Dear Grandma

Hello, everyone! I am Rita’s friend Jane. Let me begin by thanking the sisters Turgeon, your relatives and your friends for allowing me to join this adventure in gratitude. When Rita told me about 365, the first person who came to mind was my maternal grandmother, Corea Taylor O’Connor. We just had the best time together.

Grandma, if I could speak with you today, I would tell you how clearly I remember when, as a little girl, I used to visit you and Papa in Washington, DC. I remember being able to see the White House from your apartment window high above Pennsylvania Avenue – and how you would “tsk, tsk” if the window shades were not even across the front of the house. (Of course, this was not an issue once Jackie moved in.)

We went everywhere and saw everything in DC and environs. I remember our many trips to the White House, the Capitol, the Smithsonian, Georgetown (for tea), Arlington, Mt. Vernon and Monticello. My two-week visits in the summer would stretch into a month; I never wanted to go home. Eventually, though, my father always arrived to drive me back to New York and later, back to Chicago.

When you and Papa moved to Chicago in the early 1970s to be near us, the view from your apartment window was no longer a national monument but rather a national treasure – beautiful Lake Michigan. Papa and I used to love to watch the sailboats, their colorful spinnakers full of the wind, racing through the swells. Every time I drive past your building at “the curve” on Lake Shore Drive, I think of you.

And then there was Christmas and our yearly excursion to State Street to look at the Marshall Field’s windows and eat in the Walnut Room under Field’s legendary tree. We always dressed “like ladies” for this occasion and took the bus because “one should always know how to ride the bus.”

You taught me how to do a lot of other practical things, too, for which I am grateful – like make hospital corners, iron a long-sleeved shirt with a collar, fold a fitted sheet, make a pie, cook a turkey, sew a blind hem and play gin rummy. (Confession: Papa used to let me smoke his Benson & Hedges cigarettes when I was in high school. It was our secret. OK, you probably knew.)

I regret that I didn’t see more of you in your later years when you were living with Aunt Jane in Phoenix, although you might not have remembered me then. But I want you to know, I remember how much you loved me; how proud you were of even my smallest success; how, through your own example, you taught me the importance of patience, civility and grace under pressure. I like to think I have succeeded in all your lessons – except the pie. Love, Jane