Two Women Made Me: Part 1

Actually it was three women, if you include the one who gave birth to me. But at 20 and having her life plans to go to business school derailed by an unintended pregnancy, my mother wasn't all that thrilled about motherhood. As she liked to say, "No form of birth control is 100% effective," so my mother was understandably overwhelmed with the responsibilities of caring for four children by the time she was only 25.

And so I spent a lot of time with my two grandmothers.

I was raised in an era where extended families lived close to one another, if not in the same house. Both my mother's and father's parents lived within blocks of each other, their homes very close to ours. Within walking (or biking) distance, in fact.

At the time I didn't realize how very fortunate I was; it is only now, many years later, when my children and grandchildren are thousands of miles away that I see how incredibly blessed I was to have grown up with that kind of family closeness.

My two grandmothers - Catherine Whannel Ray and Annie Bjorklund Dewall - were part of me from the very beginning.

Their two names were combined to make mine. I was christened Catherine Anne Ray, but for more than 34 years, most people have known me as Katie Schweiss. Marriage and personal nickname preference have shifted me far away from "Chatty Cathy" Ray, my childhood moniker.

By some unknown family, dynamic my paternal grandmother’s name came first. I suspect it is that same family dynamic that led to my maternal grandmother, with whom I was close, being called Grandma Dewall, and my paternal grandmother, with whom I spent less time because she and my mother seemed to have a cold war going on, was called Grandma Kate. Yes, ‘Catherine; with a ‘C’ and ‘Kate’ with a ‘K.’ I repeat this explanation often to account for why I spell my name Katie and not Catie.

Still, the 'Catherine' part intrigues me. Why did her name come first and not my mother's mother? Perhaps it was because I already had a cousin Ann, daughter of my mother's sister. Or it might have been something else entirely. I have no one to ask, since both my parents are deceased, and anyway we had been estranged for more than 20 years. What I do know is there was some sort of conflict between my mother and her mother-in-law, a frostiness that remained throughout their lives. Yet for some reason my mother agreed to having my first name be Catherine and not Anne, her mother's name. I never asked why. I learned early on that questions about family relationships were off limits. But I was formed by more than these women's names and their DNA.

I also find it intriguing that one grandmother was referred to by her surname and the other one - Grandma Kate, my father's mother - by her nickname. Although as I do recall, my mother referred to her as Grandma Ray. I am beginning to think my mother's Swedish reserve played a part here, and that first-name use, even in the family, was uncomfortable for her.

This story is about the first woman: Annie Cecelia Dewall, nee Bjorklund. She was my mother's mother, or as Swedes would say, "MorMor."

Soon after my birth my mom returned to work and Grandma Dewall became my caretaker. Her husband - my Grandpa John - died a month after I was born. All I know of him is stories. I suppose having an infant to care for was good for my grandmother, and my memories of being with her as a toddler are very strong. She was a sturdy farm woman with an ample lap and an even more ample bosom that she would hold me close to while she rocked me and sang to me. My mother may have done this (and probably did), but I have no memory of her doing so.

Grandma spoke to me often in Swedish, and that became my first language when I started to talk. But she also spoke in English, because I have a very strong memory of sitting on her lap and having her ask me, "What does the clock do?" In the hallway was a very tall grandfather-type clock and its ticking and striking were quite loud. I also remember the response she taught me: "Makes noise." Then I would clap my hands and giggle. Odd that I would remember that. But I have lots of random bits and pieces like that in my memory.

The Swedish presented a problem for my parents, both of whom spoke only English. My mother was raised in a household where the parents insisted only English be spoken around the children so they would grow up to be 'good Americans.' So my mother neither spoke nor understood Swedish. But once the children were gone from home and my grandmother was left to herself, she reverted to the language of her youth, and so Swedish became my (grand)mother tongue.

Unfortunately I didn't keep it up once I got to school, and only wisps of phrases remain in my head. I think tack så mycket (thanks so much) was my first phrase. I can still recite the prayer she taught me for meal times: Tack för bröd, tack för smör, tack för pappa, tack för mamma (thanks for bread, thanks for butter, thanks for father, thanks for mother). She called me Flicka (little girl) or 'Katrina'.

Grandma Dewall loved the old hymns. Her favorite was a Swedish folk song known in English as "Children of the Heavenly Father." We sang it often in children's choir in the Swedish Lutheran church I was raised in, but we sang it in Swedish. Smatterings of the verses (and there are many), float through my head, but I still remember the first line: Tryggare kan ingen vara. (If you're really curious, you can find both English and Swedish words here.) But I know she loved some of the English ones as well, because she requested "How Great Thou Art" be sung at her funeral. And it was.

She also loved to cook and bake and take care of her family. She never ate at the table with us; she was too busy serving. Sometimes I would find her standing in the kitchen at the counter, hurriedly eating from a small plate. Her motto was, "There's always room for another loaf of bread." Seconds were mandatory, and if you refused them she thought you didn't like what she made and would go down the list of what she could get you instead. If you took thirds she was thrilled.

Her love for coffee was passed on to me. The routine began like this. When you were old enough to drink from a mug, you got warm milk with a spoonful of coffee in it. As you got older, the proportion changed, and the day she handed you a cup of black coffee she thought you were grown. That day came for me about the age of 12.

Her other two favorites were Twins baseball (only on the small black and white TV; my parents took her to a game once at the old Met Stadium and she hated it because it was too hard to see her favorite players). Tony Oliva and Harmon Killebrew were her heroes, and so they became mine. We watched a lot of baseball games together with our folding chairs pulled up close to that small 12" TV, eating our snacks from TV trays.

And she loved card games - Rook mostly, though Crazy 8s and hearts were played occasionally. She taught me the games at a young age, and often after school we played at a card table in her living room. She had quite a stash of playing cards, because one of my uncles worked at Brown & Bigelow downtown St. Paul, and he was often bringing home reject packs. I think I may even have learned some rudimentary math from those cards.

She also taught me to write my name long before I went to kindergarten. That happened at the desk my grandfather had built. He was a carpenter and cabinet maker who was a true craftsman. By some twist of fate (I have a hard time calling it coincidence), this part of him lives on in one of my children.

I often wonder about how much genetics plays a part in what we call our natural talents or abilities. My son Andy has a real gift for working with wood and is an excellent craftsman. He builds beautiful cabinetry and decks and just about anything else you can think of that is wood. He's very good with his hands, which his father is not (except for painting, wallpapering, and calligraphy, all art-type pursuits and not building.) Andy was born decades after Grandpa Dewall and as far as I know he knew nothing about him. Yet he takes after him with some of his natural abilities. Also intriguing.

And here is another part of the genetic influence puzzle. My Grandma Dewall grew up working in stables and loved horses. As a teenager Andy came to love horses as well, and he owned a beautiful horse called Chester. Daughter Abbi rides like she was born to it and has a horse herself. Yet neither of them knew their great-grandmother and I doubt were even aware of her equine background.

But I digress. Back to the main story.

Unfortunately my maternal grandfather, John Helmer Dewall, was as poor as he was talented, having a large family to raise. I wonder what our family would have become if he had been financially able to take a job he was offered at a relatively new company in St. Paul called Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing. It paid mainly in stock options, which wouldn't have put food on the table. And so he turned it down. I can't imagine what his 3M stock would be worth today.

(Side note: My father, his son-in-law, made a very successful career of working for 3M, but early on in his days at the Mining - as it was called then - he worked two other jobs to support his family. Another story for another day.)

And Grandma Dewall loved me.

She loved me as fiercely and as passionately as a reserved Scandinavian farm woman could. And I knew it. There are times I miss her terribly, even though she passed away more than 40 years ago. I think of her often when I am cooking or baking, and it's not uncommon to find me eating from a small plate in the kitchen.

But she lives in me, alongside my other deceased grandmother, Grandma Kate. But her story is for another day.