Two grandmothers

When I was a boy I spent a lot of time with my grandmothers. One was a city grandmother who maintained a small but elegant Victorian home. The other was a country grandma who still lived on the family farm.

Although both were getting by on Social Security and what their husbands had set aside, their experience during the Great Depression had left them with the nagging fear that they could still lose everything. They responded to this anxiety in dramatically different ways.

My brother and I stayed with these women during our childhood summers, and we were formed by their different understandings of how to live in a volatile world. These differences became clear when we were called to the table for dinner.