2025, Family, History, holidays, home, Kids, Music, Uncategorized

Family Music

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Husband and our 7 year old grandson spent most of Thanksgiving Day in the basement messing around with various string instruments. Grandson brought the three-quarter size guitar we got him in the summer. He and his Opa (Husband’s German name. I am Oma.) practiced tuning the guitar and his cello to eachother, and Opa taught him the difference between bass and treble clef, and that you could play the same tune in both clefs. Grandson also noodled around on the piano upstsirs using the sustain pedal until it got too annoying and we had to have him stop. He actually asked Opa if they could “jam” next time.

During the afternoon, grandson came upstairs and excitedly announced “Opa is teaching me finger picking”. He is to start piano and guitar lessons in the spring. At home he likes to just strum his guitar once a day and practice trying to play chords. He also thought Opa’s cello was pretty cool.

I learned cooking, gardening, and that History was a most interesting subject from my grandparents. Grandson wants me to make tirimisu with him one of these days, and loves to cook with his parents. I am so glad we can help foster these interests, as they really make for a satisfying life.

What skills did your older relatives and grandparents teach you? What names did you use to address your grandparents?

46 thoughts on “Family Music”

  3. Wow, Renee, they seem to have inherited the “right” genes!

    I wasn’t around my grandparents, etc., to pick up much from them. My mom’s parents did have an upright piano and Grandma (we called them the usual Grandma and Grandpa) may have taught me Chopsticks on it. I believe I inherited the ability to play by ear from her. And maybe the dancing gene, because though I never saw her dance, she apparently loved dancing.

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  4. grangpa and grandma on my moms side. papa was great grandfather. on my dads side we called my grandpa” j.b.” someone asked him once why his grandkids all call him j.b. and he said because thats my name. it was never a question .

    jb taught me checkers but he kicked my ass every game
    moms family was no place i wanted to be. uppity self important folks

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  5. We called my dad’s mom Grandma Boom. She was a very short woman who liked to drive fast. Once she zoomed into my dad’s business lot, got out of her vehicle, and loudly declared “Hi Ho Silver!”.

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      1. She was also famous for noticing any smudge or dirt on the faces of family, both children and adults, spitting into her handkerchief, and the wiping away the smudge. She did it once to my grandfather while he was driving. He exclaimed “Jesus Christ!” as he drove momentarily into the ditch and then back out onto the road. She still tried it on my dad when she was in her 90’s.

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  7. I had only one grandparent known and alive, my mother’s mother, who, fortunately, I saw only saw 4-5 times in my memory. I suppose I called her gramma, but her daughters behind her back called her The Bitch. Despite having lived 2/3 of her live in Washington, she is buried in Sebeka, MN beside her husband, who, I am told, it is a shame I did not get to know.
    Clyde

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  8. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    What a gift to give a grandchild–early music appreciation.

    We called my dad’s parents Grandma and Grandpa Stratton, although really, the pronunciation was Gramma/Grampa. Grandpa, who I adored, taught me to handroll cigarettes while he was driving the pick up with me cuddled up next to him. (This is a skill I never again used, even during the college marijuana days.) He and I also spent considerable amounts of time looking for 4 leaf clovers, which I still love to do. Years ago I did a post about finding his wallet containing his drivers license, fishing license, and my school picture with a four leaf clover next to it. My parents never really got over the loss of dad’s parents, they were so beloved by many.

    Mom’s parents who lived near where Renae now lives, were Gramma and Grampa Hess. Grandma taught me infinite life skills–cooking, housekeeping, canning and preserving, family history, picking eggs, and gardening. She was also a masterful financial manager. She also taught me that having 8 children and 39 grandchildren was overwhelming, although I do not believe she meant to teach me that. I learned to stay away from Grandpa–he smelled bad and was very grumpy. The one thing I learned from him was to plant flaxseed which has a beautiful indigo blue bloom, that in a windy field undulates like an ocean.

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    1. We used to run gramma and grandpa camp for our two Minnesota grandkids. They came here often. Gramma taught them baking, even had them sitting on the counter beside the bowl stirring it when they were small. I gave Lily our big mixer and she bakes all the time, and very well we are told. Mr. Tuxedo is not a baker, but he has become quite the chef. I set up art camp for them. Mr. Tuxedo had little interest. Lily has great interest in all sorts of crafts, especially knitting, but not art per se.
      Clyde

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  9. Uncle Gordie taught me how to throw a curveball. I wish he’d waited a year or two to teach me because my elbow couldn’t handle the stress at that age (12?) Ended up hurting me enough that I never developed into a talented pitcher. Should have taught me a changeup instead. 😉

    Maternal grandparents mostly taught me thrift, gardening, composting, and recycling (although it wasn’t as common in the 1960s as it is today.

    Paternal grandparents didn’t teach me much that I can remember. But they were certainly nice and loving people.

    Called all four GPs “Grandma ” and “Grandpa.” Yeah, I know, not very original.

    Chris in Owatonna

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  10. When I was being difficult as a child or teen, my mother would call me “Louie”, after my notoriously irascible and difficult paternal grandfather. Sometimes she also called me “Lois”, after my dad’s difficult younger and entitled sister.

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  11. Being the youngest, my grandpa Hain and Grandma Eggler were old. The other spouses had died.

    I learned Grandma Hain was judgemental, without meaning to be. She’d say ‘You’re gonna get fat if you eat another piece of candy’. “I never thought I’d see my grandson wearing a necklace.” Sigh. Thanks Grandma…
    Grandma died at 91. I was 26 years old.
    But I got grandma’s car when she stopped driving. A 1967 Plymouth Valient.

    And Grandpa had gardens at our place. he cut his own hair. Badly. And I hated picking his strawberries or ground cherry’s. And I heard he was pretty judgemental of what Dad did on the farm. Grandpa died at 82, I was 13.

    It’s unfortunate the bad memories stick more than the good ones.

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  12. My Irish grandmother I knew as Granny; her husband, my mom’s dad, had abandoned the family when my mom was in her teens, so I never met him.

    I remember Granny as a tall slender woman with grey hair she wore in a bun pinned to the back of her head, and who used snuff. Getting a smooch from her would send me into wild sneezing fits. Once when I stayed with her for a few weeks when I was ten years old, I had to sleep in her bed. Just thinking about it makes my skin crawl.

    Farmor and farfar, and mormor and morfar are the most commonly used terms for grandparents in Danish. Another commonly used term for grandparents is bedsteforældre, but like in English, bedstemor and bedstefar doesn’t tell which side of the family it refers to.

    As you may recall, my dad was an adopted child. The woman who was his adoptive mother died when he was four years old, and Petra was the housekeeper his adoptive father hired, and later married, after his first wife’s death.
    My dad’s adoptive father died the year before we arrived in Denmark, so I never met him, but his short, plump and soft widow, Petra, was my beloved Farmor. She died from cancer when she was 49 years old, I was nine at the time. Her funeral was the first funeral I ever attended, and I remember it vividly. I worried that people would think I didn’t love her because I didn’t cry, but I had visited her daily at the hospital – which was across the street from the boarding school I attended – so I had seen the pain she was in. I was glad that she didn’t have to suffer any more.

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      1. I liked Granny just fine, but I didn’t really know her well. That sniffing snuff business, however, was really off-putting to me. In her bed there was no escaping the smell of it. Eeew!

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  13. My Dad’s parents were mostly unfamiliar to me. The pictures of the two of them were funny. Danish Grandfather stood 5 foot 6. Norwegian Grandmother was 6 foot 1.
    They had 14 kids.
    Size doesn’t matter in some areas.

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    1. I’ve got an old B&W photo at home. We’re not even really sure who it is. Eleven kids or something, and mom is the tiniest of them all. Sure wish we knew who it was. It’s a great photo. Will try to add it to next weeks blog.

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  14. My dad’s parents lived on the edge of town, and had a big garden, a corn crib on the property, > I learned things just from being there that they didn’t intentionally teach me.

    i.e. : Grandpa: Fastest way to get the green husks off black walnuts is to spread them out on the garage floor and drive over them, forward and back…

    Grandma: In any recipe, there is a measure called “just the right amount”…

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  15. Both of my grandmothers worked outside of the home, in fact Gramma owned her own real estate business (this was after my dad’s dad died in a car accident when he was a kid). Nana was an accountant. Because of this, I didn’t spend long stretches of time with either of them. And because of my mom’s fractured relationship with her father, no lazy weekend afternoons with the grandfolks. Gramma and her partner Ray did try to teach me to play bridge, but I just never appreciated the game.

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  16. I have the world’s best grandparent name. When the first grand baby was born I wanted to see what he’d come up with on his own. He started talking quite early but didn’t have a name for me until hr was nearly 2. We’d go around the table and he’d say everyone’s name except mine. Then one night when he got to me he said “Bocker” (rhymes with rocker)! I’ve been Bocker ever since to everyone in the family. It was well worth waiting for. I tell people that I feel like Tigger (because “I’m the only one”).
    I knew and loved all 4 of my grandparents; we called them Grandma and Grandpa plus their first name. For some reason, it took me a long time to warm up to my father’s father. He was wonderful but I was afraid of him, which I know hurt him. As I got older we finally bonded, but he was the first to die and I regretted pushing him away when I was little. I clearly remember my mother’s father reading poetry to me. He loved Ogden Nash and James Whitcomb Riley, and a bunch of others. He also had, and read me all the Wizard of Oz books and The life and Adventures of Santa Claus by L Frank Baum. He played piano and sang to us as well. Mom’s mom taught me to knit and made a lot of my clothes including hand smocked dresses. My other grandma also sewed very well and made clothes and made me cinnamon toast cabins for breakfast when I’d spend the night. My 3 grands always requested that breakfast when they were little.

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  18. My father’s father died before I was born, and my paternal grandmother when I was about three. I have only a vague memory of visiting her in a hospital once.

    My mother’s parents were Grandma and Grandpa to me.

    My niece’s kids call my sister and b-i-l Gaga and Baba. This started when the littlest was too young to pronounce Grandma and Grandpa, They have never really been encouraged to grow out of the babyish nicknames. I kinda wonder sometimes if they will still be calling their grandparents Gaga and Baba when they are teenagers.

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