27th Street and 61st Street, there was a little park, called Clyde Park where Gramma sometimes took all of us kids, giving our mother a much needed break.
When Gramma died in 1959, I missed her terribly and determined that I would always remember her. Even now, I can recall her face in my memory and hear the sound of her voice if I try hard enough.
Grandma and Grandpa Honig moved to St. Petersburg, Fla., from the house on Morton Avenue that we bought and moved into. We used to visit them at this Brookfield house on some weekends, holidays and special occasions, so on the day we moved in the rooms seemed strangely empty to my eyes.
I kept waiting for my grandparents to come out of a doorway, glad to see me and ready to sweep me up into their arms.
Grandma Honig was a big woman, with curly, light-brown hair and a kind and smiling face. Even when I did something wrong and she scolded me for it, I could see the love shining out of her eyes. We kids always called her “Granny,” and nothing else. It was rare for me to see her without an apron on.
Grandpa Honig was an old rascal, the kind that always had a trick up his sleeve. He would argue on our behalf and side with us and treat us. Sometimes he would talk to us seriously, too.
One time he sent me two entire boxes of chewing gum, that he called “goom.” Enjoying sudden wealth, I generously shared some with my sisters (a pack or two, out of each 20-pack box).
It was Grandpa Honig who wrote me a letter in 1969, seriously believing that I was going to be a writer someday. I still have his letter to me, written in his typical, capital lettering style.
“DEAR CHRISTOPHER:
“SINCE WE WILL UNDOUBTEDLY HAVE A WRITER IN THE FAMILY RELATIONSHIP (AND I MEAN YOU MY DEAR BOY) I AM HEREWITH ENCLOSING AN ARTICLE BY AUTHOR ERSKINE CALDWELL IN WHICH HE GIVES SOME POINTERS THAT I THOUGHT YOU MIGHT FIND INTERESTING AND USEFUL. THE BEST OF LUCK IN YOUR CHOSEN CAREER.
GRANDPA.”
My “chosen career.” You know, he never had to send me that letter, but he did. That he did write it was completely unexpected.
It makes a great difference in a child’s life when he has someone who believes in him from the very beginning. I had my Aunt Clara, who was my champion and believed I could do anything I put my mind to. She said so many times. But hearing this from my grandfather truly touched me.
And so, I give my thanks to my grandparents, who were such positive people in my life. And I hope there have been some grandparents who have been equally wonderful in yours.