2026, animals, Family, Food, History, home, Kids, Uncategorized

Time With Oma And Opa

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Our grandson is spending a few days with us this week while his daycare is closed. We plan to take him swimming and to the local library. I also plan to bake with him and we will make Franzbrotchen, a Hamburg pastry. I want him to learn about where his ancestors came from. He loves to bake and cook and is an excellent sous chef. We will have Pasta Carbonara, one of his favorites. We also will enlist his help with some gardening. He loves to grow things. We are Oma and Opa, to distinguish us from his Grandma and Grandpa on his mom’s side of the family.

I spent time with both sets of grandparents in the summer. My father’s parents lived on a farm outside of Magnolia, MN. That grandma was a great lover of cats and had a regiment of them. She loved to feed them buttered sweetcorn cobs after we were done eating the corn kernals. I would help her collect eggs and work in the garden. The hens pecking at my arms as I took their eggs were scary. I liked talking to the cows and pigs. My grandfather was partially paralyzed from a stroke. He had a wonderful library of history books, and we would talk about his recent read and the history discussed in the book. He really liked talking about Napoleon, someone who had such an impact on his family in northwest Germany.

My maternal grandparents lived on a farm close to Hatfield, MN, a small town with a notorious dance hall, near Pipestone. That grandma (who we called Omie) and I would bake sweet rolls and cook wonderful suppers together. She was a great story teller and related lots of reminiscences from her childhood in Hamburg, Germany and her teen years in New York City. Grandpa was a really quiet guy who kept busy helping my uncle on the farm. His English was somewhat limited and we didn’t talk all that much. He was kindly and gentle.

I hope our grandson has positive memories of his time with us. We have books, a garden, fancy food, terriers, cats, a library, and a really nice swimming pool. What more does a kid need?

Who were your most memorable older relatives? What did you learn from them?

20 thoughts on “Time With Oma And Opa”

  1. Regrettably, I can’t report any memorable interactions from my older relatives. My paternal grandfather died when I was four. My paternal grandmother was in her early 50s at the time and, of necessity, worked at various employments. Later, when I was in college, she remarried to a man none of us liked.
    My maternal grandparents had separated before I was born. My grandmother lived in Milwaukee, close to my mother’s brother and my grandfather worked on farms or ranches somewhere in the west. (This is all very vague. I saw him rarely and by that time he was blind and mostly silent. He died when I was 10.) My maternal grandmother would visit occasionally. She didn’t spend any one-on-one time with me. Her parents were Bohemian Czech and she had grown up in a very Czech area of northeast Iowa. I remember her making very delicious kolaches.

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  2. I grew up knowing my maternal grandma’s family very well. Never knew that grandpa as he had died when my mother was 12. We would spend a week at Grandma’s in summer and another over Christmas. We would garden, bake and play cards. Loved those times. Grandma’s had a tiny house that was probably 100 years old and in rough shape I suppose, but I loved being there.

    My dad’s parents were actively running the family farm when I was a child, and I never had a conversation with them until I went to visit them on my own as a young adult. I thought that was how things were. Wish I had been able to know them better.

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  3. My maternal grandfather had a stroke and was confined to a wheelchair when I was still a toddler. I only remember him in that chair sipping coffee from a saucer because he couldn’t hold a cup. He died when I was 7. My grandmother was a very good cook and did a lot of knitting and crocheting. She had part of her stomach removed due to cancer, again when I was still quite young. I remember her as frail and soft spoken. She may have taught her older granddaughters to knit and crochet but not me. She died when I was 11. I learned how to knit from my mom’s oldest sister (who was 20 years older than my mom).
    My paternal grandfather died before I was born. During my youth, Granny was still working at the grocery that once was owned by her husband and his brother. She lived 3 blocks from our house so I saw her frequently. The one thing she did teach me was how to play 500 Rummy. I guess she did know how to knit/crochet but that wasn’t passed on to me.

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  4. Rise and Remember, Baboons,

    PJ, I just read about your accident and injury. If you read this today, then I wish you a speedy recovery. You did not need that!

    I was often around older relatives. My dad’s family was especially orienting towards gathering and they were a pleasure to be around. They did not have a lot of emigration history to impart. The Norwegians (dad’s grandfather) were the only emigrants, and that story seemed surrounded by secrecy. He always told us that someone stowed away on the boat. Later when I went to the Norwegian Emigrant Center in Stavanger, Norway, they told us that the entire family (known there as Jurgenson/Jorgenson, known here as Hoel) had left Norway and were scattered across the USA under various names. Aunt Pet of that family crocheted a crib cover for me. I use that to cover the wagon box that other parts of the family used to come from New Jersey to Iowa. Anything that side of the family told us about family stories could not be verified and appears to be incorrect.

    Grandpa talked about food his mother made, cows, and seed corn, as well as gossip/news about neighbors. He also voted Democrat and did not mind paying taxes because he thought tax money used well was to our benefit. My mother’s family did not feel that way about taxes.

    The other side of the family had been in the USA since 1620. They left us many relics of the frontier, but only a few stories or recipes. However, my great aunts were a delight and had stories about “mama’s biscuits that we ate when we picnicked on Decoration Day.” Mama was a good cook, apparently. Those aunts lived to be 95 and 102. One day while visiting AUnt Gladys who lived to be 102 I asked about a picture of a couple on their wedding day in 1865. He was in soldier gear. That was Charles and Moriah Jackson, her grandparents. He fought in the Civil War. Aunt Gladys loved being with them when she was a child. AT that moment I felt time and the generations collapse in a new way. (Charles Jackson arrived home from the Civil to discover his first wife was pregnant with another man’s child. He divorced her and married Moriah 2 days later.). We still decorate their graves each Memorial Day.

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  5. My maternal grandparents were closest in locality to me but not very close emotionally.
    Frankly, Grandma Lucy was a tyrant and bully.
    I didn’t recognize this as a kid but now looking back, I see it.
    Enough of that.
    Grandpa Jasper taught me how to fillet fish.
    I’ve learned quite a bit about the grandparents from 1600’s Massachusetts.
    Both maternal and paternal great x grandfathers would have known each other. The houses they built are less than 5 miles away from each other and still stand to this day

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  6. There were around 15 cousins on both my mom’s and dad’s side of the family, and we lived far enough away from both grandparents that I spent mostly holiday time with them. But I did stay for a week with G’ma Sterling when my sister was born, and I have a little diary she kept of what we did… I remember helping G’pa out in the little garden. G’ma crocheted round rugs from a cotton yarn… but I never learned. She remarried several years after G’pa died.

    When we moved to Marshalltown we were less than an hour from my G’ma and G’pa Britson, so saw more of them, but I never got to know them well. We heard stories about “Grandma” Duea, an aunt of Grandma’s who she stayed with when she came over from Norway at age 12. Her father had died, and Mother couldn’t support all the kids. G’ma Duea had married a much older Civil War veteran… and it was her house my grandparents eventually inherited.

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  7. My dad’s mom (Ruby) would have loved to teach me to play bridge. When I was growing up, bridge ruled her household, which included Ray. Ray had his own room and if you had asked me at any time up until my tween years, I would have said “oh, he’s my grandmas’s friend.” Oblivious. When they got married (I was 14) I actually felt betrayed – because truly he was my grandfather all those years! (My dad’s father died when my dad was 13). I never cottoned to bridge.

    My mom’s folks were Nana and Pappy. Pappy would probably be diagnosed with OCD if he were still alive – he had a bunch of hobbies that would have been fun to share except that he didn’t share. We weren’t allowed to touch his trains or his slingshot box or his Carmen Ghia. Nana was easier to be with but some dodgy family history on Pappy’s side meant that my folks very rarely left us alone at my grandparents house. (Pappy was never implicated but his brothers were…. sad story.)

    I did learn to make fudge from my Uncle Wink.

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  8. Being the youngest grandchild, my grandma Hain died when I was two and grandpa Eggler died before I was born.
    Grandpa Hain would come out to the farm fairly often, he had several gardens out here and to this day that’s why I refuse to pick any more strawberries. I picked a lot of his.
    I would often walk to grandma‘s house after elementary school. But she didn’t understand why I was wearing a chain around my neck and she called it women’s jewelry. She told me I was gonna get fat if I kept eating candy. But it was her 1967 Plymouth valiant I got as my first car in 1979 or 1980.
    It was built like a tank. It was a good first car.
    I’ve shared those pictures of grandpa, he played uncle Sam in 1976 and Santa Claus multiple years.

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  10. for pj

    it is terrible for the first month and 3 months before yo can get around but a year from today you will be fine.
    i am almost 3 years in and while there are still limitations it is so much better and pain is not an issue only flexibility and motion which are both about 8
    i dont do pain meds because of bad reactions so the level of pain i felt was unfiltered and it gets dramatically better week 2 the 3,4&5 feel like just part of the process

    if you need equiptment like walker canes toilet seat or seat on a stand for toilet, shower chair or anything else let me know

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    1. Thanks, tim, I appreciate both the report and the offer of equipment. I’ll be in a rehab for at least the next two weeks or so. I’ll get back to you if I get that far. Given my age and other medical issues, I may be looking at hospice care.

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  11. my dads dad was the fargo connection we called him jb because that was his name. his wife died in a car accident a year before i was born. stoic guy with the best candy shop ever on top of his refrigerator
    moms parents were not fun. cold fish. my dad left fargo and went to work for my grandparents and was not happy.
    dads family good cousins, laughter and love
    moms… nope

    im papa and deb is gramma
    3 grand kids with daughter tara comin back from a month in kosovo next week
    2 year old twins with devin
    spencer will be adding down the road
    olivia too
    emma …. we will see.

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    1. My dad decided he wanted to be called JB after he had his heart attack when I was a sophomore in college. He had always hated his given name (Joe Bill) and asked all three of the daughters to call him JB. It took my two sisters a while to get on board, but they did eventually. Having my own name change when I was in high school, I was all about calling him what he wanted to be called. For 11 years I was Nana to Guinevere.

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  12. My aunt and godmother, Emmy, sent me books. Usually they were Newberry award winners. One was Blue Willow. I know that one was from her, and I think she also sent me My Side of the Mountain, and Island of the Blue Dolphins. I would like to revisit some of those classics.

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