Natty-Natty Ding-Dong

My Grandmother's maiden name was Katherine Nathalie Bell.  She told me one time that when she was a young girl she didn't like her name because a boy at school would call her Natty-Natty Ding-Dong.  Personally, I think it has a nice ring to it...ha!

She took the train from Baltimore to Seattle to marry my Grandad when she was 19....ninnnnne-teeennnnn!  She has told me that story a hundred times, but this last time was different some how.  I was hanging on her every word, like it was a great love story, I was hearing for the first time.  She told me how she almost missed her connecting train out of Chicago, and about the other girls she met on the train, and how when she finally got to Seattle, my Grandad was late and some other sailer tried to pick her up.

She told me how bad he felt that she had to wait, and how he took her to the hotel so that she could change into her wedding clothes, and how he went down to the barbers for a hair cut and a shave, and how he arranged their wedding in a Methodist  church with witnesses she had never met.

She told me that he wore his Navy uniform and that she wore a blue velvet suit.  She told me that they lived in a boarding house and shared a kitchen with the other residence and how one day she cooked a cabbage and made the whole house stink...she said one of the guys that lived there asked her if she was trying to feed the whole navy.

She told me how years later she asked  a lady down the street to cut that blue velvet suit up and make three little skirts with suspenders for my mom and her sisters.  She told me how sometimes she still talks to him when she passes his picture in the hall....

She's a pretty amazing lady.  She's 85, she still works, she goes to exercise class, and plays cards with her friends.  I'm glad I took Libby to see her.  Life seems just a little bit slower inside the gates of La Casa, her over 55 community. 

Trapped inside those walls, are lazy palm tree that dance back and forth in the gulf breezes all day because they have nothing better do. There's shuffle board, there's bingo..and there's people like my Grams who remember such wonderful things from a time that I'll never know except through her stories.

Here's to you Grams,  I love listening to your stories...

Grace and Peace
xxxx