This is my Grandparent's house. The house my Mom and her siblings grew up in. The house my Uncle owns now. Back when I was a little girl this is where we had our holiday dinners. My Grandma cooking everything on that black wood fired cook stove you can see there in the front yard. Of course the stove was actually in the house by that time, just to clarify. It may have been primitive, but not that primitive. I'm not sure you can appreciate it from the picture, but folks that house was/is small. The house was small and my family.......
well it was big. (Please do not judge the oversized eye glass frames nor the 80's hair styles or fashion... it was a different time) It was about the time this picture was taken we moved our holiday meals to my Uncle's house. My Grandmother was sick with cancer and just keeping herself healthy took all her energy. There were no illusions as to why we were taking this family picture. In that time we've lost a few members and added six spouses, eight kids and a couple of girlfriends. Now we have holiday dinners at my cousin's house where there is a dining room large enough to hold us all.
Back at my Grandparent's the actual footprint of the kitchen was rather large. The whole room probably measuring somewhere around 12 X 24, but it was awkwardly laid out. With the kitchen end being somewhat narrower than the dining end. Then there was the cook stove, the amount of floor space it needed to eat up to work safely and the awkward position it was in, straddling the cooking and eating areas. Not to mention three windows and four doorways to eat up even more precious wall space.
Everywhere you turned seating was tight. At the table all us kids squished together on a long bench pushed up against the wall under the window. If you ended up sitting in the middle of the bench you were stuck there until dinner was finished unless you could wiggle your way out under the table. If you did manage to do that you'd best secure your seat in the living room because if you thought things were bad in the kitchen the living room only held one couch, a rocking chair and a squishy old arm chair. And that rocking chair, unless your name was Grandma or Grandpa, that chair wasn't for you. Now you haven't forgotten about that cook stove have you? Well trust me, if you'd been there you wouldn't be able to because that sucker had been stoked up all day cooking a veritable Polish feast. By the time dinner was over the house and by extension, all of us, were a collective seven trillion degrees. Windows and doors would be left open trying to disperse some of it. All of us kids will spill out the back door looking for a chance to drop our core temperature down a few degrees.
I often hear people say, "Oh I can't have people over my house is too small" or some such variation and it always make me shake my head. I wonder what things would have been like if my Grandparents had felt that way. Yes we probably wouldn't have sweat as much during the holidays, but I'm afraid we would have lost a lot more than that. Those squishy family dinners taught me many things; how to share, be respectful, to make my own fun and how important family is. So this Thanksgiving I give thanks for that.
2 comments:
Awesome post (and photos!). In my grandparents' kitchen, there was enough room to walk around about 3/4 of the oval table, but that was it. We ate big family dinners in "shifts" or just had people stand around, in fact, because there was no more room for everyone to sit in the kitchen--but everyone always showed up and my grandmother loved it. And now, I love those memories. Thanks for reminding me :)
Great picture. When we ate at our grandparents, the tables had to stretch through the living, kitchen and dining. Yes, there were a lot of us, but their house was so tiny.
Great memories!
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