Memories

Corby is fixing baked chicken for dinner, but along with that we will be having fresh green beans and new potatoes.

Boy, that brings back memories...My mom's mother - Grammy -

- as we called her, divorced my mom's dad when mom was around 6 or 7. That was back in the 30's folks. Single parents were rare back then. Grammy was a wonderful grandmother. Mom was an only child, so we were her only grandchildren. For those of you in the older generation (my age and older) I would imagine you remember Buck's Department Store downtown. Grammy worked at Buck's until they closed - in the 70's if I remember right. After that, Grammy went to work for Woolf Brothers, another exclusive department store downtown. Grammy was a great saleswoman in both stores, raised a great child (MOM!), managed to save a tidy sum of money, and spoiled her grandchildren. Now, sometime in the late 40's or so she began seeing "Wilbur". For us kids, it was always Grammy and Wilbur - just like Grandma and Grandpa. Grammy and Wilbur "dated" until she passed away in 1984. They never lived together. They never got married. Grammy lived in an apartment on N. Market from the time I was little until she moved to a retirement community about a year before she passed away. I spent many a week at her apartment in the summers, hanging out with her, working Jumbles in the daily paper, helping fix meals, etc. Grammy and Wilbur had friends with campers, so we also spent many a day fishing with their friends. The summer I was 8, Grammy felt at Cheney and broke her leg. I spent several weeks with her, helping to take care of her. She lived on the second floor of her apartment building (no elevator) so for the first week she did not venture out at all. She had a little neighborhood grocery store right behind her apartment building, so she would send me over to pick up groceries. Boy, did I think I was cool shopping for groceries at 8! I even picked out steaks, chicken, AND was able to buy her cigarettes. Grammy was a very special lady. We had a lot of great times together. Wilbur was a great guy too. He lost his right arm in an oilfield accident before I was even born. He had an old Chrysler that had push buttons for the gears. He lived in north Wichita, north of 53rd St. and west of Broadway, right off the river. We spent a lot of time at his place - having cookouts on his stone fireplace out by the river, shooting off bottle rockets on the 4th of July, and fighting over his great hammocks! Wilbur also had a large garden, and he worked very hard to provide green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, etc. for himself and our family. Grammy would work in the garden with him on the weekends too. I remember pulling off the "tails" of the green beans - a job we got sick of after awhile. It's a job I don't mind doing now, because it brings back all those memories! Wilbur was a grandpa to all of us kids. He and my oldest brother Terry had a special bond, but he loved all of us kids, and we loved him too. Anyway, anytime we have fresh green beans and new potatoes, it reminds me of Grammy and Wilbur.

Here's a picture taken at the old Blue Moon club in 1945. From left: Grammy, Wilbur, some friends, then my mom & dad. This was taken before my parents were married in 1946.