Our Greenie - All Wool and a Yard Wide

My grandmother (Greenie) passed away today, after a long, interesting, beautiful, loving and love-filled life. One of the best words I can think of to describe Greenie is true. There was no pretense with her, nothing false, and truly - deep down to her core - nothing but goodness. I don't think she considered herself a storyteller, but that's probably because she lived for so long with my larger-than-life grandfather, the king of stories and jokes. But she was a storyteller, and to the end she could recall the most interesting details from her life. One of my favorite stories she told went back to her years as a teacher at the Lincoln School. She was complimenting one of the cooks there about how her bacon was always perfectly crispy and delicious, and recalled the response she got, with a southern drawl - "Ah, Missus G., the bacon way is the slow way."

Greenie had wonderful ways of saying things, too; I remember once she referred to a friend of hers as "all wool and a yard wide." I've never forgotten that -- it meant that she thought her friend was solid, dependable, honest, and true. I love the expression, and I've never heard it anywhere but from Greenie. I also love how she combined old-world and modern sensibilities; one time after I declared "Isn't that so cool?" she replied, "'Tis cool!" Greenie was cool. We're all full of stories of Greenie, wonderful memories - anyone who met her would recall her kindness, her genuine curiosity, her open conversational style, her warmth of spirit. May the best of Greenie - and there was only the best in Greenie - live on in each of us.

Read my brother's recollections as well, in his entry on February 21.