Do you know how your grandparents met?

 After my mother died, when we were at the family house sorting through old letters, I came across a pile of correspondence between my mom’s parents. These were love letters, filled with personality and pet names; sweet and funny treasures. As we were reading them I was struck by something. Somehow, I didn’t know the story about how the two of them had met!

How is it that my sisters and I didn’t know that story? The loss of my mom pierced through me with the stark realization that there was no one left to ask.

There was something nagging in my brain and fortunately it came to me. Back in 1987 my grandmother had done an oral history project with the National Council of Jewish Women. I had started to listen to it shortly after she died in 1995 but her loss was too fresh and hearing her voice got me too emotional. Life happened and the existence of those tapes was forgotten.

But now I remembered! I did a quick internet search and there it was. There are two hours of grandma being interviewed. The story of how she met my grandfather was included.

Fast forward.

As some of you know, I am writing a book. It is NOT the Nurse Judy collection about fevers, poop and rashes. Instead it is a collection of weird stories, spooky serendipity and a shout out to my quirky family. Messages from beyond? Maybe.

One of the stories in the book is about my grandmother. She was born in downtown Pittsburgh. Her name at birth was Gertrude, but we remembered her telling us about how her name was changed to Flora. To us, she was Grandma Fuffy.

The story goes that when she was young, disease struck the family. One of her older sisters perished and Grandma was very ill. As was the custom at the time, her family changed her name in order to fool the angel of death. (It worked?)

Recently, my sisters and I were trying to see if we could remember what illness it was; we were split between possible Typhoid or Diphtheria (Hooray for clean water and childhood vaccinations, I can’t imagine the horror of losing children to those illnesses)!

That week I had a vivid dream. My grandmother was telling me that the information that I was seeking was available to me.

I decided to listen to her interview again. This time hearing her voice surrounded me like the coziest of sweaters and filled me with warmth.

Once again my question got answered. It had been Typhoid.

Of course I listened to the full two hours. What a treasure. It stops abruptly in the middle of a story, the cassette tape was over. I wanted so much more, but am grateful for what I got.

It is possible that many of you have quick little videos of parents, grandparents and older relatives and friends,

But do you have the stories?

Make it happen. Most folks are delighted to take a trip down memory lane with you. Even people with diminished memories often can happily recount tales from when they were young. Capture the history.

Being able to hear my grandmother's voice feels like a gift from the universe.

Don’t wait.

Here I am on Grandpa Asher’s lap. Marjie is sitting next to Grandma ‘Fuffy’

(shockingly…and I kid you not, this is only about 14 years before I met Sandy)

Thanks for reading Nurse Judy’s Substack!