Carolyn Booth - Grandmother by Another Name: Endearing Stories about What We Call Our Grandmothers

Grandmother
BY ANOTHER NAME

Grandmother
BY ANOTHER NAME

Carolyn J. Booth and Mindy B. Henderson

Endearing stories about what we call our grandmothers

Copyright 1997 by Carolyn J. Booth and Mindy B. Henderson

Photographs on by Chris Hodge and used by permission. All other photographs courtesy of the authors.

Lyrics on are from My Buddy by Walter Donaldson and Gus Kahn. 1922, Copyright renewed 1949 Donaldson Publishing Company and Gilbert Keyes Music. International copyright secured. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

All rights reserved. Written permission must be secured from the publisher to use or reproduce any part of this book, except for brief quotations in critical reviews and articles.

Published by Rutledge Hill Press, Inc., 211 Seventh Avenue North, Nashville, Tennessee 37219. Distributed in Canada by H. B. Fenn & Company, Ltd., 34 Nixon Road, Bolton, Ontario L7E 1W2. Distributed in Australia by Millennium Books, 33 Maddox Street, Alexandria NSW 2015. Distributed in New Zealand by Tandem Press, 2 Rugby Road, Birkenhead, Auckland 10. Distributed in the United Kingdom by Verulam Publishing, Ltd., 152a Park Street Lane, Park Street, St. Albans, Hertfordshire AL2 2AU.

Typography by Roger A. DeLiso, Nashville, Tennessee Design by Harriette Bateman Jacket photograph by Robert Pierce

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Booth, Carolyn J., 1938

Grandmother by another name / Carolyn J. Booth and Mindy B. Henderson.

p. cm.

ISBN 1-55853-481-4

1. Grandmothers. 2. Nicknames. 3. Grandparenting. I. Henderson, Mindy B., 19600000. II. Title.

HQ759.9.B67 1997

306.874'5dc21

97-5760

CIP

Printed in the United States of America

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 901 00 99 98 97

Contents

Thanks to our husbands, David and Mark, and to Bryan Curtis, Amy Lyles Wilson, and Larry Stone for believing in this book. Your help and encouragement made our efforts possible, as well as fun!

To the worlds two best grandmothers ever:

My grandmother, Sarah Mattie Viola Warren Jenkins (mother of sixteen children and grandmother of twenty-nine grandchildren), and my granny, Hilda Vance Holland Booth (mother of two children and grandmother of four). I miss you both very much.

Mindy

O ne day my oldest daughter, Mindy, called and asked if I would meet her for lunch. That wasnt unusual, but as I sat down, she had a sly grin on her face as she handed me a little bag.

Whats this? I asked.

Just look inside, she answered, bubbling with excitement.

I opened the bag and found two comical coffee mugs: one for Grandpa and one for Grandma with pictures showing before, during, and after delivery. As I gazed at the mugs, many emotions flooded my mind and heartsurprise, happiness, excitement, but most of all, love for this daughter of mine. A baby? No way! Someone had moved the clock forward.

As I drove home, my mind started to race. Im going to be a grandmother! No, not me. Thats my mother! What will I be called? Grandmother, Granny, Nana, Mi Mi? I began to say the words out loud. They did not seem to fit me.

In the months that followed, almost daily someone would ask, What do you want the baby to call you?

When our grandson, Jared, was born, I began to call myself Grandmother to him. Come to Grandmother, Grandmother loves you, and on and on.

All three of my daughters call me Mom. They would say, Mom, isnt he sweet? or Mom, let me hold him. Despite my Grandmother urging, Jared had something different in mind.

One day as I fed this adorable little boy, he had had quite enough. As I offered him one last bite, he looked at me and clearly said, No, no, Mom Mom!

I became Mom Mom that day. Now that is my name to all six of my grandchildren.

So this book is offered as inspiration for all grandmothers everywhere old, young, young at heart, soon-to-be grandmothers, and in memory of those who live on in our hearts.

What do you want your grandbaby to call you?

Carolyn

Grandmother
BY ANOTHER NAME

F or some odd reason, my daughter has always shortened her sentences with initials. For instance, SFSG stands for so far so good and LY means love you. I could go on and on. When she was growing up, this practice used to drive me nuts. It kept me on my toes, however, as I would find myself standing in the house trying to figure out what in the world the last initials she had yelled to me stood for.

When my grandson was born, my daughter named me G.T., for Grandma Thomas (Thomas is my last name). I didnt like the initials, so I took it upon myself to change the spelling to GeeTee. Of course, my grandson began calling me GeeTee.

One day, when he was seven years old, I was reading to him from the Shel Silverstein book called The Giving Tree. The story is about how a tree gave all that she had to a young boy so that he could be happy. After we read the story, I noticed that my grandson sat pondering what he had just heard.

GeeTee, you always keep me when my mom and dad need a babysitter, right?

Right, I said.

And you sometimes pick me up from school, and come eat lunch with me, and talk to me when I have had a bad day, right?

Right, I again responded, wondering where in the world his little mind was going.

Whatever I needed, you would do for me, wouldnt you? he asked.

Youd better believe it! I answered.

Well, in that case, GeeTee can mean that you are my giving tree. Just like the book, right?

I swallowed hard. What is it in the minds of children that can pull at your heart when you least expect it?

I would love for GeeTee to mean giving tree if you want it to, I said to him.

Then thats what it is! he said.

Then he hugged me and ran off to play.

I cried. How special my grandson is to me!

Families will live on through the stories we tell our children and grandchildren.

I have always called my grandmother Bob. Her real name is Hettie Bob, but everybody just calls her Bob. Im not quite sure why her parents named her a mans name. I always felt a little strange about the fact that other kids had Grandmother or Grandma and I had Bob.

My Bob is the best! She is so funny and full of herself. I get the biggest kick out of being around her. She has the greatest stories about my mother when she was little, and I love just sitting and talking to her. Having a mans name doesnt seem to bother her in the least. It makes her unique.

But let me tell you another unusual thing about her. Hettie Bob married a man named Eddie Cobb. So they are Hettie Bob and Eddie Cobb; she is Hettie Bob Cobb. I think for now, Ill stick to calling her Bob.

B e careful what you say around your grandchild! Whenever there was an accident, whether it was spilled milk or a cut on the finger, I would loudly exclaim, Oh, dear, dear! It didnt take long for my walking, full-of-life little granddaughter to catch on to this. Soon, each time something happened that she wanted to show me, I would hear her voice calling out, Dear, dear! and she would grab my finger and lead me to whatever interesting new discovery (or accident) she had made. Now I am Dear Dear to all of my grandchildrenwhich I find very endearing indeed!