love in 1962

This is a picture of my grandma and grandpa Maxfield - my mom's parents. Grandma was probably in her late 50's at this time. Grandpa was sitting there looking at her with such love in his eyes - he with his quart of beer and she with her coffee - always served with a saucer. We could go to the bar and get beer for grandpa when we were kids with no questions asked. They knew it was for him. It cost 50 cents for a quart. If anyone came to visit him, he would place the bottle on the floor by his chair so he didn't have to share it.


Grandma and Grandpa had a hard life. Their first child - a baby boy died at about 11 months of age. He had a bad heart, my mom said. Grandma said he ate well that morning and she put him to sleep and he died. She went on to have 7 more kids - giving birth to all of them at home except for the last one - born in a hospital. Only her firstborn died before she did.

Grandpa was a heavy drinker. He worked in the mines and I guess he wasn't always nice to Grandma but like my mom, she stayed with him through everything. In his later years, he paid her back when she broke her hip when she tripped over the cat. He lovingly cared for her at home when she wouldn't go to the doctor, until she got better. "Mum" he called her. I can still hear him singing "K K K K Katy, Beautiful Katy, You're the only G G G Girl that I adore...." and assorted other WWI songs.


Grandpa ended up dying a painful death - of pancreatic cancer I think. He asked for my sister just before he died. She was always his favorite cause she went fishing with him all the time. But I didn't mind. Grandma held his hand though, right up to the end. It was for better or for worse.


Grandma never wanted indoor plumbing and the first time she ever had it, was in the nursing home where she died. I used to sew her little "bed jackets" every Christmas until she told me she didn't need any more. My mom was at work when the nursing home called her to come, cause grandma was dying. My mom didn't get there in time. She says she had no regrets though, because she had been a good daughter. My grandma's last years were good ones - she loved that nursing home and the conveniences she had there that she never had before.

The look in this picture says so much. It is the look of love that endured through the drunken stupors and the broken hips and death of their firstborn. It is a look and a love maybe more common in 1962 than it is now.

I think my grandma had secrets we never found out about, just like my mom. The nursing home did give us this poem that she wrote:

If of me you do not think
My heart will shrink and shrink and shrink
But if you love and tell me so
My heart will grow and grow and grow