In Memory of My Grandma: B. Sto

For those of you who don't know, my grandmother passed away last night. After a week of waiting for her imminent demise, it came as a relief to my family. I thought what better way to honor her memory than to devote a blog to her: my biggest fan. So excuse this sappy post, while I tell you about the feisty woman that was my grandma.

My grandmother was born in 1923 in the coal mining town of Port Carbon, PA. She was a Notre Dame fan from the very start, and would listen to the football games on the radio so that she could tell her dad every detail when he came home from the mines. When she was growing up, her aunt Catherine would take her by train to Washington DC, where she witnessed 4 Presidential Inaugurations (a fact that was just recently discovered).

In 1944, she married my grandfather and when he went off to war, she worked in a factory that made bombs. She had three kids, a daughter and 2 sons. When my father was born, she cried for two weeks because he was so ugly. "He was all scalely like a fish." She loved to tell that to anyone who would listen much to my father's embarrassment. She once wrote a letter to the president complaining about my grandpa's air force base being closed and the CIA showed up at her door to investigate her. That's the type of feisty person she is. (She's also written letters of complaint to coaches of various Philadelphia pro sports teams.) When my dad was growing up, they took a family trip to Yellowstone park. They saw a bear there, which my grandfather decided to throw a cookie to, but didn't throw very far and the cookie landed on the hood of the car. The bear of course jumped on the car after the cookie and my grandma screamed at both the bear and my grandfather the whole time.

I am the only granddaughter, so of course I'm special. When I was little, my grandparents would take me on a drive through the woods in order to look for bears. Only a few years ago did I discover that where we were was actually the road behind the Hotel Hershey and there were absolutely no bears. We would then go to Friendly's for ice cream. My grandma would always order the Peanutiest Sundae and my grandfather would say it was because she was the Peanutiest person. She always would keep gummy candies in her cupboard because they were my favorite.

When I wanted to go to Notre Dame, I think she wanted me to get in more than I did. She said I was accepted because she "is a very good pray-er." While I was in college, she started to get weaker and said her one wish was for the Good Lord to let her be alive when I graduated and then she could die happy. Well, she made it almost three years past that.

I think the memory that most sums up how my grandmother was was one time when we discovered that my grandfather's parents were born in Hungary. My dad asked her if she knew his parents were born in Hungary and she replied "What the hell would I care? I didn't marry his parents."