I have been told by many people to write my stories....they always laugh at my description of my grandma Rose. Nanna. When I was young, I loved her to death. She was wild, independent, eclectic and I looked just like her.
My father who was born in 1935 was her 4th child. None had the same father. She adopted them out to family members and she would start all over again. Rose was actually married when she was pregnant with my father. Joe took off during the pregnancy and they never divorced We knew Joe was Italian and he did go on to have another family. I actually met one of his granddaughters at York University in Toronto...our last name was very uncommon and what little we knew matched up. My sister recently did DNA testing and we have no Italian blood. Apparently Rose was seeing another guy during named Graham around the time she got pregnant. Maybe the fact that my father's middle name is Graham would be a good indication that Joe was not my father's sperm donor.
Rose lived in a bachelor apartment in downtown Toronto, just up the street from a subway station. Her sister Lee was the superintendent of the building. Her apartment was magic...African paper mache animals and colorful Indian carpets adorned it. She had a tiny kitchenette and would cook us brown rice. Hated it then and still hated it now. She could not cook. Rose worked in the Eatons annex downtown and would always have paper bags of Kerr's peppermint candies. She would save her shiny pennies for me and my two sisters....we would sit on the floor happily sucking a mint and would toss pennies to us.
Rose also owned a cottage in a small town called Wolverton, in SW Ontario. It is about 15 miles from where Handmaids Tale season 3 is currently being filmed. She had a wood stove for heat, overstuffed and pillowed day beds. Also more brown rice. There was an upstairs that we were never allowed to go visit. And an outhouse. Plumbing indoors was an old fashioned pump which dispensed cold well water. The cottage was on a quarter acre, surrounded by tobacco farms. I remember walking down the country road crossing a bridge where we fished from. On the banks of the river were cows and very large cow patties. Further down the road was a general store and then finally a one room schoolhouse. My father had attended school there and now my Uncle Bernard, my fathers half brother owned it. He was an artist and used the main floor as his studio and lived in the basement. He was well known for his Upside Down Christmas trees, decorated with recycled tin cans. I will have to dig out the pic her pencil drew of me in a high chair. He is is his late 80's now and lives in Nova Scotia.
My father who was born in 1935 was her 4th child. None had the same father. She adopted them out to family members and she would start all over again. Rose was actually married when she was pregnant with my father. Joe took off during the pregnancy and they never divorced We knew Joe was Italian and he did go on to have another family. I actually met one of his granddaughters at York University in Toronto...our last name was very uncommon and what little we knew matched up. My sister recently did DNA testing and we have no Italian blood. Apparently Rose was seeing another guy during named Graham around the time she got pregnant. Maybe the fact that my father's middle name is Graham would be a good indication that Joe was not my father's sperm donor.
Rose lived in a bachelor apartment in downtown Toronto, just up the street from a subway station. Her sister Lee was the superintendent of the building. Her apartment was magic...African paper mache animals and colorful Indian carpets adorned it. She had a tiny kitchenette and would cook us brown rice. Hated it then and still hated it now. She could not cook. Rose worked in the Eatons annex downtown and would always have paper bags of Kerr's peppermint candies. She would save her shiny pennies for me and my two sisters....we would sit on the floor happily sucking a mint and would toss pennies to us.
Rose also owned a cottage in a small town called Wolverton, in SW Ontario. It is about 15 miles from where Handmaids Tale season 3 is currently being filmed. She had a wood stove for heat, overstuffed and pillowed day beds. Also more brown rice. There was an upstairs that we were never allowed to go visit. And an outhouse. Plumbing indoors was an old fashioned pump which dispensed cold well water. The cottage was on a quarter acre, surrounded by tobacco farms. I remember walking down the country road crossing a bridge where we fished from. On the banks of the river were cows and very large cow patties. Further down the road was a general store and then finally a one room schoolhouse. My father had attended school there and now my Uncle Bernard, my fathers half brother owned it. He was an artist and used the main floor as his studio and lived in the basement. He was well known for his Upside Down Christmas trees, decorated with recycled tin cans. I will have to dig out the pic her pencil drew of me in a high chair. He is is his late 80's now and lives in Nova Scotia.
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