2005 03 -- Who Am I?

Who am I?


Who am I?



I love children.

I like gift giving.

I have lots of time.

I am a good listener.

I can tell elaborate stories.

I know how to knead bread.

I am an authority on child rearing.

Everyone in the world has four of me.

I have seen lots of joy but also pain.

I witnessed dramatic change.

I understand love and hate.

I’ll live on when I’m gone.

I am a problem solver.

I help out when I can.

I have many names.

I make kids laugh.




I am…
Grandma, Grandpa, Grandmother, Grandfather, Oma, Opa, Grams, Gramps, Grandmama, Granddad, Nana, Grandpapa, Mimi, Pappy and many other names of endearment.

As a boy, I knew three of my four grandparents. Ernest, Elsa and Jennie. The fourth, Percy, missed out on the grandchild thing with me. They were all born in their mother’s homes in the late 1800’s. That meant that they were familiar with things like gas lights, horse and buggies, and travel by stage coach and railroad. Farm life was close to city life. Stories of their youth often included a sense of being close to the outdoors. The telephone was a marvel of operators, party lines and four digit numbers. My grandparents lived through earthquakes and fires and the great depression. They found their way in the world of formality and civility. The ladies wore lace veils on their hats when they went downtown. They also wore fine gloves. The gentlemen wore top hats and polished shoes. Wash was done on Mondays and hung out on clotheslines to dry in the sun. By and large, men went to work to take care of their ladies and families financially. Ladies, by and large stayed home to take care of their families food, shelter and clothing needs. That generation experienced the expansion of the automobile and witnessed the advent of flight.

I’ll start with Ernest. Born in New Zealand, he made his way with his family to California to make his fortune. Somewhere along the way he apprenticed as a silversmith. He was very fond of the outdoors and was a gentle man who wooed my grandmother Elsa with courtesy and flair. As a child he had rheumatic fever and thus had a weak heart. He made up for that by having a big heart for his family. One day when I was about eight years old, we were invited over to grandmother and grandpa’s house on Brooklyn Avenue in Oakland. On this occasion, Grandpa (the adults called him Will) decided to go into his garage workshop and work with some rolled copper. He had a neatly organized workbench at one end of the garage. Tools were all arrayed in order. I was allowed to watch, but he explained how I needed to keep clear of his work. In a matter of minutes without one wasted motion, that flat copper turned into a beautiful bowl. He turned it on wooden molds and hammered it. He dipped it in an acid bath. And then methodically, he made beautiful ripples with a ball peen hammer. I’m glad he let me watch because that is really about my only recollection of Will. Shortly after that time, he died suddenly. We children were protected from knowing any details. I just knew that we wouldn’t be seeing grandpa any more and that grandmother was very sad. Our sitter let us play chinese checkers while the adults went off to something called a funeral.

Elsa Irving Rosalia Kirner was born in Oakland to parents of Swedish/German ancestry. She managed to obtain a fourth grade education, but had an almost perfect handwriting. She learned to cook and sew and did both very well. I remember two special treats she made to perfection. One was the lemon meringue pie. The other was a spice cake. In April of 1906 Elsa was sixteen, living with her parents on Octavia Street in San Francisco. Many years later she described the great earthquake and fire. As she tried to go down the hall to her parent’s room, she was thrown from side to side. Because of the fire, they hiked up Lone Mountain which was unpopulated at the time. They camped there for a week or so before moving to the East Bay. They could see the smoke and hear the dynamite which was used to blow up buildings to stop the spread of the terrible fire. She told us of aggressive people, categorized by race/religion who pushed in the food lines. That experience tainted her view of that group. As a result, throughout her life she held a quiet bias against them. Elsa revered Will and worked hard to please him. She kept a clean house and served excellent meals. After he died, she sold the house and moved into a duplex with her sister on Athol Avenue. She purchased a 1957 Chevy two color sedan. As those cars started to become classic her mechanic convinced her to trade it in for a Chevy Nova. Elsa loved lemons and hot tea. She made a fine marmelade jam. In later years she tried a small dog for companionship, but that wasn’t very successful. She moved to Lake Park in Oakland, setting a trend for my parents who later moved into the same apartment. At the age of 89 Elsa died of a stroke having lived a model family life.

Jennie McCall was born in Cuba, Missouri and was raised into the farm life. We called her grandma to differentiate from Elsa, who was grandmother. I knew Jennie as a story teller. She could spin a yarn and keep us young children guessing the outcome for what seemed like hours. Many of the stories were based on real life experiences. A family favorite is “The Day the Stovepipe Fell”. We asked her to tell it again and again and it seemed that she always obliged. It was a “really truly” story about how she as a young bride was all alone in the house one windy afternoon. She looked out the window and saw that the barn door was open and her husband’s prize horse was about to escape. She didn’t dare let that happen, so out she ran to catch the horse. As she got closer, he’d just pick up the pace, making a game of the chase. Finally, when she caught up and led him back into the barn, she noticed smoke coming from inside the house. Well, the wind had blown the stovepipe down and smoke was billowing into the room. So she put out the fire. The famous line in her story was at the end. She asked, “And do you know what I did?” We’d say, “What, Grandma?” She replied, “I sat down and cried”.

Jennie and my grandfather Percy separated in a time when divorce was uncommon. The family was always quiet about that subject. To this day, I just know that he was a bit of a drifter. In order to make ends meet, Jennie built a duplex at 9 Ranada in Oakland. We visited there as children and enjoyed her company and her special toys. My favorite was a set of blocks. She also had a gyroscope which fascinated me. I’d spend hours with both. The toys and her company always seemed satisfying. We didn’t need anything else.

Both grandmother and grandma impressed me so much with their warmth that Roberta and I named our daughter Elsa-Jennie after them. I’ve always appreciated Roberta’s willingness to pass on the paternal tradition in those names.

So now you have the answer to the riddle: I love children, I like gift giving, I have lots of time, I am a good listener, I can tell elaborate stories, I know how to knead bread, I am an authority on child rearing, everyone in the world has four of me, I have seen lots of joy but also pain, I witnessed dramatic change, I understand love and hate, I’ll live on when I’m gone, I am a problem solver, I help out when I can, I have many names, and I make kids laugh.
©Frank Bliss 2005 All rights reserved.20050301