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Bud Grossmann’s
Words of the Week
for the Week of
September 24, 2006
Previously unpublished Family History
© 2006 by Bud Grossmann.
All Rights Reserved.
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Gram, Gramp, Dog, 1968
© 1968 by Bud Grossmann
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TWO FIRES IN A FARM HOUSE
In the spring of the year, my grandparents, Alice and Earl Grossmann, used to boil maple sap on a kerosene stove on the front porch of their Wisconsin farm house. A flammable residue collected on the porch ceiling and somehow ignited. The porch was destroyed, and no one rebuilt it. I forget the cause of the other fire, but Grampa always referred to the incident as “when Ma burned the kitchen down.” A carpenter and cabinet maker as well as a farmer, Grampa built the present kitchen soon after the fire. The counters, red Formica with a narrow edging of bright aluminum, are arranged in a U-shape, with the sink and window facing the east, looking out on the garden, which slopes down to the marsh and the woods. The counters, like most kitchen counters, are 36" high. My grandmother was a couple inches shy of five feet in height. To wash dishes she stepped up onto a small wooden stool. To mix dough she used the kitchen table. She often told the story that Grampa, when he was planning the kitchen, had proposed making the counters and sink lower than standard, so they would be comfortable for her. “I told him,” Gramma always recalled, “‘No, no, make them the regular height. That’s all right. I might die before you, and then you’ll probably marry a woman that’s normal.’” In 1992 Grampa died, having had just the one spouse after all. In about another week he’d have reached the age of ninety. Gramma lived till 1999. She was ninety-seven years old and still four feet ten inches from the soles of her feet to the top of her white-haired head. ♦
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