Grandma Gaskell's Birthday

Happy Birthday, Mary Effie Fish!

Mary Effie Fish was born January 17, 1881, in Lenawee County, MI. She was the daughter of Orlando Bascom Fish and Mary Anna Staples Fish. Her family included Julia Ann, born in 1873, Theodore Aldin (Thede), born in 1875, Edmund Ronayne (Roa), born in 1878, Augustus William (Gustus), born in 1884, Jesse Glenn, born in 1886, and Anna Pearl, born in 1888. Jesse died in 1890. Uncle Bob remembers hearing he died of appendicitis, but I have an obituary that mentions "inflammation of the brain". Does meningitis run in families?

Grandma grew up on a farm about two miles down the road from Grandpa. Uncle Bob remembers the house being tiny, with a larger part added on. By the time he was around to visit it, the larger part belonged to his Uncle Thede, while his grandparents had the smaller part. He also remembers a pump organ in the house, a dinner bell, buggies and sleighs in the barn, a scary woods, and Bible-reading and prayers after breakfast.

My mom lived next door to my dad's family one of the years she was in college. She says she remembers Grandma working all morning around the house in her house dress. Grandpa would come home about 1:30 from his post office job and they would have their main meal. After she did the dishes (Mom remembers her using a bar of Fels Naphtha soap to work up suds on her dish cloth), she would change her clothes and take the dollar Grandpa gave her and head downtown to do her grocery shopping. Anything she had left from the dollar she would squirrel away and save for things she wanted. Mom says she might buy clothes with it, and she thinks she also bought her china cabinet with that money. (That's the china cabinet Mom now has in her living room.)

Grandma had a grand piano that always had cool music on it. I don't remember seeing music for it, but one song she liked was Mocking Bird Hill. I remember her playing once, while some ladies were there--maybe for a meeting. She also had a pump organ upstairs--I wonder if it was the organ Bob remembers in her parents' house. Grandma sewed quite a bit. I know she made quilts--I have one of them. She also taught me how to cut little squares with a cardboard pattern and sew them together with a backstitch to make quilt squares. I remember her sewing a few things for me. One was an apron, but I didn't like to wear aprons. One was a pink and white tiny gingham check dress with a white collar, puffed sleeves, and a tie in back. It was quite a bit too big for me, and I refused to wear it. I'm not sure I ever did wear it. I think I did wear pajamas she made me, even though they always seemed big, too. I remember staying overnight at Grandma's only once. For breakfast she fixed us oatmeal, and I wouldn't eat it. Wow, I guess I was pretty rejecting!

I remember Grandma driving their gray Ford (1954?) around town and to our house. I think she had a cushion she sat on so she could see better over the steering wheel. Jon and I thought she had an odd style of driving--her hands would go back and forth as she turned the steering wheel just a tiny bit at a time.

Grandma belonged to the Entre Nous Club and was president of it for a while. Back then, they all dressed up for meetings, hats and gloves included. She also was quite active in the Methodist Church and participated in the women's society and in the choir (Grandpa, too).

Uncle Bob reports that Grandma had appendicitis when he was four or five and had to go to Ann Arbor for an operation. She had breast cancer in her later years. She had a radical mastectomy and was in the hospital quite a bit. I remember her being absent at Grandpa's 80th birthday party, and also in the hospital when he died a couple months later.

Grandma died on May 4, 1960. She was buried next to Grandpa in the Lime Creek Cemetery.

The Fish family in the mid 1890s.

Back: Orlando, Julia, Mary Anna.

Front: Roa(?), Pearl, Effie, Gustus, Thede(?)

Mary Effie Fish Gaskell