I once tried to post a picture of her from my phone, but it didn't work. She would have said, "See? I told you, modern technology is no damn good!"
She wasn't born into high society, but she knew you didn't have to be upper-class to have class. She never even graduated high school: Growing up in South Jamaica, Queens, she had to drop out of John Adams High School in neighboring Ozone Park in her senior year, because she'd been orphaned, and had to go to work. But she knew, as Sam Levenson put it, You don't have to be in Who's Who to know what's what.
She lived through a lot. The Great Depression, losing both of her parents before she could graduate high school, the home front of World War II, the way America thought of women in the 20th Century, a Red Scare that tried to marginalize people who thought the way she did, Dodger-Giant games at Ebbets Field and the Polo Grounds, a marriage that was frequently difficult, raising a daughter who was as spirited and as stubborn as she was, having a grandson who was a bit off, over 30 years of living in New York City, and half a century of living in New Jersey:
1924-29: Somewhere in Brooklyn
1929-42: South Jamaica, Queens
1942-46: Somewhere in Manhattan
1946-48: Hunter, New York (in the Catskill Mountains)
1948-55: The Lower East Side of Manhattan
1955-59: The North Ward of Newark, New Jersey
1959-65: Belleville, New Jersey (next-door to Newark)
1965-73: Nutley, New Jersey (next-door to Belleville)
1973-2006: Brick, New Jersey (7 miles inland from the Shore)
But she survived it all, and never gave an inch. She was a Maude Findlay long before anyone heard of Beatice Arthur. And she was also similar to Bea's other character, Dorothy Zbornack.
Ironically, Dorothy was my other grandmother's name. To show you what kind of person Grace was: While she and Dorothy didn't exactly get along, she noticed that no one in Dorothy's large family cried at her funeral -- and that made her cry. She detested unfairness in all its forms, even if the person involved was only an underdog in death.
She loved her baseball, her gardening, her TV, and her family. She knew how much nonsense to put up with -- and no more. If any reindeer ever tried to run over my Grandma, she'd have given it a red nose!
She was of English descent, but she never knew where in England. There's a town named Darton in Yorkshire, which could be from whence her family came. I figured I was descended from witty, urbane Londoners, not "Dirty Northern B@st@rds!" She visited England twice -- and, both times, Arsenal won the next League title.
And she didn't grow old gracefully: She fought it every step of the way.
She detested unfairness in all its forms, and always supported the underdog. It's why she was a New York New Deal Democrat until the end. It's why she was a Brooklyn Dodger fan, and then a Met fan. It may even be why, even though she was old enough to remember the New York Rangers as a regular Stanley Cup winner, and remember maybe not their 1928 Cup win, but certainly their wins of 1933 and 1940, she turned to the New Jersey Devils when she got into hockey as an old lady.
She listened to Game 3 of the 1951 Dodger-Giant Playoff on the radio, and when she heard that Ralph Branca was coming in to pitch to Bobby Thomson, she turned the radio off. She knew that Branca only had a fastball, and that Thomson could only hit a fastball, and that Thomson had already hit a home run off Branca in Game 1 of the Playoff, and that Branca tended to give up home runs ("gopher balls," she always called them when Branca's name came up). She knew Thomson was going to hit the Pennant-winning home run.
Like any good fan of the Dodgers, she hated the Giants long after the teams moved to California. When the Mets came along, she was always glad to see them beat the San Francisco Giants -- and the Los Angeles Dodgers.
Like any good fan of the Dodgers, the Giants, or the Mets, she hated the Yankees. (We had a few discussions about which team was better.) She hated Joe DiMaggio. She hated Mickey Mantle. She hated Yogi Berra -- making her a true rarity. She hated Billy Martin. She really, really hated Casey Stengel, probably due to his mismanagement of the Dodgers in the 1930s.
There were 2 Yankees she liked: Phil Rizzuto and Whitey Ford. Part of it was that, like her, they were from Queens. Part of it was that they were little guys who came up big when it counted. But what she most liked was how Ford was always calm on the mound, no matter what the situation.
The opposite was what she hated in Billy Martin: She could never stand hotheads. That's why she admired Jackie Robinson so much: She knew how much crap he was putting up with, and loved that he turned his anger into performance, rather than fighting back. It's why she admired Gil Hodges, and loved that he went from playing 1st base and hitting home runs for the Dodgers to managing the Mets to the 1969 World Championship.
Speaking of hotheads: She was from Queens. So is Donald Trump. Unlike Trump, she was honest, caring, and tough. She never liked him, and had she lived, she would have been appalled at what he's done to her country.
On April 15, 1997, the Mets played the Dodgers at Shea Stadium. It was Jackie Robinson Night, the 50th Anniversary of Robinson's debut. I won tickets to it in a radio contest. I knew I had to take her. We had great seats behind home plate, saw some old Dodger greats (including Sandy Koufax -- wearing a Mets cap, as he was then feuding with Dodger management), saw President Bill Clinton give a speech, and heard Commissioner Bud Selig announce that Robinson's Number 42 would be retired for all of baseball. And we saw the Mets win.
That was the last live Major League Baseball game she ever saw. When the minor-league Lakewood BlueClaws (now known as the Jersey Shore BlueClaws) arrived in 2001, just 5 miles from her house, she went to a few of their games over the next 5 seasons. By the time the 2006 season began, she was in the hospital, never to return. The BlueClaws won their 1st Pennant that year. I'd like to think she had something to do with that.
She died on May 11, 2006. On June 4, 2006, what would have been her 82nd birthday, I went to Shea Stadium in her memory. As fate would have it, the Mets were playing the team she hated the most, the Giants. As fate would also have it, despite their status as one of the oldest franchises in baseball, the Giants were the last of the 30 MLB teams that I hadn't yet seen live. It was a very entertaining game, which she would have appreciated. The Mets came from behind to tie the game in the 8th inning, and did it again in the 10th. But their luck ran out, and the Giants won it in the 12th inning, 7-6.
August 30 of that year would have been Grandpa's 100th Birthday. I went to Yankee Stadium that night, and the Yankees played a team he would have recognized, the Detroit Tigers. But Joe Torre decided to give Mariano Rivera the night off, and Scott Proctor blew the lead with 1 out to go: 2 walks and a home run, to lose, 5-3. Cliché Alert: Walks can kill you. In spite of her antipathy toward the Giants, Grandma was fond of quoting Giant star turned broadcaster Frankie Frisch: "Oh, those bases on balls!"
This year, on the 100th Anniversary of her berth, the baseball schedulemaker did not cooperate: The Mets are on the road, playing the Washington Nationals. And it doesn't make sense to do anything at any of her former homes, all of which are in private hands, and thus unavailable.
So, yesterday, my mother and I went to see the last remaining member of her generation of the family, Grandma's 96-year-old French-born sister-in-law, Aunt Catherine, and we made a wine toast to her memory. Catherine has fond memories of her, and called her "Grace the Great."
Grandma wouldn't want me to tell you that I still haven't gotten over losing her. She would want me to tell the 3 great-granddaughters that she didn't get to see about her, and for them to know that the world is easier for girls like them because of women like her. And I have. And I will.
Someone online once asked, "Is it true that, once the glue which holds the family together passes away, family gatherings aren't the same anymore?"
Of course, they're not exactly the same. But for many families, someone else steps in to be "the glue." My grandmother hosted the family holiday dinners, and when she died, my sister took many of her decorations to her new house, and she's now the hostess, so it's about 80 percent like it was, and the 20 percent that's new fills in most of the gap.
Those of us who knew Grandma still miss her, but those who didn't can feel her influence, if not her presence. In that way, she lives on.
I looked it up: On June 4, 1924, the Brooklyn Dodgers did not play.
1 comment:
very well written Michael. Grandma was one of a kind, I wish we could have kept her a little long.
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