Saturday, March 16, 2013

March 16th



March 16th is my grandma’s birthday. Ethel Lenore Cox Rolf, March 16th, 1894 to February 1st, 1989. Middle child of Melvin Cox and Lenore Smith Cox.  Born in Austinburg, Ohio, the home of all her farming grandparents, but grew up in Cleveland where her father was a house painter and her mother kept boarders.  Her mother’s congenital heart defect meant my grandma did much of the heavy housework. 



At sixteen she joined the other pretty girls in shirtwaists, getting on the street car, going to jobs.  Grandma was a cashier at the May Company from the time she was sixteen until she married Walter Rolf in August, 1915.  Perhaps she worked there until my mother was born, three years later.  My grandma worked all her life.

My grandfather was of solid German heritage, son of the greengrocers on the corner.  He was an only child who left school at an early age to work in the grocery.  When he and my grandma married he worked several manual jobs, but soon left to apprentice himself to a jeweler.  In 1923 he struck out on his own; was able to secure a mortgage on a house on West 23rd Street, and set up as a watch maker in the front bedroom.

Mother said Grandma Rolf worked alongside Grandpa Rolf, and was a driving force in his success.  “She never let him get discouraged.”  She delivered fixed watches and clocks to the jewelry stores around Cleveland.  Grandpa Rolf, however, was in charge of the grandfather clocks; the movements had to be reset in the cabinets that were not taken to the shop.

My Grandma Rolf was a widow at the age of 51.  I was a year and a half old.  I was the first grandchild, a mighty fine position to hold in a family. After Grandpa Rolf’s death my Grandma took a job again, as cashier at a Hough Bakery.  A very lucky grandchild to have a grandma so employed.  I spent many weekends at her house.  She made the trip from Cleveland to Akron in her green standard transmission Ford, license plate ER 64, to collect or deliver me.  We were a one car family in the 1940’s and much of the 1950’s.  My grandma had the freedom to travel.

I stuck to my grandma like glue.  I know she didn’t spoil me, she grandmothered me.  When my brother was born she tried to sweep him into the group.  The first weekend she had both of us she woke me in the middle of midnight, put both of us in the car and delivered Walter back home, where mom soothed his hysterics.  Grandma and I went back to Cleveland and to bed. 

My grandma had friends all over the country, and took me on jaunts to visit them.  I remember sleeping in a two storey shotgun house with a railroad in the back yard.  The house shook when trains passed.  My grandma stopped and bought a beautiful steak and some other groceries.  The woman we visited fried the steak in a pan.  “I knew she would do that!” grandma sniffed the next day, when we were back on the road.

In our trips we visited the Blue Hole in Castile, Ohio.  The Henry Ford Museum. The tulips in Holland, Michigan.  I always sat in the front seat beside her. I learned family secrets!  “Your father intended to build all their furniture when he married Lenore!  If it weren’t for our family and friends they would have sat on the steps!”  Oh, the secrets I know.  “Henry should have married Iris Mielke! Florence set her hat for him, and snatched him away!”

I never let go of my grandma. She lived forever, until she was 95 and long tired of living.  Until she went into a wheel chair I travelled from Mentor to Cleveland to take her to Akron, to bring her to Mentor, to be part of the family gatherings.  She sat in the front seat and we kept up the conversations.  Grandma’s always began, “I remember….”.  She rests beside Walter Rolf in the Acacia Memorial Cemetery.

I remember my Grandma.  Happy Birthday.


16 comments:

  1. A beautiful picture of your grandmother. Actually, you feature her quite a lot, both in looks and in stamina. Ninety five is a good ripe old age.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wonderful memories. This was my fathers birthday as well.

    ReplyDelete
  3. A lovely tribute to your grandmother. You obviously learned from the best.

    ReplyDelete
  4. I can see where you got your strength of purpose and native grit! It appears you have descended from tough stock.

    ReplyDelete
  5. What a lovely memory lane trip. Thank you for sharing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I wish I had known that grandma. I think Walter and his hysterics and Melvin smelling his food spoiled it for me! But then, I would not clean refrigerators and she did not like that.

    ReplyDelete
  7. It seems you resemble her both in features and in personality! It's always interesting to me to read about strong women and how they dealt with tough times.

    ReplyDelete
  8. That was a lovely story I too had a grandma who I loved dearly, they are special people.
    Merle......

    ReplyDelete
  9. Oh what a woman she was and you are in turn, praised by to her and happy birthday

    ReplyDelete
  10. That is a beautiful portrait. I like how she looks quietly out the window with a book in her lap. Many photos from that time show people so stiff and stern. You are so fortunate to have so many vivid and pleasant memories of your grandmother.

    ReplyDelete
  11. How simply lovely. I never knew any of my grandparents and this tribute made me very sorry.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thank you for sharing this birthday tribute. Grandmothers are special-as your grandchildren will someday appreciate.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thank you for sharing your grandmother with us. How neat you had such a great relationship with her!

    betty

    ReplyDelete
  14. Joanne, your grandmother was so beautiful. What a precious treasure she was in your life and you in hers. She was such a strong, resourceful person. It's so terrific that you had her for such a long time.

    ReplyDelete
  15. What an amazing woman. Do the kids know about her ? Her genes are in them and you.

    ReplyDelete
  16. What wonderful memories and such knowledge of your grand parents lives. I know almost nothing of my grandparents. Both grandfathers died before even their kids were grown, much less met, married and had us. One grandmother lived on the other side of the huge state. I saw her maybe three or four times before she died. My other grandmother lived in a guest house attached to our house by the covered drive. But she never talked about her life and I guess I never asked.

    ReplyDelete