The Winter I Lived with
Grandma Critchlow
dictated to Elizabeth E. by Granny Sessions
After Christmas was over and at the
beginning of 1944, Mother, Aunt Lottie, and Aunt Frances decided that Grandma
Critchlow could no longer live alone. It
was decided that I should go to live with
her in her home in Hyrum. Even though it
was about nine miles away from Paradise, in those times with their long hard
winters, graveled roads, and lack of public transportation, it seemed much farther in many ways.
I was agreeable to the idea.
I only had ever had one living grandparent so I was close to Grandma
Critchlow, my mother's mother. In many ways
it was an adventure for me. Mother told
me that Grandma was diabetic and needed good meals and that I could stop at the
grocery store and buy fresh vegetables -- even an avocado which I loved -- and
prepare her evening meal everyday.
It
worked out well except for one thing.
There was only one heated room in the house and the kitchen wasn't one
of them. There was just a two burner hot
plate to cook dinner on, but we managed well most of the time. She had the same thing for breakfast everyday
which she prepared herself. Lunch was
simple for both of us. I prepared my
breakfast before going off to South Cache High School, and either took a lunch
or bought one there.
I got up early and went into the big
kitchen with its old Monarch coal range and left open the door to the
dining-sitting room (which was the only heated room) in order to let enough warm air into
the kitchen to take the chill off. I put
a teakettle on one of the burners to heat water for the washbasin on the
washstand so I could wash my face and hands before combing my hair and getting
ready to leave for school.
One morning I tried to fill the teakettle
and no water came out of the faucet.
Then I realized that the pipe was frozen. Not to worry, Aunt Frances had showed me how
to put the flatiron down the hole under the sink. So after taking up the floorboard and putting
the iron down and positioning it near, but not against, the pipe where it came
in from outside, I plugged the cord into an extension cord which in turn was
plugged into the only outlet nearby. I
turned the tap and soon the water came through.
Then I reversed the flatiron routine being careful no to burn
myself. I was usually successful.
I slept in Aunt Frances' bedroom which
was a cold unheated small room added on to the house in back of the parlor (also unheated. I was
pretty quick at jumping out of bed and putting on my clothes every morning and heading for the one heated room, in order
to open the door to the kitchen. It
would take the chill off and I could get breakfast, gather up my books and head
down the hill to school which was a bit over a mile away.
Grandma's bedroom was also a little room
added on to the house, but it was off the dining-sitting room and with the door
open most of the time. It was a comfy
room even at night when we turned the heat lower in the oil heater. I studied at the dining room table while
Grandma read the newspaper, scriptures
or The Church News. She listened faithfully to the news and to
the BBC when she could get it clearly.
She was always interested in the land of her birth and early years. Sometimes we talked and I got to know her on
a more mature level. She was very well
educated for her time and also well read.
I enjoyed those times very much.
School was as usual. I went to the same school that I would have
attended had I lived at home. I caught
the bus and rode to Hyrum to school along with all the other children from
Paradise, so my friends stayed the same.
Sometimes when I was late getting away from Grandma's house I ran down
to the Hyrum elementary school and caught the Paradise bus as it was letting off the
little children it had gathered up along the way. The bus driver who
recognized me and saw my need seemed glad to give me a ride. If I were in good time and it was a good
day, I simply walked down the hill and through
the "hollow" to school walking with friends from Hyrum.
Spring came and as the weather warmed I
sometimes spent evenings with the other young people in the neighborhood. I had gone to Church with them and sometimes
we spent the evening at the movie theater, getting home early enough to be able
to be up early for school the next day.
The school day was coming to an end, and
I caught the school bus to my own home, for some reason, probably to pick up clean
clothes. Mother was ready to drive me
back to Grandma's for the night, but Grandma said she would be fine and I could
come back the next day. Sometime during
that night Grandma slipped down and couldn't get up. She spent the night on the floor and when
Mother called on the phone the next morning and couldn't get her, she
immediately called the neighbor who looked through the window and could see
Grandma on the floor.
Grandma never recovered from that fall
and continued to decline through the summer.
Aunt Frances came for the summer and when she needed to go back to teach
school in the fall, Aunt Dot, Mother's sister-in-law by her first husband and
close always to all of us, came to stay
with Grandma. She was trained to care for people. It was sad for me to see Grandmother
declining. She was such a remarkable
woman to whom I had grown even closer.
When she died on September 30, 1944, at almost age 89, I had lost a dear friend and the only Grandmother
I ever knew.
Picture of Bickmore farmlands, from USU Digital Library. They've catalogued it under "Bickman."
I took a look at Grandma Critchlow's death certificate in the Family Search Library. Listed as causes of death are Type 2 Diabetes (condition present for 10 years before death), Myocardia Infarction (we think--can't quite decipher that last word), and Hypertension (present for 8 months).
Grandma Critchlow's record of her daughter Jessie's birth (also from USU Digital Library), Aug. 1898. Looks like the midwife who delivered her daughter was popular.
