When the Clock Chimes

By Ann Ingalls
Kansas City, Missouri

It was a good thing Grandma Vanderwerp didn’t live very far away, only about 3 blocks, since my brother Tom and I needed to get away from the noisy confusion we called “home.”

Both of us were kind of quiet and born right in the middle of a large and busy family. We had six other sisters and brothers, a mom, a dad, two hamsters, two birds, a dog and, depending on the time of year, a washtub full of tadpoles waiting to become frogs.

Grandma understood about kids and frogs. She knew about tree-climbing and dress-up clothes and just about anything we had to tell, and she had an old, squatty, just-right-for-climbing cherry tree in her backyard.

Tom and I had dreams about the pies Grandma could bake from the cherries we’d pick. The trouble was, as Grandma said, “The birds have plans for those cherries, too.”

Sitting on her back porch, surrounded by Shasta daisies, we shooed those pesky birds away while we sipped ginger ale from anodized-aluminum cups Grandma reserved for our visits.

Sometimes, a little talking could persuade Grandma to let us spend the night. Sleepovers at Grandma’s were a special affair.

First, there would be a bubble bath with sweet-smelling suds, the result of the magic powders stored in apothecary jars high on a shelf in Grandma’s white-tiled bathroom.

After a soak and a scrub and a warm rub-a-dub, we crawled into the flannel PJs that Grandma kept “just in case.” We parked ourselves by Grandma’s knee sharing the needlepoint footstool that doubled as a doll bed when upturned.

Grandma read short stories from her large-type copies of Reader’s Digest. Sometimes, she would cry if the stories were sad, but mainly she would read humorous anecdotes and would throw back her lovely white hair and laugh. Soon, we’d be laughing, too.

Then we’d talk for awhile, each of us hanging onto one of her prominently veined and wrinkled hands. We’d ask questions like, “Why do your veins stick out, Grandma?”, “Were you sad when Grandpa died?” and “Just what kind of a little boy was Daddy?”

All the while, Grandma’s clock ticked away the time and Westminster chimes reminded us of each quarter hour.

Grandma often asked, “What does the clock say to you, little Ann?” Depending on my frame of mind, its message would vary. Once, when I had stayed a week and was an especially homesick 5-year-old, the clock said, “I’m sad because I miss Mama.” Grandma responded, “Well, climb on my lap, and we’ll think about her together.”

A brass fire screen with a fierce dragon, its tail arched and swirled to show its authority, stood before Grandma’s black, marble-faced hearth. It was rumored within our family to have been gold-plated at one time and to have belonged to Marie Antoinette, a famous French queen. Grandpa had acquired it from an antique shop in New Orleans for 50¢ in the early 1920s, shortly after he and Grandma were married.

At some point, the dealer realized what he had sold and tried to buy it back for a lot of money, but Grandma would have none of that. By that time, the dragon had become the backdrop for so many family pictures.

Eventually, Tom and I would start to yawn, signaling that bedtime had arrived. Up the double flight of stairs we’d tread to a room filled with contradictions—disconcerting in some ways, yet cozy and comforting in others.

A large mahogany bed heaped with lavender satin quilts and eyelet-trimmed pillows awaited. Lingering on hand-crocheted, lace-edged, linen sheets was the scent of lily-of-the-valley. On the walls, glaring ominously, were the framed faces of medieval Dutch ancestors—I hoped not ours. Severe hairstyles and stark dress betrayed their dispositions.

On a spoon-footed vanity, where Grandma kept hair ribbons, were displayed the loveliest porcelain boxes with painted flowers. Each box held a secret—a shiny button, a hairpin or a spiral shell. Accompanying these were perfume atomizers of every shape and description.

China dolls, which once belonged to Grandma’s sisters Cora and Nell, rested in a black-painted child’s rocker with a braided cloth seat.

Grandma tucked us in and reminded each of us with a kiss and a smile that she would be downstairs if we needed her.
 
Many years have passed since then. I’m grown now and still remember all of this as I write it down with Grandma’s tortoise-shell fountain pen filled with ink from Grandma’s crystal ink well.

Sitting at her roll-top desk with burled walnut trim, I remember the woman who painstakingly taught me to sew doll clothes, who read Winnie the Pooh stories a hundred times, who spit watermelon seeds and who stitched Halloween costumes and homecoming dresses with a flourish and fantasy in mind.

After a while, I intend to sit in her wingback chair, read short stories and humorous anecdotes and wait for the clock to chime. It will say, “I miss Grandma.”

From: Reminisce Newsletter