Dorothy Jean

For many years growing up, I thought my grandmother was the most glamorous woman ever. She had an old Hollywood grace about her. I thought she looked like Ginger Rogers. A stunner as a young woman, my Grammy was born into poverty. Her parents were Polish immigrants that either met on the boat or had an arranged marriage (or both) depending on who was telling the story when. Her father was a very handsome man who worked as a coal miner in Wilkes-Barre, PA. He had quite the temper and once killed a man in a bar fight. Strict Catholics, Dorothy lost her older sister to a botched abortion in her youth so she knew the perils of illegal and unsafe abortions quite personally. She would be quite vocal on that one subject. In the 1940s, she became a pen pal like many other young girls to GIs off at war. My grandfather intercepted her letters to another soldier who was either already married or just a player and unworthy of Dorothy's attentions. My grandparents fell in love over the course of their correspondence. When Grandpa returned from the war, they met for the first time to get their blood tests, meet family and then were soon married. My grandmother was not yet 18. It was clear to me that she wanted out of her town, and was ready to find a new adventure. In 1948 she lost her first child and nearly lost her life. Despite being told to avoid pregnancy for a while, she successfully gave birth to two more sons (including my father in 1951), a daughter and then they adopted their next child from Korea. The family was living in Boston. My grandfather worked for an engineering firm. My grandmother went to work once the kids were in school as a psychiatric nurse so she would have something to do and so my grandfather could go to school and earn his BS in Engineering from Northeastern. As a couple, they were inseparable and liked to keep busy. Grammy had her first hear attack at 50 and they both slowed down some. During their early retirement years, they had moved into a retirement community in NH. Grandpa would do general maintenance and Grammy would monitor blood pressures and blood sugars for the old folks. They drove the bus every morning for the special needs students in the area. Grandpa would drive and Grammy would monitor the kids. Parents had the relief of having a qualified nurse to supervise their morning rides to school. Things slowed down considerably in 1996 when Grandpa was diagnosed with esophageal cancer. They moved to another retirement community outside of Sarasota, FL. Grammy nursed him through his treatments. Grandpa was on the mend but Grammy's health issues began to hinder them both. She suffered from Reynaud's syndrome, lymphoma, heart disease, broken bones, repeated blood infections. It was a slow, unpleasant drop in her quality of life. She had always told me that she believed in the power of one's own brain. If she wanted to lose weight, she would self-hypnotize as she called it. She would talk herself into being less hungry. I think she talked herself out of living in the end. She was done. She had a good run.