Making Connections (eBook)

Chapter 3

Time with Our Frohbach Grandparents

When I was around the age of twelve, my dad’s parents came to California to visit. My grandfather’s sister, Mabel, lived in Pacific Grove. They drove with my sister and me in their car out to a place called Pajaro Dunes Beach. It was along the coast, not too far from my great-aunt’s home. We all got out of the car to explore the beach and stretch our legs. My sister and I were looking for shells in the sand. We were far from the water’s edge, where we could see two people riding on horses. I had just bent down to pick up a shell when I heard my sister yell “Look OUT!!” I stood up and was knocked into the air by a galloping horse landing directly on my tailbone on the hard-packed sand! The rider was terribly apologetic, but that did not help my poor tailbone! Oh, my goodness, I was in pain! We all took a ride to the nearest hospital, me holding my bottom above the car seat with my hands, where much to my humiliation and embarrassment, I had to have my butt X-rayed! The attending physician said there were no broken bones, but you could have fooled me! I couldn’t sit on a hard surface without pain for weeks!

Grandma Lou and Grandpa Harry took all five of us Frohbach granddaughters aged thirteen to seventeen, on a vacation—without our parents—to Hawaii! What an adventure that turned out to be! For the first time in my life, I flew in the first-class section! We got warm, damp towels to wash with before our meal, and a soft blanket and even slippers as I recall. The most unbelievably beautiful sunset I had ever seen happened the first night. I had never seen so many colors in the sky! We visited the black sand beach on the Big Island of Hawaii and the cooled lava flows. One of the active volcanoes had recently erupted, and parts of the road had been obliterated! I had never witnessed anything like that before. The lava had risen high enough to cover most of the post of a road sign. Only the top was visible.

While we were staying at a hotel in Honolulu, we cousins were separated into two rooms, and our grandparents occupied a third room at the end of the three. After our grandparents went to bed for the evening, we girls stayed awake and got into mischief of which none of our parents or grandparents would have approved! My eldest cousin and I had met some older boys on the beach. They had invited my cousin and me to a party a few blocks away, and we were naïve enough to think we could go and nothing dangerous would happen!

Needless to say, we did not tell our grandparents or the other siblings because we really, really wanted to go! There were lots of young people there smoking pot, and the music was very loud! We nearly got ourselves arrested when the police were summoned! The two of us hid behind a sofa until we could dash out unseen and hightail it back to our hotel. Our grandparents never found out (thank heavens!) and I doubt we told the other girls, but it was quite a bonding experience for my cousin and me!

On one of our free beach days, my young sister had been walking alone on the beach, and an older man started to flirt with her. She was only thirteen years old, but she was tall and maybe looked older than she was. He had asked her where she was staying, and she told him! All of us were terrified when we found this out and were sure he would come to try to find my little sister! I remember there were fireworks. That still happens regularly outside that hotel. As the fireworks exploded, we were convinced that the sound was the man trying to break into our hotel room! We were way up on one of the highest floors, but a group of teenage girls can get very worked up! I recall all of us cringing behind a kitchen counter and holding pots and pans we had found in case we had to fight off an intruder. Total hysteria! Our grandparents had no idea this was going on.

After Grandpa Harry died, Dad and his brother brought their families to Florida to celebrate our grandmother’s “landmark” birthdays. If I recall correctly, that was about every ten years. Conveniently, her birthday was close to Christmas, so we could all be on vacation during break. Each decade, we would convene at a hotel near our grandmother’s condo, and while our parents had cocktails in their rooms, we kids played games and talked and laughed. Those gatherings were so much fun!

The Florida coast is so different from the California coast! The ocean water is much, much warmer, so swimming was great! We did have to watch out for the Portuguese man o’ war jellyfish however! I recall when my cousin’s little boy was stung and how he howled in misery! I remember snorkeling and seeing a barracuda! The wind can get terrifically strong along the coast of Florida. Once, when my dad and mom were visiting, Grandma Lou was blown over, fell on the ground, and broke her shoulder!

My Grandma Lou had two nephews, one of whom lived in Florida. At one birthday gathering, his three children, their wives and husbands, and grandkids, and Dad’s cousin joined the rest of the Frohbach family to celebrate. I think it was Grandma Lou’s ninetieth birthday. A professional photographer had been hired, and family groups were photographed. I recall clearly my grandmother wanting to have special photos taken of only those of us who were directly related to her. That meant no husbands or wives of direct relatives. The family name and heritage were very important to Grandma Lou.

When Grandma Lou died, all of us gathered one last time for her funeral. We all watched her casket lowered into the grave next to her beloved husband, Harry. Many family stories were recalled when we later went to what seemed to me to be the now-haunted condo. I recall sobbing loudly as cousins and parents went through Grandma Lou’s possessions and treasures. To me, it felt like we were robbing someone! I knew she had died, but I wanted to take time to talk about her before rifling through her belongings!

We each chose a few of our grandparents’ personal items we could keep for ourselves to remember them. I chose my grandfather’s gold pocket watch, a large book of illustrations by Norman Rockwell, a beautiful gold pin with a small, turquoise-colored scarab, a few old books, and a small ring. I have always been sorry that I did not get to know Grandma Lou and Grandpa Harry as well as my cousins did, but they were very influential in my young life.

Grandma Elinor outlived two more husbands. When Grandma Elinor married her second husband, Les, they left Minnesota and moved to California. First, they managed a small apartment complex in Mountain View, and later they bought a mobile home in a beautifully maintained mobile home park in Aptos near Santa Cruz. We saw them often. Les was the only “grandpa” I knew on that side of our family, but I knew he had been married before and had his own children. I don’t believe I ever met his children.

Although Aptos was only maybe thirty miles from our house, it was on the other side of the Santa Cruz Mountains, and the cold ocean fog hugged the area more often than it did not. My mother would wake up and say, “It’s such a nice, sunny day! Let’s go visit Grandma and go to the beach!” We would begin our trip in the warm sun, excited to spend the day splashing in the surf, but arrive shivering! The mobile home park had the homes spaced far apart, with lots of grass and garden area. We could walk from there, along a path arched over by plant life, and emerge at the cliffs above the beach. It was not difficult to walk down from there, and the beach was never crowded. It was fun to hunt for sea glass, tumbled and “sanded” by the waves, and we often found driftwood because the Northern California coast was covered with pine trees and dead wood would wash down into the ocean.

Les died when we were in high school. Several years later, Grandma Elinor married her sister’s husband’s brother (her brother-in-law) and moved to Washington State. That didn’t last long. They divorced over irreconcilable differences. After the divorce, she decided to live closer to my parents and rented a small apartment for maybe a year before my parents helped her buy another mobile home and she moved to a mobile home park practically within walking distance of my parents’ house. Because Grandma Elinor lived nearby, we saw her often. After I moved away to go to the university, I still saw her when I came home for holidays. We spent Christmases with her.

I never felt particularly close to Grandma Elinor. She was not interested in being the kind of grandmother who would teach us things or take us places so we could get to be close with her. I remember her as a great cook, who loved playing Bridge, and who had lots of fragile decorative objects to look at in her house. She made Swedish pancakes when my cousins from Wisconsin were in town, and we stayed overnight at the mobile home in Aptos so my parents could take a couple of days to themselves with my aunt and uncle.

As my grandmother aged, she also developed congestive heart failure. My younger cousin from Wisconsin came to live with her for a brief period, and when my cousin moved back to the Midwest, Grandma Elinor gave her the car she had, as she decided she no longer needed it. My mother then became my...