EXPRESS

HOME & GARDEN

By Amy Gesenhues

My grandmother turned 101 years old on April 3 . She has survived being born in 1917 . World War II . Joe McCarthy . The Korean War . Vietnam . The Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of President Kennedy . She is a devout Catholic who survived a divorce in a deeply rooted Catholic community . She survived being a single , working mother of six kids during the 1970s . She also survived the death of her first son , and probably a million tiny heartbreaks I know nothing about .

Through all of these tragedies and losses and survivals , there has been a garden .

When my grandmother was young , her family ’ s main crop was strawberries . She talks about what it was like to grow the heartshaped fruit in her 1997 autobiography , From My Window : “ We planted them in the Spring and hoed and plowed them all that summer . Then the next Spring we picked them . They were a hard crop to grow and depend on , but they were what we planted , picked and sold to make most of the money we needed for the rest of the year .”

They also planted potatoes and cabbage and corn and tomatoes and beans . Pumpkins , cantaloupes , watermelons , and cucumbers .

Grandma said the cucumbers were a good crop for them . “ The growing season was so short and they could stand the dry summers of the Ohio Valley ,” she wrote . “ It only took them six weeks to grow , and we would pick them every other day for over a month .”

She said picking the cucumbers was a backbreaking job , and she is the toughest woman I know .

The garden I first remember is the one my grandmother and grandfather started at their house in the two , maybe three acres of land between their home and the creek at the bottom of Jenny Lane in Floyds Knobs . I don ’ t know what year the first garden was put there , but it continued to be planted well past their divorce and after the death of their son . He was only 26 when he drowned at Buffalo Trace Lake . His name was Norman . He was my dad .

Last year , on the 40th anniversary of his death ,

a cousin shared the following memory of him on my Facebook page : “ I don ’ t have any really clear memories of your dad . There is one , though , when the family was planting the big garden in your Grandma ’ s yard . Everyone was kneeled down , carefully planting seeds at just the right distance apart . Except your dad . He had a handful of seeds – peas , I think – and he was hunched over , walking briskly , letting them roll out of his hand like he was eating peanuts . Someone was grousing at him about not doing it right and then following his row , re-placing the seeds carefully , moving each one an inch or so .”

“ Our family keeps growing , and with each passing year , there is a garden .”

My cousin said he remembers being off to the side , playing in the dirt when my dad came by with a grin and asked him , “ My way is better , don ’ t you think ?” I am grateful to have this memory . My dad sowing seeds in the garden . Doing things his way .

Grandma ’ s garden has since relocated to the other side of the property from where it once was . Instead of being in front of her house – which is now my uncle ’ s home – it is across the street , in front of the house where another one of my cousins lives . She has two toddlers .

Our family keeps growing , and with each passing year , there is a garden . In 2001 , one of my cousins started a garden log to archive every crop our family plants , harvests and cans . It is a small spiral notebook with a green cover that up until last year , was kept on top of our grandmother ’ s refrigerator .

An entry dated July 1 , 2004 , reads : Canned 56 quarts of green beans . Vicki and Lucy picked one row for this canning .

The time it took to pick the beans is in parentheses , ( 2½ hours ). The entry includes a bulleted list of everyone who helped stem and can the green beans : Grandma , Janice F ., Doug , Jan , Joe . Beside Doug ’ s name , in parentheses , is a note that he only received partial credit because he arrived “ very ” late . Jan was noted as a late arrival too . Joe ’ s name included the following citation : Cut very little with lots of complaining . All of these details listed in parentheses beside their names .

An entry from August 13 , 2013 , says the corn didn ’ t come in that year . Instead , two bushels were bought from Ralph Fenwick . Parentheses ($ 35 ). After grandma deemed it fresh enough , Emily , Junnie , Vicki , JJ and Jan shucked and cleaned it , while Molly , Eileen and P3 ( short for Paul the third ) played in the basement . JJ wanted it noted that she pulled out a worm from an already boiled year of corn , and that she was there from the beginning . Parentheses ( 9:30am ).

This small notebook is so much more than the food my family has harvested for the last almost 20 years . It ’ s a record of what we talk about when we ’ re sitting around our grandmother ’ s table , chucking corn , canning beans , eating . It ’ s a handwritten confessional , showing all the ways we care for and nurture each other . I think of these small moments , the quiet details within the parentheses , as clues to the ways we ’ ve repaired each of our family ’ s tiny heartbreaks – from my dad ’ s death to all sufferings that were left unsaid .

My grandmother had six children . Those six children had 16 children , and I am one of them .

I have two kids of my own now , and we all still eat food from her garden . When my son was three , still in a car seat riding home from Sunday dinner at Grandma ’ s house , he said her cream corn – made with the ears of corn cleaned and chucked from the garden – was magic . I can think of no better word to define it .

66 EXTOL : JUNE / JULY 2018