Memories of a Great-Grandmother

My daughter prepared a short speech for a school competition and chose for her subject her great-grandmother, my Grand-maman Rose.  She features a couple of stories that I fondly remember being told when I was a very young girl.  I’m not surprised my daughter heard them too.  Here is her re-telling, translated by her from the original French.

* * * * *

I come from a big French Canadian family. I love my family… Er, well most of the time when they’re not nagging me…

But the most precious moments I spend with my family happen during our vacations when all my family (the French side because my father’s side does not speak French) reassembles around the big table well decorated by my grandmother Gisèle. During this time (rather brief if you ask me), we're at our loudest. We tell stories one after the other and we often cut each other off and everyone bursts out laughing! My God, I never laugh as hard as when I’m with them.

Grand-maman Rose at 85, always smiling

However, my favourite stories are those of my great grandmother Rose. Only measuring four feet ten inches, she had and raised fifteen children! At the time my family wasn’t very rich eh? Fifteen children? Ouf. No problem though! Grandma Rose has everything under control and she had fun doing it.

While she wasn’t taller than an average tween, if she had to take the train she never had to pay. Why?  Well, when she got onto the train and the ticket master came over to take her ticket, she told him her father had it and that he was in the smoker section, at the compleeeete end of the train. So, the ticket master went all the way to the back of the train and by the time he got back to tell her he couldn’t find her father, she was already gone, having had all the necessary time to get to her stop.

Here’s another example. To have fun she would enter really fancy and chic stores with her young girls and try on all kinds of different clothes, creating a little “fashion show”. When she was finished, she thanked the employees for their help, and clack, she left, without buying anything. She only wanted to have fun with her family. My great grandmother Rose was an ingenious person.

She loved to have fun with her family, just like me. So, even if she is not with us anymore, she will always be in my heart.