Grandmas Are Best

Charles & Norma Knight Thompson

I spent a few hours on Saturday afternoon visiting ancestors in local cemeteries.  Most notably was the trip to visit grandparents -- Charles & Norma Knight Thompson, and Milton & Linnie Parker Gold.  It was a reminder to me that our extended families can have a large impact on our lives.

I have very few memories of interactions with my grandfathers.  Lyle Keith Day, my paternal grandfather, died in 1949, when my dad was 10. Charles Frederick Thompson, my maternal grandfather died of lung cancer in 1976, I was just 5 years old.  I have a few, mostly vague, memories of when our family visited him after he had already received a terminal diagnosis. I never met my wife’s paternal grandfather. Henri Orri, my Dutch immigrant father-in-law’s step-father died in 1985, eight years before we married.  I met my wife’s maternal grandfather only twice, by then he had already suffered a debilitating stroke, and our interactions and conversations were limited. My step-grandfather, Chester James Vinnedge, played a somewhat larger role in my life, with trips being made to visit with him until his death in 1984. Despite the fact that I was in my teens when he passed away, I can still see him sitting in his recliner, with our family around him.  As a result, “Grandpa Chet” is the only grandfather I feel connected to.

My opportunity to spend time with my grandmothers was different.  The holiday song offers the phrase, “Over the river and through the woods, to grandmother’s house we go…”  Its never grandpa’s house. Everyone seems to identify with their grandmother’s love and attention, both in song, and in reality. 

While she was growing up, my wife’s grandmother (or Oma, to be precise), Aletta Orri visited for a month at a time, especially around the holidays. Her visits provided connection to their Dutch heritage and holiday foods.  I recall many trips to visit my paternal grandmother, Eva Day Vinnedge Jacobsen and Grandpa Chet. For much of my childhood, she lived just a couple hours away in a small town in Central Washington, and regular visits were made on Sunday afternoons.  Thanksgivings at grandma’s house with cousins, aunts and uncles, were particularly special.

Grandma Thompson lived with us in the 1980s

But in 1985 my maternal grandmother, Norma Knight Thompson, came to live with us in Washington.  She had spent most of her life in Utah, and due to her declining health needed live-in support. But I believe that the 8 years that she lived with us, she provided more for us that she received.  A room in our house was fixed up for her, the only room in the house with carpet. I had the opportunity to help plant rose bushes in our yard, because she loved them. She was at my orchestra and choir concerts, and many other events.  Grandma Thompson is ever-present in my high school years.

My children have not had such a rich connection to their grandparents and extended family.  Our family has moved across the country to Minnesota, Tennessee, Ohio, and Utah. And due to the expense of travel, grandparents have only been able to attend a few of their life’s events.  That is not a criticism, or indication of a lack of love on anyone’s part, but a reality that physical distance can impact family relationships.

Four generations at the blessing of our granddaughter, Eleanor

A few weeks ago, David Brooks wrote in The Atlantic that “the nuclear family was a mistake.”  Some people I knew were very upset at that assertion, though I believe it was usually out of misunderstanding.  A “nuclear family” is a basic social unit, made up of a couple and their dependent children.

Brooks explains the importance of extended family, “[they] have two great strengths. The first is resilience. An extended family is one or more families in a supporting web. Your spouse and children come first, but there are also cousins, in-laws, grandparents—a complex web of relationships among, say, seven, 10, or 20 people. If a mother dies, siblings, uncles, aunts, and grandparents are there to step in. If a relationship between a father and a child ruptures, others can fill the breach. Extended families have more people to share the unexpected burdens—when a kid gets sick in the middle of the day or when an adult unexpectedly loses a job.”

Eleanor with her Smith grandparents, Danita and Bruce

This is the experience I have seen in my life.  Not only did grandma live with us while I was a teenager, but so did multiple cousins.  When my dad lost his father at the age of 10, his widowed mother and 4 brothers lived with his grandfather C.C. Day.  Later that same grandmother lived with my uncle for the last few years of her life. I’ve had a brother-in-law live in our home for months as he worked at a new job.  And we currently have adult children, a son-in-law, and our first granddaughter living in our home. All calculated, or accidentally, to “share the unexpected burdens” of life.

The importance of extended families certainly didn’t originate with Brooks.  Vern L. Bengtson, a University of Southern California social psychologist who passed away last fall, wrote in 2001 about, “the increasing importance of multigenerational bonds and the multigenerational extension of family functions...of affection and affirmation, of help and support, across several generations…”  And while the nuclear family has been studied for decades by family scientists, Bengtson had pursued the study of the effects of multigenerational families and grandparents.

Wife and daughter on our trip to the Mountain View Memorial Estates Cemetery

Maybe a focus on the nuclear family is a mistake.  But the extended family is important. Whether the direct support necessary to deal with the challenges in life, or the heritage and memories of those who have passed on before us lending to our courage to deal with difficulty.  A phone call to parents or grandparents, children or grandchildren, connecting with a cousin on social media, or visiting a grandparent’s grave, all can lend us the support we need into today’s world.

Bengtson, V.L. 2001. Beyond the Nuclear Family: The Increasing Importance of Multigenerational Bonds. Journal of Marriage and Family. 1-16.