A Story of Generosity From Nothing

A forgotten video, stored on a miniature camcorder tape from 1996, found me. After decades of forced silence, it held the movement, the distinct speech pattern, the visible spunk of a constant childhood companion; someone I once loved. 

The tape was hidden inside a large hat box–round, peach and printed with pink flowers that matched the wallpaper of the Victorian home I grew up in. By the time I moved overseas at the age of 24, the box was packed to its curved edges with childhood artifacts–cheap silver medals for spelling bee second places, pink birthday cards and high school love letters written on sheets of frayed notebook paper. It was placed in a basement rubbermaid bin that collected dust and mouse droppings for twenty years. The cassette’s plastic case held a paper sleeve labeled in my schoolgirl bubbly cursive: Grandma Juanita.

For a payment of $35 and a week’s worth of waiting, the cassette was digitized and I watched my 17-year-old self stand before my 76-year-old grandmother in her tiny kitchen on Sacramento Street. A rubber chicken hung, beak-down, from the window pane in front of her sink–some sort of gag gift that reminded her of childhood. Raised on a farm in Kansas, forced to drop out of school in 8th grade, an expert at baking pies and killing fresh chickens, she’d brag of the perfect technique. 

“Livia! You grab ‘em by their feet and whip ‘em around so fast that their neck breaks in half.” Her gray hair was stiff from recently being “set” at the neighborhood hair dresser’s, and with a string of pearls around her neck, she began whipping her right arm around with a wide berth of momentum–proving that, indeed, no chicken would stand a chance. 

My grandma never learned to drive. As a girl, I’d follow her up one twenty-minute long hill to the nearest Green Hills grocery store. She knew the exact location of the cheapest cans of corn or kidney beans, and every cashier and butcher knew her name, Juanita–an unusual moniker for a white girl raised in Kansas. 

After shopping, we crossed the busy Belt highway to a local ice creamery, and grandma pulled out money she’d fought to save. Grandma Juanita was the perfect match for my quiet soul–a talker who filled an empty house with words to her cats, to friends on the phone, to the universe or anyone else who’d listen to her complaints about the mean neighbor lady across the street. But at the ice cream shop she was silent, smiled and watched as I devoured a scoop of bubblegum ice cream on a sugar cone–just the energy we needed to walk the twenty minutes back home in the Missouri heat. Pearls a swingin’, she pulled a metal grocery cart filled with goodies she would likely give away. 

Grandma Juanita’s life was like the plot of some tragic, cheaply-made western that plays re-runs on the Lone Star Channel after midnight. Her mother died on the birthing table the day she was born and her father couldn’t bear the thought of raising her. Instead, Juanita was raised on a farm by her grandparents who named her, passed down the art of forming the perfect pie crust, how to sew and obliterate any stain on cotton whites, and an expertise for ironing creases into pants that no amount of sitting on hard church pews on a humid Sunday morning could erase. 

Those were the easy things my grandma learned. 

There was also the killing and defeathering of chickens, the avoidance of rattle snakes in the nearby Kansan bluffs, and how to stuff the hard things in life that never turned out right: 

~Like the day her brother accidentally shot and killed her 16-year-old sister, Violet

~Like the night she was 13-years-old and alone in an empty house, sleeping in the same bed her grandmother died in hours before

~Like her father’s broken promise that forced her to drop out of 8th grade and move in with her dad and evil stepmother

~Like the day she entered a loveless marriage at the age of 18 with a husband that punched her stomach blue when he found out she was pregnant

~Like raising three children alone while their father had affairs and still came home for a warm dinner, clean and ironed shirts, and pristinely-made bed

~Like failing her driver’s test and GED {high school diploma} when trying to follow her dream of becoming a nurse in her 50s

~Like being in her late 70s and walking to and from houses that she cleaned weekly–to earn enough money to bake pies that made church people smile; to add $15 to granddaughters’ birthday cards eventually stored and forgotten in peach, floral hat boxes. 

Grandma Juanita’s drawl may have said “warsh” instead of “wash,” and she never had a diploma, similar to mine, framed on her office wall that screamed of her earning potential. 

But, what she had, she gave. 

Every ounce of butter earned from cleaning toilets was turned into a dessert that was carried in a tin cake pan she hoped would be returned–her name painted in red fingernail polish on the side. In a church of 1,200 people, my Grandma Juanita was famous for an array of double-crusted fruit pies, custard pies with mile-high meringue and a rich chocolate twinkie cake with a layer of homemade cream down its center. 

At the church’s annual pie auction fundraiser for missions, my tiny grandma stood in the back of the gym, leaning against the brown carpeted walls. She’d smile, and nervously finger her pearls, as some of the richest business men in St. Joseph, Missouri fought for the right to devour one of her pies.

An auctioneer from the local cattle stockyards was brought in for the special event. 

“We’ve got Juanita Linneweh’s famous banana cream pie.” The crowd ooo-ed and ahh-ed in anticipation, auction number cards ready for bidding. The starting price for a normal church-goer’s homemade pie was $10, but Grandma Juanita’s creations required a higher starting bid. 

“Who will give me $100?” In the 1980s, one hundred dollars bought two nights at a fancy hotel near the Kansas City Plaza, but that did not deter Juanita’s local fan club. A flurry of bidding cards raised and a war among Christ-lovin’ folk ensued as the price skyrocketed. 

“$200? Who can give me $200? Going once,” the auctioneer paused his loud Missouri twang for a moment. “Going twice… Sold to #42 for $200.” 

Grandma Juanita never felt more important. She handed the pie plate over to #42 and warned him of the danger an oscillating ceiling fan’s draft would pose to her perfect mountain tops of toasted meringue. The winner carefully placed the pie on the floor of his red Corvette and drove home where forks, plates and a sense of victory awaited.

Last week, someone told me: “I’ve got a feeling that you have some new shoes to fill. You need new shoes for a new journey.”

“New shoes” makes me think of the fancy section of the Nordstrom shoe department. I quickly walk by the plexiglass displays of Prada, Chanel, and Louboutin. Their latest styles always incorporate some hint of gold. I glance, but I don’t look–no need to remind myself of things I could never afford. 

But, if I’m honest, those are the kinda “new shoes” I would love to don instead of the twenty-year-old shoes I’m trying to squeeze some life out of. 

And a new journey could be really nice, if I could stay guilt-free, in a beach-side condo in Hawaii instead of saving up enough money to buy my granddaughter a scoop of ice cream filled with tasteless squares of bubblegum. 

And although fancy shoes would definitely sparkle with their hint of metallic sheen, I kinda want to throw on a string of pearls and step into my grandma’s pair of used, broken-in shoes. They’re well-worn from squares of sidewalk cement, and decorated with more dust than anything shiny. 

But, God almighty, those shoes are generous. 

And wise. 

Feisty, but still kind. 

And they’re the type that find anything left in empty kitchen cupboards that can be mixed with some sugar, elbow grease, and given away.

***Please see an opportunity to donate and brighten the day of some single moms (women like my Grandma Juanita) below.***

I never knew how much my Grandmother’s generosity of baking influenced me. Unlike many, she was the type of Grandma who never cared how much of a mess we made with flour as long as we were by her side, in the kitchen, learning to create.

In my 30s, I started a habit of baking loaves of banana bread for friends, co-workers, and semi-strangers. I’d listen to my inner gut (if we listen, our guts always tell us of someone who needs to be noticed) and bake. I now realize that this is my Grandma Juanita in me.

May we all find the simple things we have in our hands, find forgotten people, and give it away. 

Although my Grandma Juanita was officially married but unloved, she lived a life very similar to a single mom of three growing children.

You, my friends and readers, have an immediate opportunity to give generously to bless single mothers in Minnesota.

Every year there is a weekend retreat at Lake Geneva that is ONLY for single moms. Mechanics (and mechanic wannabes) from all over the state come and fix or tune up the ladies’ tired mini-vans. There is a spa and boutique where they are pampered; special workshops that speak to their unique stories and questions. This is a faith-based event where they are also given time to worship, pray and listen—away from the constant noise of work and kids.

It’s a chance to not be alone and meet others who are also, like my Grandma Juanita, doing everything they can to create a beautiful life for their children.

Many of these women, however, cannot afford the minimal fee to attend.

If you are able to donate towards this scholarship fund that will allow more single moms to attend this great event, please do. The retreat fee is $88. They deserve to be seen, and we have a chance to see them; to step into my grandma’s shoes of generosity.

Donate HERE!

***Those who subscribe to receive my writing in their inbox {no more than once a week~I promise} also receive bonus material that includes journal entry questions that prompt us to listen, heal and become whole.***