Most of what I think I know about my maternal grandmother can’t be verified. All I know for certain is my own memory of her. Even some of that is suspect. She lived in a time when women were vilified for coloring outside the lines. Teresa excelled at it.
Teresa was born in 1914 in Yakima, Washington, to Albertina, a French Canadian from Quebec, and Ordia, an American who was then known as an “Indian agent” for the Bureau of Indian Affairs assigned to the Yakima Indian Reservation. She was the oldest of eight siblings. The family was Catholic. In 1920, they lived in Fort Simcoe adjacent to the reservation. During her lifetime, she would take refuge on the reservation when life became too much. As far as I know, she was welcomed. I don’t know why. One of the treasures JoAnn, my mother, has entrusted with me is a small box of tiny beads used in Indian bead work passed down from Teresa. I wish I knew more about Teresa’s life there.
As a child, my mother told me she was vilified for being half Indian and was called derogatory names by other children. She sings an Indian song taught to her by her mother. My mother is not part Indian. This labeling might be an assumption because her mother lived on an Indian reservation. My mother has real childhood pain about it. I’ll never know the truth. My mother is wily crazy. Fact can be indiscernible from fiction. However, her grandfather was an Indian agent and they did live on the reservation.
There are sad parallels between my mother’s relationship with her mother and my own. Abuse flows through generations if not firmly stopped in its path.
Teresa was married to her first husband, Henry, when she was 16 and had a son, Edgar, two years later. She was separated from Henry when she met Joe in 1934. JoAnn was born out of wedlock in 1935. Legend has it that, still married, Teresa put Henry’s name on JoAnn’s birth certificate so she wouldn’t legally be a “bastard” which was a very bad thing at the time. Teresa and Joe were subsequently married in 1936. They were both 22.
Both Teresa and Joe’s mothers lived in East Olympia. His parents had divorced. Teresa and Joe were hard partiers with late night drinking and dancing. Joe was a surveyor and then a lumberjack outside of Shelton. It caused him to be in deep woods camp during the weekdays. According to my Grandpa Joe, his being at camp was when the trouble started between him and Teresa.
“She was partying with someone else when I was at camp,” he told me. “That was it.”
Things got progressively worse for the couple until their divorce when my mother was eight or nine. Unfortunately, soon after their divorce, Teresa could no longer care for JoAnn. I don’t know why. Joe either wasn’t allowed or wasn’t able to care for my mother. Neither of my great grandmothers, Albertina or Lillie, Joe’s mother, took in JoAnn, nor any of Teresa’s sisters. She ended up in foster care with brutal outcomes.
During this period, Teresa: 1) hitchhiked to Texas; 2) drove truck during the war at Fort Lewis; 3) was committed to Western State Hospital; 4) stayed on the reservation for a period; or 5) all of the above. Answer: All of the above.
She was considered a wild woman and was involuntarily committed to Western State Hospital by her mother, possibly for depression. At this time, famed American actress Francis Farmer was also institutionalized there. Ms. Farmer’s story recounts abuse in the hospital at the hands of other patients, staff, and doctors. It’s not a leap to think Teresa also experienced the cruel side of institutions known to punish women for thinking for themselves. Institutionalization is an obvious reason why Teresa might have been unable to care for JoAnn.
I was also committed to Western State Hospital at 14 in 1972. Teresa didn’t live to see that. It would have been interesting to discuss it with her had we both been able.
Both Teresa and Joe married again. Joe met Lucille during the war while driving bus from Olympia to Seattle. They were married in 1945. Lucille had been an orphan living in a Masonic orphanage growing up in Texas. No child was abandoned on her watch. Once married, JoAnn went to live with them in Des Moines, Washington, and stayed with them until graduating high school.
Teresa married her third husband, Jimmy, also from Olympia in 1948. Jimmy had many different businesses including furniture upholstery, ambulance, and taxi service. My mother used to say he was a “jack of all trades, master of none.” Teresa’s adult son, Edgar, lived in Oregon. Teresa and Jimmy spent time in Oregon near Edgar. She said she was happy in her letters to my mother.
JoAnn visited Teresa and Jimmy while living with Joe and Lucille in her teenage years. I also lived with Joe and Lucille during my teenage years. I would hang up from talking to my mother at my grandparents in tears. My Granny (Lucille) told me she remembered JoAnn also hanging up with Teresa in tears.
I’ve always known Teresa introduced JoAnn and LeRoy when JoAnn was in high school. Teresa was living in Oregon. I don’t know how she met him or his parents. I didn’t know until reading letters from Teresa to JoAnn just how much effort Teresa made toward matchmaking the two of them. She was doing serious manipulation as far as I can tell.
JoAnn’s relationship with Teresa was always fraught. She always called her “Mother.” I can hear it with a certain tone when she was frustrated on the phone. They spent a lot of time together after my birth with Teresa driving up from Olympia. After Zack was born, JoAnn drove down from Des Moines. On these trips, we would also check in with Albertina on South Bay Road or Lillie in Lacey. There were aunts, uncles, and cousins in large numbers in Olympia. Lots of kids and lots of poverty. Walking into an impoverished household has a certain smell. I didn’t like it.
Teresa gave me a treasured present for Christmas when Zack was born. She made a stuffed Santa Claus out of a stuffed sock with red velvet clothing and trimmed in white fleece. She embroidered the doll’s face. I loved that doll. It was not related to Christmas for me. His name was just Santa Claus. When I was young, I would imagine what I would take with me if the house caught on fire. Santa Claus was one of three possessions I would be sure to take. The other two were an alarm clock Grandpa Joe had given me and my prized pillow. It was my emergency plan.
Teresa and Jimmy divorced. I don’t know why. In 1959, she married Wally. He was ten years older. For a period, she appeared stable living in a house with him. I was born in 1957. I remember her and Wally living in a white house in Tumwater.
Wally was retired. I called him Grandpa Wally. He was a woodworker and built the little wooden rocking chair for me and the white doll crib and play dresser with a mirror. I still have the rocking chair. Grandpa Joe refinished it so it looks new.
Wally also built fancy boats in bottles. I’ve never seen anyone else do that. I stared at them. Some were quite large. I remember having to be quiet and careful in their house, especially around Wally. I’m pretty sure Zack was at the house towards the end of Teresa living with him. We stopped going there, and they divorced. I was okay no longer tiptoeing around that house. I was afraid Zack would break something. He excelled at that.
Teresa worked a variety of jobs relating to housekeeping and elder care. My earliest memory of her working was the three of us (Mom, Zack, and I) picking her up from working at the old St. Peter Hospital on the Westside. It is the huge brick building just up the hill on Fourth that’s been converted to small apartments. I think she was a housekeeper.
She also lived for a time caring for an old woman in a big old house on the road along the water at Redondo which is south of Salt Water State Park in Des Moines. That was the closest she ever lived to us. The woman had a big parrot in a cage. It said words. I was young, less than six. We were warned never to put our fingers in the cage or it would bite them. I sure wasn’t going to have my fingers bitten.
I also have a memory of her working at a small nursing home on Capital Way, past the brewery, just before entering Tumwater. I sometimes go by the building and remember driving with Mom to pick Teresa up after work for a visit. Teresa was always poor as she moved from job to job and house to house.
My memory of Teresa was most keen the last year of her life. I was ten. That summer I spent five days with her in her old duplex on Olympia’s Westside, a Monday through Friday. I had never spent time alone with her away from my family. I wish I’d had more time.
Teresa was a large woman. I adored hugging her and wrapping my arms around her as far as they would go. Her roundness comforted me. I felt at home. I felt safe. I’m not sure I was safe, but I felt it. The love of her body has reverberated throughout my life drawing me to large women. Similar to my Granny, I knew without a doubt she loved me.
For many years, the duplex rentals were still there as they fell further into disrepair and were uninhabitable. The landlord was a woman who lived next door with her daughter, Johanna. They lived in a big old white house on a large piece of land. Everything was well kept, clean, with a nice garden. They seemed rich to me.
The woman had no husband. I had a sense he had died. I didn’t know how, and it wasn’t spoken of. Teresa mentioned it had to do with a gun. We visited often that year. Johanna was near my age, but bigger than I was. I didn’t like her very much, but she was the ticket to seeing the house and playing in their nice yard.
The duplex was just off Harrison, west of Cooper Point. I looked in that direction the other day. There’s a housing development there now, but it looked like the big house was still there. I’ll have to check it out. Wouldn’t it be a trip if Johanna is still alive and living there?
Teresa smoked. I’m sure she swore. The duplex was dark and dingy. I remember lots of stuff packed in. It had one bedroom. The kitchen was in back with a window. It was an adventure to stay with Teresa for those five days. She had this wild feel as if she might be up to something at any time. She didn’t have a tub. I’d never had a shower before. She taught me how to take a shower. Unfortunately, it was a bit traumatic.
It was a metal shower stall with a curtain. Teresa turned on the water and stuffed me in there. I didn’t know how to get my head out from under the water. I thought I was drowning. I kept trying to get out, and she kept pushing me back in. I was really frightened. Now, it would be referred to as a kind of waterboarding. After several attempts at escape, I finally figured out how to move my head away and out from the water stream. It sounds funny now, but I was terrified!
I don’t have a recollection of her working that week. I only remember hanging out with her unless I was outside playing with Johanna.
She drove a large old red and white Ford. We have pictures of her standing by that car. I remember driving up Fourth to the Eastside. She said, “I’ll show you something magic.”
“What?”
“Watch,” she said as she started through town and up the hill. She’d look at an upcoming red light. “Turn green. Turn green. Turn green!” As we got closer, it magically turned green. We’d see another red light. She’d chant, “Turn green. Turn green. Turn green!” Oh my gosh, it did it again.
She did this all the way up the hill. Each red light turned green on her command. I’d never seen anything like it. It certainly looked like magic. It was years later when I understood that multiple lights in a row are timed to keep traffic moving. She never let on.
Cars didn’t come with seat belts in those days. When braking, she always put out her right arm to hold me in place. That was the child protective device.
Another time, we were driving down State Street from the Eastside. She asked, “Do you know what to do if a man tries to hurt you?”
“What?” I asked.
“Bring your knee up.” I remember looking down at my knee in the front of that big Ford and wondering how bringing my knee up would help.
“What does that mean?”
“You bring it up and hit them in the balls.”
“The balls?” I asked, puzzled.
She glanced over at me. “Where their penis is. Testicles are called balls. That’s their most sensitive place.” This was news to me, but I filed it away as something to contemplate later.
I’d spent years of overnights with Grandpa Joe and Granny. Teresa was the only other grandparent I’d spent the night with. I was looking forward to future summers with her. Unfortunately, this was to be the last time. After Mom and Zack picked me up, I don’t remember seeing her again.
The next thing I remember was December 16th, when Mom got a call. The phone was yellow on the kitchen wall with a long cord. I can still see her there. She sounded upset asking questions of whoever it was and slowly collapsed down the wall. My Dad came home early from work. I don’t remember my Mom talking to us.
Dad sat us down on the couch in the living room. He said, “Your Grandma Teresa has died.”
This was a whole new concept for me. I wasn’t sure how to react. “You mean we’ll never see her again?”
“No. She’s gone.”
“I liked her!” I remember saying that exactly. I think I started to cry. It seemed appropriate. I was ten. Zack was seven.
That week, it started to snow. The funeral was held in a mortuary on Franklin Street. There was no church ceremony. She might have been in disfavor with the church, married and divorced four times.
I went with Mom. Granny and Grandpa went too. Mom and I sat in the family section with Albertina and Teresa’s siblings. I’d never been to a funeral before. It was an open casket. Mom said, “Don’t look at her. If you do, it will be the only memory you’ll ever have of her.” That sounded terrible. I studiously looked at my shoes. I didn’t dare look up, because I wasn’t sure exactly where to not look.
I remember going to the cemetery on Yelm Highway. Snow was on the ground. It was cold. A priest said some words. Her casket looked like small grey and white checked fabric to me. It wasn’t wood on the outside. There were flowers around it. My Mom put a single red rose on top of her casket because she said Teresa liked roses.
After that day, the snow just kept coming down for days getting higher and higher. There were drifts up to my waist. I’d never seen it like that. School was closed. Mom said, “It’s Grandma Teresa. I just know God put her in charge of the snow machine, and she’s just going at it. She loved snow.” It was my mother’s way to make things funny.
Eventually, Mom got her stuff. There were her clothes. Mom kept some in a sealed bag. She could still smell Teresa for years when she’d open that bag and breathe in. Teresa had a lot of writing. Mom said it made her sad to read it.
She said to me, “When I die, don’t read my writing. Just burn it. It’s too painful, and it’s not necessary.” (As I’ve read some of Mom’s stuff, I have to say she got that right.)
Albertina bought a shared headstone for her and Teresa, generally used for spouses. It was different. Albertina’s second husband, Art Hutchins, who died in 1958, is buried next to them with his own headstone. Teresa was alone there for a long time before Albertina died in 1984 at 96.
I think of Teresa often. I have sweet pictures of her with me as a baby and a little black dog that I think was mine. Mom gave the dog away because she said she didn’t want her baby smelling like a dog. (If true, she’s a rat fink. But that’s not news.)
I most often think of Teresa when I’m driving up the Fourth Avenue hill watching to see if I’m in sync with the green lights. It reminds me of the spell Teresa cast with a young me by making all the lights turn green. My memory is the magic.
Coda
Years later in the early 1980s, I got off work on a beautiful February day. I worked and lived on the Westside but felt a tremendous pull to visit Teresa’s grave in the opposite direction. I didn’t know why but I just felt I needed to go. I followed the feeling, although it didn’t make any sense. I knew I’d find out why when I got there. If not, it would just be an unexpected trip.
It was sunny, cool, and clear. I found her grave and looked for the reason I was drawn there. I stood looking around, wondering. I looked at the bare trees and very blue sky. I read her gravestone a second time and was given a jolt. I felt a buzz in my body as I realized her birthday was February 24th—the same date I’d been writing on file cards all day. It was her birthday!
I could never have guessed her birthday. I felt touched by her after such a long time. I said, “Happy Birthday, Grandma Teresa. Thanks for letting me know.” I hope one day it happens again. It made her feel not so far away.
Joceile
8.4.26
