My parents came from two very different backgrounds. My maternal grandmother, Esmeralda, was English and her family had lived in New England for several generations. My maternal grandfather, Henry, had come to New England from Germany as a young man. My grandparents' children included my mother, Pauline, and her sister Jean, who was 6 years younger. They all lived with my great grandmother, Elva, in a large farmhouse in a very small town in northwestern Massachusetts. Elva and her sister, Burt, lived in the old farmhouse together, but separated by the walls of their own living quarters. Burt lived on one side, in an apartment connected to the rest of the house. Elva and her family lived in the larger part of the two-story white house at the top of a hill.

My maternal grandmother was a tiny, gray-haired lady whose gray tresses slowly changed to an incredibly shiny silver and finally to snowy white. Esmeralda walked with a very quick step and she could walk from one end of town to the other. She never developed a passion for cooking but she could click the knitting needles with the best in town. Her crocheting was superb and she made everything from hats and scarves to skirts and tablecloths. Esmeralda made so many hats with metallic bangles crocheted into them that before long, everyone in town had one. My favorite teacher Christmas gift was one of her hankies with the lacy crocheted edges. She made so many crocheted sweater vests for me that I had one in every color. When I was in high school, she made me a dark green matching crocheted vest and skirt (with a satin underslip made by my mother)....a mini-skirt, course...it was the 60's...one-of-a-kind...I still have it.

My maternal grandfather was tall, had thinning gray hair and blue eyes, and wore small round wire-frame glasses. He worked at the Arnold Print Works when I was little and he always brought home Hershey's chocolate bars when my brothers and I visited. We loved him for that. What a great treat! My grandfather became blind when I was in late elementary school and he would sit on the front porch for hours, listening to the Red Sox on the radio. I liked to sit with him and listen. He died when I was in the ninth grade and then I missed those warm summer days on the porch.

My great grandmother Elva has always been one of my favorite people. Because we did not understand the words, "great grandmother", we simply called her "Other Gramma". An extremely patient person, she would often take time from her daily chores to play with us...dominoes, "Go Fish!", Crazy 8's, War. When we were little, the special game was "Button, button, who's got the button?"...we would play for an hour. Elva loved to walk from the house to the brook and back, picking wild flowers the whole way. She would take us with her and would show us where the violets, buttercups, and daisies grew. We would delight in finding a "Jack-in-the-Pulpit" or a red or white Trillium. The lily of the valley was my favorite, fragrant and delicate, the small white bells cascading from straight stems. Sometimes, when the season was right, we would find rhubarb in her garden, pick it and eat it with sugar back at the house. Elva always had a good-sized garden for fresh tomatoes, cucumbers, and corn in the summer. She grew dill and canned pickles. An old-fashioned New Englander, she made baked beans often, and was fond of brewing dandelion wine and root beer. She was a stout woman with long gray hair that she braided into a long thin braid which was wound around into a bun at the back of her head. Always in a cotton dress, the staple of her wardobe was a full cotton apron for protection. She made quilts, crocheted, tended the plants, and was the house cook. Her apple pies were to-die-for-good, sweet with a perfect crust. When I was in college, she would send me one via my parents. My friends and I would devour it! She also made wonderful wedding cakes...hers were applesauce-raisin, more like a fruitcake, but very moist and soft...dressed up with a buttercream icing...wish I had her recipe!

My paternal great grandparents were Polish and they arrived in New England from Poland in the early 20th century. They too settled in the same mill town in Massachusetts. I only remember my great grandmother, my great grandfather having passed away before I was born. Her name was Mary, but we called her "Babciu", grandmother in Polish. She spoke almost no English, but she understood more than she let on. I remember that she always seemed to be happy. She laughed easily and often. Her cure for rambunctious kids was to open a closet door and remove a big box of old toys for us to play with. We were always anxious to see what was in the box and we were always happy to play. She was a wonderful Polish cook: her pierogi were to-die-for...perfectly soft dough with many different fillings. My favorites were her kapusta, a mixture of sweet cabbage, sauerkraut, onions, and butter...and her prune, thick and sweet with a hint of lemon. Smothered in butter...oh, I can taste them! She made many other kinds of pierogi: farmer's cheese and onion, blueberry, cherry. We loved them all and they didn't last long with hungry children around.

Mary was a round chubby robust woman who lived to the age of 92. She broke a hip in her 70's but it healed well and she continued to walk to church until she was in her 80's. Like my great grandmother Elva, she had thinning gray hair that was wound into a braided bun at the back of her head. A devout Catholic, she would walk down the steep hill to the Polish church for daily mass. Mary also was an expert at the needle and she would sit and crochet while rocking in her chair on the front porch. She would make cotton doilies of all sizes, colors, and shapes.