Ilene Louise Schoonover August 8, 1921 ~ January 29, 2001
Today would be my gramma's 87th birthday. She was born in Richland Center, Wisconsin just three days after the first radio broadcast of a baseball game. The oldest of four children, my gramma grew up in a small town very much like the one I live in now. My dad was born there; a part of my family still lives there. I've been there several times and it's the kind of place I could easily fit in to. My gramma met my grandpa Don "Slick" Ewing just before WWII. She was pregnant with my dad when grandpa left for the South Pacific and she worked in a hospital as a nurse to bring in the much needed income. My dad grew up on my great-grandparent's farm, surrounded by cousins that he is still close with today. His grandparents pretty much raised him when he was a small boy, as my grandmother had to work, and he didn't meet his father until the war was over and he was four years old. Even though he was an only child, he certainly didn't spend his early years as one. All of my gramma's siblings had loads of kids that lived nearby.
Anyhow, my gramma was about as unique as they come. She was a cunning card player and loved to gamble in Las Vegas, as well as take the pot from her friends and family during all-night card games. She would have fit right in with the boys in any cowboy-western film, which happened to be her favourite thing to watch. She was a master Scrabble player and I grew to become her biggest competitor. We would play all night long, and I still have her board and some of our score sheets. My daughter inherited that from her as well...we love ourselves a good match of Scrabble. Gramma had a fiery independent streak and rebelliousness that followed her around her whole life. There was no denying her fierce intellect and she also had a fierce tongue when she wanted to. She made friends as easy as she made enemies and was as opinionated as a Washington Post political editorialist. And boy could she hold a grudge like nobody's business. She wasn't always an easy person to get along with, as my mom can certainly attest to, but to my brother and I, she was the cat's meow.
Many of my brother's and my summers were spent traversing the country with her. She would pick us up in her motor home, with her beloved dogs in tow, and off we would go for adventures on the highways and byways of America. We would head northeast and southwest and through all the flat prairies in between. We camped and fished and ate breakfast around the fire-pit, visited family all over the place, and basically got a taste of the life she loved and was hard to come by in the suburbs of Dallas, Texas where we lived. We would stop along the road in the middle of the night to eat with truckers at diners, and sometimes we'd make camp at a rest stop and sit around and chat with other travelers from far-away places. Gramma was great with meeting strangers and making them instant one-night friends.
She was a true outdoors-woman who carried a pistol and knew how to use it, and could fly-fish or bait and tackle fish with the best of the men. She knew all the best and private spots in her favourite haunts and visited them on her own whenever she could. I have a typed-out story that she wrote about one of her solo camping and fishing and trips that I treasure. My gramma was a loner by nature, but she sure did love having my brother and I along, too. I have to laugh when I think of her teasing me about my natural femininity when it came to baiting a hook or taking my fish off the line. I wasn't afraid to hold the worms or the flopping fish...I was afraid to hurt them. My brother was a natural at it though, and many times the two of them would head out for the lake or river and I would stay at camp makings things cozy for when they returned, sweeping the campsite, and more often than not daydreaming in the woods or reading a Nancy Drew story.
At night we would have our fire and she and my brother would clean the day's catch, roll it Ritz crackers and fry it up. Campfire beans. Corn. Fresh pot of boiled coffee. Is anything better than camp food? Don't get me started on crawling out of your dew-soaked sleeping bags and damp tent (oh that special smell!) and cooking up bacon and toast and eggs at the crack of dawn. I miss camping. When I think of my gramma, I think of camping.
She was the type that would hit a squirrel over the head with a cast-iron skillet and cook it up---something you will never catch this woman doing. But I loved that about her. I certainly did not inherit that trait from her, but I did receive her love for nature and the open road and the comfort of being in solitude. I've been told I also inherited her persistence and stubborn streak, and every now and then you'll catch me putting my hands on my hips with a hint of her sass on my lips.
My gramma wasn't only about the more masculine pursuits in life. She had a real domestic side, too. She taught me how to embroider and how to can and put up fruits and vegetables. How to make homemade bread and perfect pies. She taught me how to make my first turkey dinner, and oh did she howl when I insisted on using rubber gloves to clean out the chest cavity of the big bird. I've gotten over that now, but I can tell you this...every time I clean a turkey I want to reach for the phone and call her up for a chuckle about it. She also devoured romance novels, maybe because she spent much of her life as a lone wolf.
When I went to college in Arizona, she lived up in the Superstition Mountains in a chalet at the top of a hill on a street called Holly Circle. My future husband and I would drive up to her house on the weekends and she would take us camping and fishing on the Mogellon Rim. She didn't take to him at first...in fact she never REALLY did....oh they fought like cats and dogs...but eventually they came to an understanding and he even started going up there without me. My husband was not an outdoors kind of guy, and he actually enjoyed it when he was with her. And when they would start their bickering they would see me quietly disappear out the back door and head out for a walk. She laughed about that till the day she died. She called him nature boy, with more than a hint of sarcasm, and never did get his name right. She called him Norman for years...his name is Maarten. Gotta love that.
She was also my confidant. You know, my mom and I are really close and always have been. But I'm not a real good talker. Sometimes there was stuff I just couldn't tell my mom, and my gramma was the one I went to. In fact, she was the first person I called when I found out I was pregnant while still in college and unmarried. She didn't judge, but she didn't make it easy either. She did keep it a secret until I was ready to tell my parents, and even slipped me some cash for doctor's visits and stuff I might need. She was the only one who knew we went right to the justice of the peace to get married on the day the test came back positive. And there were many other things in my life that were only shared with her. I think grandparents are like that though. I know my daughter and my mom have a pretty cool thing going. I just wish they got to see one another more. I was lucky with the amount of time I had with my gramma. Even during her last days.
I know I've written about her before here. Like my first driving lesson, and her taking me to last Vegas for my first cabaret show, gambling and alcoholic beverages at the age of fifteen. Our trip to Alaska with my brother...she sent the two of us on a two passenger sea plane through Mendenhall Glacier, an experience I will never forget. Or the one about making noodles...which was an event that happened time and time again from my earliest memories until she passed away. There are many, many stories that I should really write down. Both of my kids knew her and went to her home in the mountains, but oh how I wish they could know her still. And she them. She would be so proud of my son's musical endeavors. She bought him his first instrument...a little plastic saxophone that he just loved. And she was the only musical one in the family, on either side. My gramma never took a lesson, but could play the piano by ear. My son can do that, too, really he can pick up any instrument and play it by ear. I wish I would have received that gift from her genes. She would also be proud of my daughter's independent and stubborn streak, too. :)
She never came to my house here. That has always made me sad. But she certainly got to see it through the picture I would paint of it in our conversations and letters. Yep, we wrote letters. I still have many of them. She had that beautiful 1930's Palmer penmanship and always wrote on a little lined notepad from the dime-store.
Did I tell you that she used to let me wear her nighties? She had a whole dresser full and it was the first thing I did when I got to her house...raid her nightie chest and put one on. And when she came to visit us I would just raid her suitcase. ;)
As you can probably see by now, I could write about her forever. So I'll stop now and leave some for another day. But she was on my mind today, not unlike many other days. It feels good to share a little bit of my memories on her birthday. Thanks for reading...
The photo was taken by me at my dad's home in Dallas, not long before she passed away.
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