For many years, I was very lucky to have two grandmothers. Grandma Braun, my mother’s mom, loved little children, until they could talk back. When my cousin Daryl and I told her that the wrestling matches on TV were fake, she was not happy with us.
But my father’s mom, Abbie Winship, seemed to find small children boring until they could talk back. Then we got interesting. So, I always had a grandma I could talk to. And listen to, because Grandma Winship had a way with words and a marvelous laconic, deadpan delivery.
Woodchuck
Abbie grew up in Bucktooth Run, in Cattaraugus country. Dinner was whatever the men shot in the afternoon and dropped on the kitchen table. More often than not, it was woodchuck. Of which Abbie told me, “I must have fixed it a hundred ways, but I could never get it to taste good.”
Trophy Fish
One sunny summer, my grandfather Clair caught an enormous muskie, a muskellunge, in Chautauqua Lake. It was so big that it hung in the front window of the Bemus Point newspaper for a week. When Clair brought it home to their cottage on Hadley Bay, he dropped on the kitchen table, and said, “Clean this.”
“No, Clair,” Abbie said, “You’re going to bury it.”
Hunting
Grandpa had come home from a successful hunting trip with a deer and was describing the kill over dinner. He was highlighting his prowess, his patience, his aim, when Abbie interrupted him and said, “Oh, Clair. You bought it from the Indians.”
Car Door
Ron Miller, my Uncle Elliott’s son-in-law, was driving us to Elliott’s house, with Abbie up front in the passenger seat and me in the back. As Ron pulled into the driveway, we saw that Elliott had left a car door wide open, and Ron was headed straight for it, with no sign of slowing down.
Ron said, “I wonder why Elliott left that door open.”
Abbie said, “Tear it off and I expect you’ll find out.”
Cross Stitch
Abbie had a lovely, framed cross-stitch that said, “God Bless Our Home.” But Grandpa didn’t like it; he made her take it down and keep it in a closet. When Abbie came home from his funeral, she hung up her coat, leaned over, brought out the cross-stitch and hung it back up.
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The photo of Clair Winship holding a muskie is one of many. I don’t know if this is the actual fish that hung in the newspaper’s window.
“God Bless Our Home” hangs in our home today.