“Mind if I stay for a little while?
Germaine Erie Patureau Landry was better known to us as Mee Maw. She has packed her grip and is ready to go. Circa 1969.
This is my grandmother. She was such a sweet woman. All of us grandkids called her Mee Maw and she fit the name perfectly. She became a widow in 1957 at the age of 62. She had been a teacher before she got married. She gave that up when she got married in 1921 because at that time it wasn’t appropriate for a teacher to be married. But she was busy anyway. She had eight children to bear and rear!
But that’s just the prequel to this story. This story is about her being a grandmother. As my wonderful godmother Shirley likes to point out, she was the first grandchild born. But she wasn’t by herself for very long. By the time Mee Maw became a widow, she had fourteen grandchildren. Eventually there were twenty-nine grandchildren (though one of them only lived a few short years).
Yet she made us all feel like we were her favorite. She liked to travel whenever she could. She was known as a go-go Patureau. (I think Jacko would have liked her. He likes to be on the move, too.) Then she would come to visit her grandchildren and bring them gifts. I still have a monkey bank that she got for me when she went to the Grand Canyon. And as you can tell, she must have paid attention to what kind of things I like.
But we didn’t need presents. Her being there would have been good enough. I remember her as being soft and warm and comforting. She did snore a bit loudly when you slept with her, but that can be forgiven. And she lied to me! I remember asking her something about her skin (which was a result of aging skin – something a little boy like me didn’t know better than to ask) and she made something up that I believed for the longest time! I love that.
She was a good grandmother. I have many fond memories of her. I wish I had a few more.