Grandmother's House

Since it's Thanksgiving weekend and we're all thinking about "Over the river and through the woods to Grandmother's house we go.", I thought I'd write about my grandmother's house.

Since my aunt passed away, we as a family are thinking about what's going to happen to Gramma's house. Aunt Grace never married so she was with Gramma much of the time. She lived away from home most of her life, but she lived near enough to come home weekends and holidays. Then, when she retired, she moved in with Gramma and took care of her until Gramma died in 2004. Since then Aunt Grace has lived there with her dog Corky.

Now we need to figure out how we can keep the house and some of the land in the family. The house was built in the early part of the last century by my grandmother's aunt and uncle. They came from Sweden.

Another thing that makes letting it go to strangers difficult is that, for all of us grandchildren, it has been the one constant (yeah, kinda like baseball) in our lives. Many of us have moved around in our lifetime, if not while growing up at least since becoming adults. So Gramma's house has been one place we could always go back to and it would still be the same. It is comforting.

Not only is the house associated with our wonderful warm memories of our gramma, it is in a peaceful setting, far from traffic noise, stop lights, light pollution and neighbors. When I go there I feel like I'm in Narnia, or someplace far away from the real world. The starts pop. The Milky Way is a silver light across the black velvet sky. And yes, it makes one poetic. I love the sound of the wind blowing through the trees at night. And the stillness. Somehow, it drains all the tension away and puts troubles in perspective.

It is also a house of happy memories of times with our large extended family. Uncle Paul and the snapping turtle, picnics on the grass, the forbidden pump tower, Christmas gatherings, going to bed by the light of the kerosene lamps, the smell of coffee and the warmth of the kitchen by the wood stove, Aunt Grace's stories, Gramma's dire warnings, long walks, stones in the creek.

So we're trying to see if enough grandchildren, and even great grandchildren, can scrape together enough cash to buy at least the house and SOME of the acreage to keep as a place to go "home" to. To keep those memories alive, to share them with our children and grandchildren.

It is literally over the river (the Kettle River) and through the woods, deep into the woods on Bear Lane!