Grandmas are the backbone of Indian Country
Last week, I wrote a column about Indian grandmas, currently my interest.
Unfortunately, though I am the namesake of Clara Keeler McMakin, on my father’s Irish side, it was not my good fortune to know her, as she passed before I was born. Dad said she was a rather large lady, a pioneer school teacher, an immaculate housekeeper of a log cabin with dirt floors, a good cook and very fond of her five children, often offsetting the stern behavior of my grandfather.
“Though, I only managed the eighth grade,” Dad said, “by night, under a kerosene lamp, we learned more letters and heard many wonderful history stories from your Grandma. But then, we had to get up early the next day and work.”
Those were probably all good lessons and I wish I could have learned some from her.
I am fortunate to have some “ears” that is, people who will listen to my proposed columns, prior to submission. Sometimes, as a writer, you think you said what you wanted to say. But, perhaps not that clearly. So Linda Campbell, a good friend of mine, wife of former Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell, often kindly does that for me, a very useful critic and commentator, in the kindest way. (After all, she coached Ben along for many years.)
She liked the Indian Grandma story, but commented “They were not the only Grandmas who did that.”
So true. This country, America was built upon the backs of resourceful women, many wives, mothers and grandmothers. But, in order to do that, they had to have regular access to the children.
At one time extended families, especially in rural areas were the norm. Linda remembers that from her childhood, growing up on a ranch where she and other children were welcome in many houses, and by many grandmother types. And even the outlaws, Jesse, Frank James and the Younger gang (according to one of my favorite movies) ever looked to “Ma” James for advice, help and succor. They could always go home and be welcomed, their misdeeds easily forgiven.
Yet, in a short generation or two, most Americans have moved to town, now living in a “nuclear” family which often gets fractured, divorce bring a very easy way out of dissent these days. In the urban environment, people must then live in small apartments, condos or suburban homes, where it is difficult to fit a Grandma or Grandpa in, even if the old ones want to go. Instead, most Grandparents cling on to the “old” place as long as possible, comfortable and familiar.
And then, since most of the children and grandchildren are living in town, far away, Grandmas turn lonesome and eventually due to old age or various ailments, get parked into a senior citizens low-rent apartment complex, an assisted living center, or worse yet, a nursing home.
NATIVE SUN NEWS TODAY
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