My Grandmother is Dead and a Powerful Witch
A few weeks ago (I can’t believe how fast time has spun on since) my gran died, and while that’s a shame, this thread is mainly about all the radical stuff she would say and do. Talk amongst yourselves, I’m just gonna be posting about her as I remember things until the Christmas Hangout wipes the thread.
To start with, she used
witching as a verb. She’d say “I’ll witch you up a brew!” when she’d make people a cup of tea. “A bit of witching will do it.” when she’d put a plaster on someone and kiss it. There was such a glint in her eye, as much to say:
I know I’m talking nonsense, or am I?
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I'm sorry for your loss.
So gran lost both of her parents when she was 13, and the following year she got her first job at a biscuit factory. Her job was essentially to put her much smaller arms into stalled machinery and dislodge things, then pull her arm out before it was ripped off. This, naturally, gave her a dislike of heavy machinery, so much so rather than learn to drive a car, or even ride a bicycle, she travelled everywhere from 1960 onwards by push scooter.
My great aunt went on to be a founding supporter of the new pagan movements, though once they’d solidified into Wiccan and the like, she made no hard choice. What she did do was travel the country fixing up our ancient (and some not so) chalk drawings.
However, despite all this, she considered my gran to be far more magical. I think about that sometimes.
Oh, it’s about this time I should say she freely borrowed space and equipment from a local welding yard.
was her last name perhaps weatherwax
If you told me Terry had met her once and got the idea for how he’d portray witches, I’d believe you. Though I’d say she had a dollop of Ogg in there too.
After nearly a century she is now buried with them, along with her husband, my good old grandad.
I only met her grandmother once, just a few days after our wedding. She didn't speak any English but she seemed real nice and genuinely happy for us, and now I'm sad I'll never get to know her (she passed away several years ago)
Gran was now a typist for a hospital, something like a record keeper, logistics officer, you know. Though as you can imagine, at a minimum wage. The extent of her out of hours actions there aren’t for the likes of me to know, but towards the end of her life she did tell me of how she would smuggle small amounts of the contraceptive strapped to her ankle to those in need, and whatever else might be needed to stop pregnancy, on either side of the event.
Everything about this was illegal, like genuinely life imprisonment illegal, like sent to Australia if you’re lucky illegal. But she said: Letting a girl drink bleach when she didn’t have to was more so.
Reminds me of my Dad's Dad who, when my soon-to-be-wife's parents asked him when he was born (1926) and then followed up with "You must have seen a lot of changes", responded with:
"No." (the tone of voice really made it, guess you had to be there to hear the resounding sense of finality).
A week later I turned up in my hometown one afternoon, a couple days before Halloween, with a present. I took out Gran’s false teeth and replaced them with novelty glow in the dark vampire fangs. She immediately and gleeful began chasing the nurses! Okay, fine, she was using a frame and I held her, but there’s was definitely a manic intent. She cackles, my gran, and refused to take them out until her nap. It was something, to know she was there, or half there, before we had to let her go the following month.
Grandfather got a job with Chance Vought down in Dallas, where he designed flight control systems for, among other aircraft, the F4U Corsair. He also had a range of other interests and hobbies, including furniture making, and architecture. He made most of the furniture in their house, many pieces of which are still in the family today. Grandmother was a stay at home mom for their three kids, cause it was the 40's, and took a real interest in educating them. She was very gifted at cooking and took great pride in preparing Thanksgiving for the entire family each year.
I blame my grandfather for my interest in all things mechanical. He'd often tell me about aircraft design stuff. You know the usual things you tell your five year old grandson.
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She also used to crochet frogs and if you opened their velcro mouth you'd find it would open all the way down their body and there would be a stuffed dink in there.
She used to tell her kids that when she died she'd be sure to do it in the winter because the ground was frozen and that way they couldn't just bury her in the backyard.
She was pretty much my favorite person.
I had both. One set was super boring and traditional but my dad's parents lived on a farm and were full of hell. My grandfather on that side got busted for growing weed. He was just using it for when he ran out of tobacco and couldn't afford more.
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On my mother's side, my grandfather lied about his age to join the army at 16 and ended up in Papua New Guinea for most of WW2. Gained a reputation as a slick negotiator for food, goods - whatever you wanted he could make happen, and taught the local kids to play cricket. He was with the engineers corps, mostly doing bridge building and demolition, so we thought he never saw combat, but towards the end of his life when he was being treated for cancer he would tell me blurry incoherent stories about trench fights with Japanese soldiers. Sounded grim.
After he got back, he married my grandmother, who was a nurse with a secret passion for geology. I would have been fascinated to see what she would have done if born in a different era - she was a terrifyingly fierce woman who should have been a ceo or something, not a housewife.
Myself and my family are pretty private usually, but I’ve started thinking about it, but could I do it without naming names? I suppose I could fiction it up...
Edit: Nah.
He called me Little Andy and his death is the death that taught me the truth of it.
my grandmother on my dad's side, she's the reason I like coffee and puzzles.
Marooned in upstate New York, she'd spend her days drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and doing jigsaw puzzles. She also always had the police scanner on, despite nothing ever happening.
I learned later that some of my cousins were semi-professional criminals and my fuckin' grandma kept the police scanner on so if she heard any talk about them, she could warn them.
Anyway one of the questions was "what was your favourite year?" and all her five children start shouting out their own birth year, like "1950!" "1958!", all trying to get her to declare them her favorite or whatever.
She thinks for a minute, holds up her hand for quiet, and says "1960..." Everyone's like, huh? 1960? What happened in 1960?
"The year I went on the pill"
Fucking savage