My great-grandmother Ruth Shelby, whom I remember with blurry fondness, was an ambulance driver in World War I. She was married several times, and got angry when her grandsons (my father and his brothers) were too protective of her health and safety. I know her younger daughter—my paternal grandmother Libby Brown—much better…she taught me to paint in the public-television style, and she tells stories that imply a life of beauty and privilege. Her sense of place in the world is often consumed with the memory of her brother Everett, a fighter pilot who “fell to the ocean fighting the Germans.” She speaks of other problems: the weather, and what should be on the dinner table…though it should be said that, true to her fathers’ will, she almost never had to cook or clean. I remember thinking that Libby, at the age of 60, was already a 70 year-old woman. But now she’s in her 80s, and just as strong as the grandmother that I’ve always known.
When Ruth was in her late 30s, Benny Goodman was buying Fletcher Henderson arrangements for his band, and negotiating for a chance to play on a nationally syndicated radio show, among the first of its kind. Her older daughter Essie would have been in her late teens, and there would have been articles in the paper about the affects of swing music on the morals of our youth. Essie climbed into some sporty convertibles in her day, if I understand correctly, and didn’t shy away the unfamiliar experiences. Though older than my grandmother, not as thin, and a chain-smoker, she’s the one who can still hold her own in the world, walk a few miles in the morning. Essie has a left-of-center talk radio show in New Hampshire.