Matriarch Tales #10: Grace Elizabeth Part 4 – by Saga

These tales are the stories I remember about my maternal ancestors: my great-grandmother, grandmother, aunts and mother. The stories may or may not be accurate; family stories seldom are. But they have influenced me, often without my knowing.  I set them down here to remember and to honor these unsung women. To refer to blogs about other generations of the matriarchs, please go to https://consortiumofseven.blogspot.com/p/c7-posts.html and scroll down to Wednesday’s list.

Grace made a new life for herself after George’s death, like her mother and sister Alice before her. Her daily life was devoted to her job at the insurance company where she had been employed for 17 years. Passed over for promotion because of blatant sexism, she stayed on. Her friendships at work became even more important during these years. Before long, her life expanded to travel, new friends and a romance as Alice encouraged Grace to accompany her on trips with a local travel club. Members could book private tours, including mystery trips. They would book the trip not knowing the destination and receive instructions about the weather and travel requirements a few days in advance. Grace enjoyed the mystery; she would pack her passport and clothes and head to the airport.

Pictures from the time show her in one group of travelers or another, everyone grinning, holding drinks, and often wearing unusual hats from wherever they had landed. The women outnumbered men every time and Grace said, as Alice has said a few years earlier, that the men were all looking for wives to take care of them. One man, however, captured Grace’s fancy. He lived in the apartment complex next to hers and was clearly smitten with her. He was smart and well-informed, a widower and a father, and he adored her. 

Grace and Frank 

She kept the romance a secret for a while, but eventually introduced Frank to her children at dinner in a fancy restaurant. I was unimpressed, in large part because he was imperious with the waitress. Eventually it occurred me that he was determined to please us and thought his power might do it. What impressed me instead was they way he treated my mother. He had several pet names for her, was unfailingly chivalrous, and very generous with her.

When she told me they would marry I was happy for her and, at the same time, troubled by her explanation. She said, “I have to think of my old age, and Frank will provide for me.” She didn’t say that she loved him. Her love for him was different than her love for my father, but it was true, nevertheless. I never knew Frank well, partly because of big changes in my life and my mother’s distance because she disapproved.  And partly because, despite his repeated insistence, I chose not to drink with him.

Grace clearly loved Frank and, after wrestling with the decision for a while, decided to retire early from her job in her late fifties in order to have more time with him.  She seemed quite surprised by the number of people who came to her retirement party and the affection and respect they had for her. She and Frank traveled widely, spent winters in Florida, and enjoyed themselves. I don’t remember hearing her criticize him or express annoyance with his foibles the way most married people do.

One autumn, they took a cruise on the Alaskan Inside Passage and Frank began to cough and tire easily. Once they were home, his doctor diagnosed pneumonia, prescribed antibiotics and told Frank to head for the warmth of Florida. But the cough and fatigue continued, and he became disoriented. When she took him to an emergency room, the diagnosis became clearer. He was suffering from congestive heart failure. Grace asked the doctor if surgery would help. But the doctor told her that Frank’s heart was badly damaged and asked if he had a drinking problem. Grace insisted he did not and asked again about surgery. The doctor said, “If we attempt to suture any part of his heart the tissue will just come apart.” There was no hope.

Frank slept so erratically and so restlessly that Grace slept on a pallet on the floor of their small motel room. She put a metal snack table next to the bed and tied it to another one so that she would hear the clatter if he got out of bed. She wrote a letter to me rather than call, lest he overhear her. But the letter went to the wrong address and I knew nothing about what she was enduring until the letter reached me weeks later. I’m not sure she ever could forgive me because she had felt so abandoned. 

Fortunately, Frank’s daughter flew to Florida and helped Grace drive him home. There they set up a hospital bed in the living room and there he was so disoriented that he would strip off his pajamas and then try to remove his skin. Grace slept nearby in a chair and watched over him. One day while I was with her in the kitchen, we heard him fall. Somehow, he had outsmarted the bed alarm. We followed the ambulance to the emergency room and soon a young doctor came to get her. “They took me to a little room,” she said, “and I knew.  That young doctor was so nervous”, she said, “so I had to help him. I said, ‘He’s gone, isn’t he?’ and the doctor just nodded and said he was sorry.”

We went back to their home, were Grace stripped the bed, tossed the sheets into the washing machine, called the rental company to come pick up the hospital bed, and declared that we were going to the grocery to buy chicken. “I’ve been wanting fried chicken for the last five years”, she announced, “but Frank didn’t like it. Now I can have some.”  We fried chicken, made mashed potatoes and doused them with her famous milk gravy. But as the shock wore off, she couldn’t eat.

Next time: Grace moves on again.  

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