It’s strange how simple actions can jar one’s memories of the past and some of the people who have touched our lives and impacted us.
The other morning I was spreading butter on a piece of toast for breakfast and it quickly reminded me of my Grandmother McCormick and my Grandmother Lynch.
When Grandmother McCormick would fix me toast or pancakes for my breakfast, she would slap that butter on them like one couldn’t believe. It was real butter, too, that she had bought down at the market not far from where she and Granddad McCormick lived on Northwest 10th Street in Oklahoma City.
She and Grandmother Lynch were both such great cooks. It’s really no wonder they were. Grandmother McCormick had reared five sons and Grandmother Lynch had eight children.
My dad was the youngest of those five boys. My biological mother was the second oldest of the eight and when dad remarried after she had died, he married her sister who was the third oldest.
Between them that is 13 kids and they were doing that through the time of the Great Depression.
Being the oldest of 19 grandchildren on my mother’s side and the fourth oldest on dad’s side, I logged a lot of time with both sets of grandparents.
My Grandmother Mc-Cormick made a lemon pie and a lemon cake that are still my favorites today.
Grandmother Lynch made several pies I liked and still do, a Butterscotch pie and Cherry pie.
I really liked the way both fried their chicken.
My Grandmother Lynch died when she was 90, within a couple of weeks when she would have turned 91.
I was with my Grandmother McCormick on her 97th birthday in that same house on Northwest 10th Street. Sensing that day she didn’t have much longer to live I guess, she told me, not asked me, that I would be a pall bearer at her funeral which I was.
She passed away about a month later. I was also a pall bearer at the funeral for Grandmother Lynch. The two died within less than two months of one another.
Each was very special in her own way. Both were nurturing, kind, loving, compassionate and provided guidance as needed.
Grandmother Lynch had been married more than 60 years, buried a husband and four of her children before she passed away and Grandmother McCormick, too, had been married well over 60 years and buried a husband and two sons before she died.
I’ve learned how important grandparents can be in one’s life and was really fortunate I had both of mine around for so many years of mine.