Granny’s House

Dedicated to the memory of Dora Graubart

For Eva and Jan, when they were children

Oh, Eva and Jan!  How I wish you had known my Granny!  I know how much you love your Grandma, and look forward to our yearly meetings in Florida at Christmas.  I’m sure you would have loved my Granny just as much, and eagerly looked forward to those Christmas visits and summer holidays in Teaneck, NJ, just as I did.  Although the two-story frame house on Grayson Place has been repainted and has changed hands many times since she died, I believe that her gentle spirit still dwells there, waiting patiently for the next happy visit from her grandchildren.

That was the biggest event of the year for her, when my cousin John and I descended upon her and Grandpa, for a boisterous week or two.  It was something like when Little Bear visited his grandparents, remember?  Except that our Grandpa didn’t notice us very much.  He was deaf, and spent most of his time sitting in a rocking-chair, reading his newspaper, and smoking his cigar.  He seldom spoke, except to Granny, and then usually in German, which we couldn’t understand.  Sometimes he helped with the dishes, but Gran said he didn’t get them clean!

My Granny was just the opposite;  she couldn’t do enough for us.  On Saturdays she would get up early and start baking what I called “Granny-cakes.”  There were made from a yeast dough, and filled with prunes, cabbage or nuts.  Each one was folded up into a little package and baked.  They were delicious!  I can make them for you some time.  It took her all day to make those “Granny-cakes.”  At the end, her usually pale cheeks were flushed, and her grey hair, pulled back into a bun, was flying.  She was tired, but happy.

She knew how much I loved those pastries.  She used to send some in a package to our apartment in Pittsburgh, to camp, even to college.  She always included the local Sunday funnies, which she knew I enjoyed.

Granny also made “halushkin,” that Hungarian peasant dish which I know you both love.  I helped her to prepare the dough, as you two helped me in Florida, spooning off the tiny pieces, to be thrown into the boiling water with the chopped up potatoes.  “Potatoes and potatoes” we used to say, since the dough contained grated potatoes.  My mother believed that halushkin would cure anything that ails you, if you are Hungarian.

Granny was especially happy on those Sundays and holidays when the whole family came to dinner.  I guess that’s true of most grannies.  She was cooking and working all day.  It was really fun to have my cousin John’s parents, and occasionally our Navy uncle and aunt all gathered at the table in the crowded little dining-room, with Gran’s bed squeezed up against the wall.  (She had to sleep on the first floor because of astronomically high blood pressure and a weak heart.)  At such moments I felt I was at last a part of a “real family,” which I didn’t feel at home in Pittsburgh with my mother.  Maybe you wouldn’t  understand that since you have always had a mother and father in the house, even though they didn’t get along very well.

Another thing I remember from those far-off days when I was ten or twelve is how my cousin John and I used to put on a little show for Gran, while she took her afternoon rest on the couch.  She enjoyed this game of ours.  Once we cut pictures out of  magazines and collaged a box for her,  a “useful box to put things in,”  as Winnie-the-Pooh would say.  My first collage, the first of many.

Every day, except when it rained or snowed, Granny took a walk.  I loved to take her arm and stroll along with her to the park or to the town.  She sometimes complained gently that there were no benches for old people, as in the old country.  But she didn’t complain much.  She had passed that stage.  She was too old and tired to bother.  I don’t remember what we talked about on those walks, and later on our walks in Pittsburgh when she came to live with us and started to go blind. Perhaps we didn’t talk at all.

One thing I remember very clearly is the Sun Room in her house on Grayson Place.  Is that why we have a Sun Room in our house?  I think it is because I loved that unfurnished room, more like a glassed-in porch.  I especially loved the secret treasure, which she had locked in a big chest, which was opened by a big iron key. You probably think it was gold, Jani, as in the pirate stories I read to you.  And you, Eva, probably think it was dress-ups.  Oh no! 

The secret treasure which I loved so much consisted of albums of family pictures.  Some came all the way from Hungary, where she had grown up and left behind two brothers and two sisters, now all dead except for the youngest, Ilonka.  There was a beautiful picture of Uncle Jeno’s daughter, Margrit Trattner, as a young girl with a big bow in her dark hair.  We later met her, as well as Uncle Jeno and his wife, in Budapest in 1938.  She was then a small, beautiful young woman of 19, who went to London to become a concert pianist, returned to Budapest when WWII broke out, and died with her mother in Auschwitz.  Other pictures showed Granny and Grandpa when they were younger, having picnics in the park with their grown-up children, including my Daddy, who was courting my Mother at that time.  There were many pictures of her, Auntie Rita and Uncle Speed, at different ages.  And one showing Grandpa, well-dressed and proud, standing beside the chauffeur-driven Hupmobile which he bought once, when things were going well.

I consider those pictures my priceless heritage.  I wouldn’t sell them for a million dollars.  In my stubborn, childish way, I made Granny write a label and attach it to the albums.  The labels said, “These pictures belong to Nancy.”  I think she was glad to know they would be in safe hands.  She always said, “Keep the family together.”  That’s what I have been trying to do.