Mothers' Day -- grandmothers

My maternal grandmother, Luta Marie (Steen) Newton, was born 12 Feb 1883 in Tekoa, Whitman County, Washington. She was the oldest child of the seven children George Leonadas and Virgil Mae (Prettyman) Steen would have in the next 27 years. Her parents lived in a logging camp when she was conceived, and didn't get to town to legalize their relationship until January, 1883. Grandma would never tell her real age, partly because of her embarrassment about this.

Marie (as she was always called) met and married George Sidney Newton in Idaho in 1913. The following year, Virgie Mae died, leaving Ernest, Dova, Alvin, Mildred and Georgia all under 16. Marie and George Newton took them in, and raised them as best they could. In the 1920s, George Steen also came to live them. My mother was a young child then, but she remembered that her Grandpa cheated at cards, and blamed all bad weather or natural disasters on "those Rooshins" (the Russian Revolution occurred in 1917).

Marie never learned to drive, and was dependent on my father all through my childhood to take her places -- both on vacation with us and just everyday chores like shopping -- until my mother got her own car and could take over. My uncle was in the Navy, and seldom home, although I do remember Grandma going to Hawaii one year to spend a month with his family. She brought home ViewMaster slides of the islands that were my delight all during the 1950s. She also had two stereoptican viewers with photographs from the "old days" that amused me for hours on end.

In the 1950s, Grandma's youngest brother Alvin would come and stay with her in the winter. He was a prospector in Idaho most of the year, with a burro and a pack. He left the burro with friends and came to stay in Oregon City when the weather got too cold. He taught me to play cribbage when I was only 4. Of course, in cribbage it is not only legal to cheat, it is your absolute duty to cheat if you can get away with it. I can remember Grandma standing behind me and saying "Alvin! You're cheating that baby! How can you do that?". And Alvin looking up with mild blue eyes and replying, "If she would learn to count, I couldn't cheat her." I grew up counting things in groups of 15, rather than the more usual 10!

In the 1960s, after Grandpa died, both my parents and Leo moved to California. Grandma sold her place and moved in to senior housing near Napa, where Leo lived. Leo died in 1969, and Grandma moved to Hayward, where my parents lived. Alvin came to live with her, and her sister MIldred lived in Santa Cruz, not too far away.

One year at Christmas time, Mom took Grandma to the local shopping mall for Christmas shopping one evening. Grandma got tired, and sat down on a bench to wait for Mom. At some point, she decided she had waited long enough, and called a cab and went home. Poor mom! She had mall security looking everywhere for her fragile 85 year old mother -- and she wasn't to be found. Mom called home, and summoned dad and I to help. But before we left the house, dad called grandma's apartment, and was informed by Alvin that Marie had been home for about an hour, and had just gone to bed.

The taste of fresh raspberries on cold cereal, or tart pie cherries in a pie bring back her memory to me.