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| Wearing one of Mom's homemade sweaters while crossing the Atlantic. |
Living The High Life With Grandma Rita
By Linda Wysong Weld
Grandma Rita was always quite the lady. When you looked at her in her older years, you could still see it. She had put Ponds Cold Cream on her face every single night when she was younger. I can still remember her standing there in the bathroom, peering in the mirror, and dabbing it here and there.You never knew. You just might want to look really terrific as you aged.
And, she DID look really terrific. She always dressed so nicely, too. Her clothes when she was in her 90's were very reminiscent of her clothes decades earlier. Tailored, attractive, layered...
But she was also practical. She was smack between two cultures. She grew up in South Dakota and she lived the "the high life" in the Foreign Service. She chose bits and pieces of both these very different lives.
At heart, she liked making things. She knit sweaters for everybody: Grandpa, me, Grandpa's mom in Indiana... Her sweaters were very distinctive. They were made of little squares -- kind of like Wheat Chex, all piled up on each other. And the arms were always ridiculously long, as if she had made an article of clothing for a gorilla instead of a 12-year old girl. She chose unique and unexpected colors, too. Like baby blue.
I liked her sweaters. I wore them all the way through my years at Belt Jr. High, and then on to Wheaton High School, even though they were probably wildly unfashionable at the time.
Here's a picture of me and Mom, on an ocean liner (either the Independence or the Constitution) coming back to the United States from Beirut. Mom is in her lovely little tailored outfit, with a French scarf and high heels. I am in one of her wonderful sweaters (see the long, long sleeves all rolled up) and I'm wearing saddle shoes.
If you look really closely, you can see that Mom is carrying a knitting bag, with the knitting needles poking out. You never knew. Perhaps there would suddenly be a random minute or two to work on yet another Wheat Chex sweater to present (all wrapped up quite carelessly in white tissue paper tied with thin little string) to some unsuspecting relative next Christmas!
