Picture this…..
It’s a balmy spring afternoon, the sun is out, the piano is playing in the background, there’s conversation all around, kids are playing outside in the backyard, maybe collecting apples from the tree, playing tag or maybe even downstairs sliding back and forth on the rec room floor, adult siblings joking around fighting over their favourite cookie that their mother made and a beautiful lady sitting, listening, looking around at all her family gathered in her home for Sunday dinner.
That’s what it was like when we visited my grandma (Irene Stella Hartford Matthew) in her house in Delta on any given Sunday. My grandpa (Stanley Leonard Briggs) passed away at the age of 53 when I was young (6 years old) and I don’t really remember much about him. I don’t really remember having these dinners until I was a bit older.
My family (my dad, mom, brother and I) were living in New Westminster when Grandpa passed away in 1969, not long before my youngest brother was born. It was unexpected after having heart surgery, which was supposed to fix the problem he had, but had a heart attack about four days after the surgery and didn’t make it. Grandpa passed away 56 years ago today.
Grandma came from a large family where she was the youngest of nine while Grandpa was an only child. Grandpa did most of the household finances, shopping, cooking and other household chores as she was not raised to do those kinds of things. Grandma didn’t go to school as she had an illness when she was quite young, and her parents decided she would stay home and be schooled by her father who was a teacher. Her mother passed away when Grandma was only 14 years old, and three of her sisters ended up taking care of her. She married when she was 22 only to be divorced a short five years later. She married my grandfather a couple of years later.
They had three children – Grant Irving (1940), Irene ‘Evelyn’ (1943) and Stanley ‘Richard’ (1944). All three married and curiously enough, each had three children, just like their parents.
After Grandpa passed, my dad moved our family to his parent’s home. My parents took it upon themselves to show Grandma how to take care of her household which included finances, cooking and outside chores. We lived there only a year, but it is something that I remember quite vividly.
Going back to the ‘picture’ above I asked you to try and see, you can imagine the family gatherings at the house with my dad and his brother and sister, fighting over the cookies (my grandma’s famous heavy cakes), their spouses thinking their crazy, and all nine grandkids playing in different areas of the house and outside.
Grandma always made dinner and if it was someone’s birthday, there was always a homemade angel food cake with that person’s favourite icing and goodies in the middle (mine was Smarties!).
The reason I wanted to do a post like this was to ensure those memories remain for me. I know for my siblings and cousins, the Sunday dinners may have some different memories, but I hope this will help to bring some of the wonderful memories back.
Happy memories! Oh, and Happy 65th Birthday to my beautiful cousin, Sandy!
We Are Family Briggs 