Remembering Grandma Hirschy

Four generations

Thirty years ago today my grandmother--Esther Sprunger Hirschy, left this earth. She was almost 97 years old.
Cousin Kae Hirschy Kirkwood graciously gave me permission to share her memories of Grandma.

A Lifetime Ago

I remember it was on a Saturday she died, 30 years ago today. I was 25 years old, single then, and working in the Admissions Office at Geneva College. It seems like a lifetime ago, but I still remember...

I had the privilege of spending a lot of time with Grandma throughout those 25 years, since we lived so close and went to church together. I was blessed in ways some of the other cousins were not, because they were far away in other countries or states, so it truly was a privilege to live less than a mile from Grandma. It would be an unusual day that I did not see her, at least briefly. (I’m glad to say that my son now has a similar opportunity to visit my parents almost daily, as well.)

So many things we did together! We read aloud to each other all through my life—her to me when I was a little girl, and me to her when she was an old lady. Almost every Friday night for a number of years I would spend the night with her. We read books, books, and more books! The Little Colonel Series, Anne of Green Gables and sequels, books about George Washington Carver and other famous Christians and missionaries… (Books we re-read when I was reading to her many years later!) On those Friday nights she used to make her wonderful popcorn for me and give me ice water: I ate and drank and she told me that I was going to get bloated.  I probably did! She also let me sit at her desk and cut things out of the Ideals Magazine and glue them onto paper, and she let me type on her electric typewriter. I would watch her comb out her hair and braid it for the night, and take out her dentures and put them in the cup in her bathroom. Then we would crawl into her double bed and listen to Ed and Wendy King’s “Party Line” program on the radio. We loved to try and figure out “the Party Pretzel” question that was announced at 11:00 p.m. and the answer given just before midnight. http://www.post-gazette.com/ae/tv-radio/2013/10/20/Ed-and-Wendy-Kings-of-nighttime-talk-radio/stories/201310200233

It was a special treat for me as a child when Grandma needed to go over into “the big part” of the house—I loved to see all of those missionary trinkets from foreign lands, and the books that belonged mostly to the deRosset family on the old shelves there. I remember Grandma ironing her sheets in the big kitchen on that side of the house. I loved the neat wooden rocker there, and the walk-through coat closet in the living room. It always smelled like ferns in that room, because of the lovely potted fern that grew so well in the window facing the driveway. I loved to go upstairs to the room that had been my dad’s when he was a boy, and to think about him building his crystal set radio and using it in that room. I thought the claw-foot tub in the upstairs bathroom was so cool! I loved the basement, too, where Grandpa Hirschy’s grinding wheel was still attached to the work bench.

Other things….Grandma let me play dress-up in some of her dresses. We played Chinese Checkers; picked strawberries, sweet peas, and nasturtiums; walked to church together, and to the P.O. and to “the A-P Store” (she never called it the A & P like everyone else did, it was always “the A-P Store”). She taught me how to take sermon notes. She let me pray (on my knees) with her and the other senior citizen ladies (also on their knees) at Wednesday night prayer meeting. She would come to our house on Thursday evenings to watch “The Waltons” with us—I guess she didn’t have a TV at that time. Grandma was a favorite with my dog, Nicki, even though Grandma had a fondness for her own big old cat, Mittens.

We took Grandma on trips to Berne and other places with us—it always made the trips more fun and interesting. We played games in the car, finding things that started with each letter of the alphabet. She knew everyone in Berne, and could show us all around the points of interest.

Her Sunday dinners were so special. I would usually walk home from church with her to help get things on the table before the others arrived. Her apartment always smelled absolutely delicious when we opened that door… She taught me how to make dressing for lettuce salad, and how to wash dishes—the drinking glasses first, pots last.

When I was much older, I used to sometimes stay with Grandma at night because she was not well. I remember vividly sleeping on the couch in her apartment living room and being blasted awake at 6:00 a.m. when Grandma tuned in to “McGee” on the Christian radio station! And hearing her “do her laps around the bed” above me.

I could go on and on with the memories. Suffice it to say that Grandma was very important and special to me, and the loss of her was probably the hardest thing I had experienced up to that point in my life. I have now lived without her in my life longer than I lived with her, and yet I believe her influence impacts me every day, even though I may not realize it.

We’ll never meet again this side of Heaven, as the song says, but I am so glad to know that I will meet her on that beautiful shore….http://www.songlyrics.com/selah/in-my-lifeif-we-never-meet-again-lyrics/

Kae

March 9, 2015

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O Love that wilt not let me go,
I rest my weary soul in thee;
I give thee back the life I owe,
That in thine ocean depths its flow
May richer, fuller be. ~George Matheson

In loving memory of Esther “Grandma” Hirschy

July 7, 1888 – March 9, 1985

Thank you for sharing, Kae! That was beautiful!

You're right, you were very privileged to live close to Grandma. And we are all so blessed by your memories.
We had only been back from the ship less than two years when she passed away. I wonder if our children have memories of her and going to her funeral? By then her offspring and spouses, the whole family, numbered 100, I believe. Her legacy lives on.
Attached--a four-generation photo with Grandma Hirschy from 1973 that came to my attention this week. I am also entering the comments of many who joined the email exchange begun by cousin Kae.