I just have to say: I love my Grandmother (a lifelong Democrat)

[Coventina]

I posted another thread about her a few days ago.

She's 94. Born in 1923.

Her family lost everything in the stock market crash of 1929.

Got married right out of high school, then WW2 broke out. Her husband (my grandfather) enlisted in the navy and was stationed in Pearl Harbor for the duration of the war. My grandmother gave birth to my dad while he was serving in Hawaii.

She was widowed at 50 when her husband died of a sudden, massive heart attack. He worked for a company with no pension, no benefits, nothing.

She went back to work for another 25 years. Retired at 75. Still no pension, just living on social security and the benefits she gets for being a WW2 vet widow.

Today, I was helping her with errands. One of them?

She had me write a check for her (she's now blind) for $50 for our local food bank.
Might not sound like much, but for someone like her, that's a fortune. I thought she was going to tell me $10 or something. $50. That's like her entire food budget for two weeks or more.

She said she felt horrible, because she hadn't donated in a while.

I just so admire her generous heart, after all the hardship she's been through in her life.

[3catwoman3]

1. You would not have had to tell us she is a Democrat.

It's obvious that someone with such a giving spirit would be on our side of the aisle. Give her a hug from me.

[applegrove]

2. Your grandmother is rich in the important ways. And she's leaving you

with quite the legacy.

[dhol82]

3. What a wonderful woman!

[Freedomofspeech]

4. How lucky you are...

What a beautiful soul. I hope your food bank donations are like ours...when we donate $50 they can purchase $500 worth of food.

[Coventina]

7. According to their donation slip, $50 provides 350 meals.

And yes, I am incredibly lucky to have such a wonderful woman in my life!!

[Hekate]

5. Hugs to your grandma. She was born just a year before my late Mom

[irisblue]

6. Your Grandma Rocks nt

[shenmue]

8. ...

[politicat]

9. I want to get your granny and mine together.

They're about the same age, and I think in the same metro area. Gran was also a war bride, and my eldest uncle was born while Grandpa was away, also in the Navy, also in the Pacific. Also grew up poor, and what little they had in '29 was gone by New Years 1930.

My grandmother got to keep her sailor for a couple decades longer, but similar story -- massive heart attack out of the blue. Gran, too, worked.

My gran is one reason I'm a Democrat -- like most teenagers in Arizona, I flirted briefly with the dominant culture and with conservatism. She talked me out of that before I could drive.

[Coventina]

10. That's awesome!!

My grandmother was born in a little house on Center in Mesa, built by her dad, my Great-Grandfather.
It's still there, just north of Main on the west side of the street (I think it's a law office now).

No, they weren't LDS, in spite of living in Mesa. (That's the usual question, not saying you would ask it, necessarily).

So cool!!!!

[politicat]

12. ... I know that area really well.

I can picture that intersection -- those are really lovely buildings. Your great-grandfather did exceptional work.

I lived in Holmes Elementary cachement as a little girl, then (officially) near Higley as a late teenager and at the bottom of the mesa on Center during undergrad and grad school. Grandpa is in the cemetery at the top of that hill. I walked everywhere for most of the year and did work study in the building right behind the public library for most of my undergrad years. (Most of my fam is still there, but I need snow and several hundred miles between me and them.) Gran's been in the East Valley for 35 years now. (I know they left the midwest for AZ before my father got TDY'ed to Williams for the shutdown/transfer. That's why my father requested that duty station.)

My immediate fam migrated in in the 80s for Reagan's War on Bases. Being non-LDS in Mesa must have been... interesting. It was still difficult even in the 90s.

[Coventina]

15. They relocated to downtown Phoenix after several years.

My Great-Grandfather gave up his dry-goods store in Mesa and decided to become a homebuilder instead.
(Thanks for the compliment on his work!)
He built many of the Craftsman style bungalows in the old neighborhoods of Phoenix.

As a result, she graduated from Kenilworth Elementary, and Phoenix Union High School (RIP).

Glad you escaped the valley, you lucky thing!!

[hunter]

23. I've got non-LDS family in Arizona and other LDS strongholds.

They seem to have made themselves useful settling disputes between warring LDS factions, and as suppliers of contraband. One of my mom's uncles was a water master. The Mormons in that area didn't trust one another enough to do the job fairly. He was also a telephone lineman, another job that required discretion.

Before he ran off to California and saw the bigger picture I think my grandpa wanted nothing more than to own a gas station and sell bootleg liquor and French Postcards out the back door to pious and respected Mormon gentleman.

My last immigrant ancestor to the U.S.A. was a mail order bride to Salt Lake City from Northern Europe. The Mormons were her ticket out of a place that was turning into a shit hole of religious intolerance and war. She didn't like sharing a husband so she ran off with a monogamous guy and they established a homestead in Mormon Territory.

I had a great grandma who hated the Mormons so much she wrote poetry about it, some so scathing it might get me banned from DU if I posted it here.

I probably have the Later Day Saints to thank for my highly matriarchal family. My great grandmas were all steely eyed women of the Wild West who had zero tolerance for bad men or patriarchy. They were extremely skilled with guns, knives, and harsh penis-shrinking-balls-hitting-freezing-water words. Their husbands were dreamers. In their own fashion, they were too.

I still recall one of my great grandmas cursing her dead husband's radio obsession. He'd invited the rural electrification devils onto the homestead to power his radio and she'd never forgiven him for that. Her two room house had two forty watt light bulbs and the damned radio. You did not touch the radio or the two light switches without her permission. I remember her berating my mom's cousin, telling him he was sure to be the ruin of the family because he'd bought an electric well pump from the toilet paper Sears Catalog so his wife could have running water in her kitchen and wouldn't have to go outside in the winter to fetch it. Indoor plumbing of any sort was the devil. So was electricity.

One of my kids is an LGBT activist, part of an underground railway plucking at-risk LDS LGBT street kids out of harm's way. (There, I said it, loathe as I am to reveal the more intimate details of my personal life here on DU.)

I've NEVER had LDS elders ringing my doorbell, two-by-two, watching one another's backs. I suspect it's because they know us.

[politicat]

24. I've got both Born In Covenant and converts in the family.

My XY parent is crazy, so his fifth (consecutive, not simultaneous) wife is 6th gen LDS. Thus, all three step-sibs and my baby half-sib. XY (who is known as Asshat around here) likes the Bircher sentiments, resents the tithing, alternates on hot drinks and tobacco, and drinks when he's not in residence. Asshat is enough of an MRA/Misogynist that he'd probably like to be polyg, but wife 5 has his number.

One full sibling converted -- no idea why. We grew up with it, but when she moved east, she found the culture there far less obnoxious and joined. Now she's back in the Corridor, and I give her another 3 years before she goes Community of Christ or leaves. She forgot how bleedin' misogynist it is in the Corridor.

I end up being a translator for my fellow Gentiles who find the Corridor culture unfathomable. I am not, never will be (and have that in my will, because I am a non-theist Quaker and do not believe in any baptism by water, in this life or afterwards), but growing up in it, I get it as anthropology. I find that I watch LDS theology and the current schisms the way some people watch a daily soap opera. It's a lot like a train wreck, and yet, I just can't pull away because it's so fascinating to watch a non-professional clergy repeatedly try and fail to understand their own history and doctrine, precisely because they've spent so long as an organization forbidding critical scholarship. There's a lot of analogy between the current GOP and the current state of the LDS, both orthodox and schismatic, and both organizations are fighting for control of the money.

[hunter]

30. My mom went from frontier Catholic, too far away to attend any Mass on Sundays...

... to Jehovah's Witness (until they kicked her out when I was in the fourth grade because she couldn't stay out of politics), to Quaker. The Quakers could listen respectfully to whatever my mom had to say, and then move on.

There are many pacifist threads in my family history.

My mom's dad was a Conscientious Objector in World War II and refused to take up arms, which is probably as abhorrent now to some people as it was then. Given the stark choice of a prison cell or building and repairing ships for the Merchant Marine, he built and repaired ships. He was once beaten up by the police for protesting the internment of his Japanese neighbors.

[Coventina]

33. Really fascinating! Thanks!!

In the case of my grandmother's family:

Her father was staunchly anti-religion. After the death of their second child (who was born before my grandmother was), he vowed to never step foot inside a church again, and he never did (although he did make some exceptions for weddings - not funerals, though).

His wife remained devoutly Presbyterian (teaching Sunday School most of her life), so he would dutifully drive them to church each Sunday, but sit in the car smoking, reading the paper, and listening to the radio.

As a result, the family sort of sharply divided between the Believers and Non-Believers. Unfortunately, my dad went from the Non-Believer side to the Believer side, eventually becoming a Presbyterian minister himself.

[Me.]

11. For Your Grandmother

[Blue_true]

13. For Donald Trump and lots of his friends.

Money is everything, how they measure their worth as human beings. A really screwed up concept.

To many people, money is just a tool to either meet their goals, do good deeds, ect. Beyond that money has little value.

[Coventina]

17. So true. "You Can't Take It With You" so no sense in letting it rule you.

The Trump family, in my eyes, is one of the most impoverished groups of people I've ever seen, in all the ways that matter.

[Blue_true]

34. I agree. nt

[iamateacher]

14. Wow

Give Grandma my love. She is someone who I aspire to be.

[nini]

16. Sounds like my 93 year old mom

Same outlook on life and experiences. They're treasures.

[Skittles]

18. 50 bucks is a very nice donation

tell her I will match her donation to my local food bank

[Coventina]

19. Oh she will love this!!

You're my hero, Skittles!!

[Skittles]

20. I kid you not

I just wrote the check and stamped the envelope received from the food bank a couple of days ago.....WOOT!

[littlemissmartypants]

21. ♡ eom

[GeoWilliam750]

22. Brava, brava!

[raven mad]

25. What a beautiful woman.

Thank you for uplifting a semi-miserable day. Kudos to your lovely grandmother.

[TeamPooka]

26. Post a link to that food bank here and I'll match her donation. nt

[Coventina]

31. Oh I am overwhelmed and overjoyed!!

Here is the link:

http://www.firstfoodbank.org

[MFM008]

27. I'm loving her

As well.
You tell her that please.

[bottomofthehill]

28. In honor of yur grandmother, i am matching her contribution to SOME

So Others Might Eat here in DC.
SOME.org

[bottomofthehill]

29. In honor of your grandmother, i am matching her contribution to SOME

[Coventina]

32. Thank you so, so much!!

I am so awed and humbled by all the responses here!!!!

I love DU and DUers!!!

[H2O Man]

35. Beautiful.

Your grandmother is beautiful. And so are you!

[Coventina]

36. *blushes*

You are too kind.

If I am of any merit, it is due to having her as an example to follow.

(My parents, sadly, are (dad) were (mom) dedicated Fundie Republicans. *sigh*)

[H2O Man]

38. Environment plus

genetics!

You OP has had me smiling since I read it.

[Old Terp]

37. The women of 1923 were wonders.

They supported their family, gave back to their community, were such good examples for their children and grandchildren and were blessings for all. You are so lucky to still have your grandmother. She is a treasure.