Nana, Lee Iverson’s great-grandmother, is pictured above (circa 1963) visiting with Lee’s sister (center) and Lee (right). Submitted photo.

I am lucky enough to have known all four of my grandparents and one great-grandmother. We called her “Nana.” She was born in 1871. By the time I knew Nana, she was in her 90s and what I would call a “grande dame.”

My parents would take my siblings and me to visit her periodically. The great-grandchildren would be presented to her as she sat in her wingback chair in her parlor full of books. It was a formal affair, and I was a little afraid of her. I was told to speak only if spoken to and when the exchange was over, we would be escorted away.

I recall that my grandfather was relegated to the kitchen as he was not thought of kindly by Nana, perhaps because he stole her only child away when he married her daughter. I don’t remember my great-grandfather. He died when I was 3 years old, but I knew him through stories. We called him “Dad Lee.” Lee was his surname and my moniker was to be “Lee” whether male or female.

Dad Lee was smart and debonair. He smoked a pipe and was a snazzy dresser, wearing three-piece suits complete with pocket watch. My father remembers skating with him and described him, “With fedora on his head, pipe in his mouth and his hands behind his back, he glided gracefully down the pond.”

My paternal grandmother was born in 1899 and had hoped to live into the year 2000 so she could span three centuries. But she died in 1998, just two years short. She inherited her uncle’s farm in Rhode Island, which wasn’t a farm by today’s standards but a scenic tract of land with a large, old house.

As kids, we loved that house and our grandmother. She had funny (to us) sayings like, “Ninny on your tintype” (a tintype was a photograph and ninny had a negative connotation). She used old words that had new slang definitions that would leave us smirking. She also never said our name without following it with “dear.”

My grandmother’s house was two stories high complete with a hidden attic. For Halloween, we would be allowed into the attic to look for costumes. I often would wear a costume that she had made for my father decades earlier. As the last stop of the evening, we would trick or treat at her door Halloween night and she would pretend not to recognize us.

When my father returned from world war and married my mother in 1946, they built a little house next door to my grandparents. Since my father was an only child, we were the only grandchildren and we were loved fiercely.

I knew my maternal grandparents as quiet people. My grandfather was a minister in Massachusetts. Because they lived further away, we did not see them as often as the grandparents who lived next door. I do remember my grandfather pulling on my cheek and talking silly to us. They had other grandchildren, and so we did not play as pivotal a role in their lives as with my paternal grandparents.

By the time my son was born, my husband and I had moved to Minnesota. My mother had died two years earlier, and I still mourn the fact that my son never knew his grandmother. My father, living in New England, was a distant grandfather, but he made yearly visits and stayed in touch and played a part in his grandchildren’s life.

My in-laws, living in South Dakota, were wonderful grandparents to my son, for which I am grateful. He would stay with them for a week at a time and became best buddies with my father in-law. From him, my son learned to drive just about anything including tractors. They fished together, fixed engines together, and hung out while grandma was chief cook and bottle washer.

A neighbor recounts the story of asking my son when he was 4 years old, what he and grandpa were going to do that day. His reply was, “Men’s work.” Gender roles were clear!

The path has come full circle now that my husband and I are grandparents. We have a 15-month-old grandson who is the light of our lives. I never thought I would be a gushing grandmother and shied away from those who were. Yet, here I am, a gushing, proud grandmother. His wonder and joy at the world is a thing to behold. He is the next generation, reflecting the past and representing the future. If only his great-grandparents were alive to know him.

Lee Iverson lives in Hibbing. She is a frequent contributor to Hometown Focus.

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