Crazy Old Ladies

I guess we have a bit of a temper problem. We are proud and stubborn to the point of idiocy. And we are always right, every single one of us. It makes for a bit of a mess sometimes.

My great- grandmother Anna is in the middle. On the left is her mother Vilhelmiina, holding her sister Hilja. On the right is her sister Elli, and in the back is her sister Impi, who is the sister in this story. 

My great- grandmother Anna was no different. She was one of the most complicated people I have ever known. As a child, I was scared of her. I'd go visit her with my family, and children were expected to shake hands with her and curtsy or bow, and then sit quietly until she asked you something. At the end of the school year, she'd want to know all the details about your grades. And you better have a good explanation if your grades weren't up to her standards. I remember my cousin and my brother having to explain themselves to her several times. 

My great- grandmother was a hard worker. She had a farm that she inherited from her parents. She never let my great- grandfather forget that it was hers and not his. He never even had the keys to the house. He was an alcoholic, so the majority of responsibility was on her shoulders. She grew sugar beets as a cash crop, and had an enormous kitchen garden. She was an excellent gardener, and locally quite famous for it. She worked long hours every day but Sunday, and as far as I know, never took a vacation. She chopped her own firewood until she was well into her 90s, and if you ever tried to offer to help her, she would smack you in the back of your head. 

She was also one of the most generous people I have ever known. Back during the war, she took in several relatives from different cities that were being bombed, and housed and fed them for years. She also expanded her kitchen garden to several acres so that she could send food to all of her relatives who lived in the bombed cities and couldn't get away. 

My great- grandmother had 15-25 extra people living in this house at any given time during the war. It has two small bedrooms upstairs, and two downstairs. 

After the war, a boy, a cousin of some sort, stayed with her family. His parents had died in the war, and he had nowhere to go. She raised him as one of her own, even though she already had five children, and there were other relatives still living with them all. The story goes that he got a cut on one of his toes. Nobody remembers what happened, and who said what, but my great- grandmother and one of her sisters disagreed on weather or not the boy should be taken to a doctor. They didn't really have any money, so it would have been difficult for them to do so. The boy's toe ended up getting a bad infection, and it had to be amputated. The sister who wanted to take the boy to the doctor got so upset at the other sister, that even though they lived next door to each other, they didn't speak to each other for eight years. If one was outside, the other would go inside. If one of them saw the other in the local store, they would go home rather than be in the same building at the same time. The story doesn't tell if they ever started communicating again, or truly forgave each other, but they never were really friends again. 

This is my family, a bunch of stubborn, crouchy, and crazy people.