My Grandma the School Teacher

Over the years I've talked to many people who as children didn't know what their grandparents did for a living except for being grandparents. That wasn't so with me. I had one grandmother who I knew at a young age what she did. Grandma was a school teacher. I knew this because for a short period of time when I was 9 years old I went to school with Grandma and she was my teacher.

I had broken my arm roller-skating (yet another story) and during that same time my parents were moving our family from Ohio back to Michigan where I was originally from. Because of the cast on my right arm, I'm right handed, and the move everyone decided it would be best if I finished the school year with Grandma who could give me a little extra help as I couldn't write very well under the circumstances.

At that time Grandma still taught at a one room school house just a few miles from Grandma and Grandpa's house. The school house as I remember it very much resembled the old one room schools pictured on old TV shows like Little House on the Prairie that starred Michael Landon and Melissa Gilbert. There was Grandma's desk up front, a wood burning stove for heat, and hooks where the students hung their coats and lunch bags.

Grandma and I didn't have to make our lunch in the mornings. Every day while we were getting dressed Grandpa who wasn't working at the time would get up and put together our lunch. He only made one lunch for the two of us but it was a brown paper grocery bag packed nearly to the top. Each morning I remember Grandpa asking if we wanted this or that from the kitchen and every morning thinking that was way too much food for Grandma and I.

I'm not sure how many days I had been going to school with Grandma but I have always remembered one day setting at the picnic table outside the school with Grandma getting ready to eat lunch. Grandma had the grocery bag of food setting on the bench next to her and had set out a huge lunch for her and me, a sandwich each, fruit, vegetable, and some cookies. I know I would be stuffed if I ate it all and also that there was still a ton of food left in the sack.

As I picked up my sandwich to take the first bit I heard Grandma call a couple of the other students over to the table. I can't remember what they looked like but I was surprised at what I heard Grandma say next. "Mr. Turner (my Grandpa) packed this lunch for Faith and I and we can't eat it all. I know he's going to be mad at us if we don't eat it so do you think you could help us?"

I knew in my heart Grandpa would never be mad at us but as Grandma handed out food from the paper bag I heard the children saying with joy, "Oh ya Mrs. Turner I can help you." Before she was finished Grandma had emptied the bag and folded it to take home for the next day. We both ate our lunches and for many years to come I remembered that day.

What I learned or realized many years later was those children Grandma called over to the table didn't have lunches or at least not much. Grandma and Grandpa were in cahoots together. Without making those children feel like they were taking hand-outs Grandma made them feel like they were helping her by eating the food she gave them.

The story doesn't end there though. Almost 40 years later, with 4 children of my own and Grandma passed away many years before I was working with a lady with now adult kids. We got talking about kids and teachers and I told her the story of my Grandma and the lunch. She asked me where Grandma taught and I told her. She immediately asked me if my Grandma's name was Mrs. Turner and in surprise I responded yes.

My co-worker went on to explain that when my grandmother first started teaching she had Grandma as a teacher and before Grandma retired from teaching her youngest son also had Grandma as a teacher. She had read in the paper when my Grandfather died as well as when Grandma did and had attended the funeral.

She went on to tell me that many days her son would come home from school and announce that he had helped Mrs. Turner that day by eating some of the food Mr. Turner had sent to school with her. The co-worker went on to explain that she and her husband had both lost their jobs and they had no money at all eating only the little bit of food they had left from the garden the year before. Those 'lunches' provided by my grandparents were a great blessing knowing that at least the one son had eaten that day.

Before that day I had always thought my Grandparents were very special but on that day I realized that other people thought the same thing. That was one of the proudest days of my life hearing someone else, an almost stranger, sing the praises of two very special people in my life, my Grandparents.