My Grandmother, Ethel Litchfield, the adventurer

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!
This is my story of my mom's mom, 

my Grandmother (whom I never met) Ethel Litchfield:

When my mom passed away last year, I inherited many of her personal possessions.  Among them was a book titled The Olden Days by Annabelle Litchfield  (my Grandmothers older sister) about my ancestors on my mothers side.   


Up until now, I had thought of my mom's mom as the crazy relative from New Jersey that we avoided talking about.  Because all I knew about my Grandmother was that she had a breakdown in New Jersey during the Great Depression when my mom was 4.  She lost it one day and she tried to jump off a building holding her 4 year old daughter/my mother.  She was sent away for the standard back in those days for depressed, overwhelmed housewives, shock treatment.  She was unresponsive the rest of her life after what that did to her brain and she lived the rest of her days in a "home".   I knew nothing about who my Grandmother was as a young girl.  

But this book, now in my hands, The Olden Days,  
was talking about my ancestors on my mothers side.
But it wasn't talking about  the stories I had heard, 
about struggling to survive in the 1930's,
in Newark, N.J.,  during the Great Depression.  


IT WAS TALKING ABOUT THE DIVERSIFIED FAMILY FARM,

IN NORTH DAKOTA!


All I could think to say was, 
"What?"  

How in 1902, my ancestors, the Litchfields, went by the motto "head West young man" and took the Northern Pacific Railway train to as far West as the tracks had been laid, at Gwinner, North Dakota.  They bought, "160 acres of fertile Red River Valley virgin prairie land of original buffalo-type grass in Sargent County, North Dakota, famously called 'The Bread Basket of the World."  Arrows made of flint-stone were found in our pastures..."  Indians had once hunted buffalo there.  It was a diversified family farm.  It was the family farm for generations.

What?

The book has a chapter about my grandmother, Ethel Litchfield, the tomboy.  When it was time for chores, Ethel was no where to be found.  She would rather be out playing with the boys.  

Ah Haaa, so maybe thats where my tom boy spirit comes from!  
Who wants to do housework when you could be on an adventure?   

It talks about how "At lunchtime, Ethel would bring to the cow barn her mothers fresh-baked homemade bread and butter together with radishes from the garden along with all the fresh warm milk we could drink.  Warm milk, right from natures source!"   

Ah Haaa, so maybe thats where my love of  
all things dairy comes from!  

Theres even A PICTURE OF HER RIDING A HORSE WITH 2 OTHER SIBLINGS TO THE ONE ROOM SCHOOL HOUSE.  Ethel loved horses!  

Ah Haaa, so maybe thats where my love of horses 

and country life comes from!  

Growing up, as far as I knew, all my relatives were from New Jersey.  I had never met my Grandmother and had no idea about pioneers, settlers or this "diversified family farm" life in North Dakota.  I often said, as a young girl, I wished I was Laura Ingels from the TV show, Little House on the Prairie.  I was addicted to that show, strange for a kid living in a giant apartment building in inner city Chicago.  And the trips to White Pines Dude Ranch every summer with the Girl Scouts and my mom were heaven on earth to me.  I longed for that type of existence, it was paradise to me.  It all makes sense to me now.  


But most important to me in this book,  are copies of the two letters that my Grandmother wrote in August, 1933, when she was 21 and decided to leave the family farm and HITCH-HIKE,  AND WALK, ACROSS THE COUNTRY, ACROSS THE GRAND CANYON, TO VISIT HER GRANDMA!   

AH HAAA, SO THAT'S DEFINITELY 

WHERE MY ADVENTUROUS SPIRIT COMES FROM!  

In these letters, shes relaying her journey.  Near the Grand Canyon, my Grandmother met my Grandfather, "a boy just out of college and is he sweet to me!  He looks like Emmet Lee and has insisted on seeing me through the Grand Canyon.  He is on his way to Chicago, but intended to see the Grand Canyon anyway."   She also writes, "We intend to walk across the Grand Canyon tonite.  We have talked over some real romantic plans for tonite."  She appreciates everything she is seeing and experiencing for the first time.  She talks about walking through the desert & sage.  "Ah!  The famous purple sage! Just oceans of it!  There is also samale trees of cactus too."   She went to a "great big real rodeo" in Arizona.  She says, "There are a lot of Navahoe Indians here, (decedents of the Apachies). The real thing!"    But it was a hard journey as well.  She also later writes, "..when we got to the Colorado River there was a ranch.  Phantom Ranch.  We got there awfully tired & hungry Sat. night about 10:00.  They were very unfriendly & wanted 50 cents for a loaf of bread.  So we had to keep walking about half a mile and laid down & went to sleep beside the trail.  It was too dark to go further."  

(BEV'S BUCKET LIST:  #1, TRIP TO PHANTOM RANCH,
LEAVE 50 CENTS WHERE THE SUN DON'T SHINE.) 

"When I got up my legs were so stiff I could hardly walk."  "...We met a couple walking to the south rim.  Guess they felt sorry for us & gave us 1/2 loaf of bread.  They were awfully kind.  The trail was terrible.  I was so weak & my muscles in my legs so sore I could hardly walk.  My shoes hardly hung on my feet and longer, they are so worn out.  I felt like vomiting before we got to the top about 10:00 last night.  I don't think I will ever forget the cruel Grand Canyon of Colorado!"  "I put my shoes in the garbage this morning so I have only my high heeled ones left to wear." 

 (MY GRANDMA HIGH HEELED IT AT THE GRAND CANYON?  
YOU GO GIRL!!!)

Then the journey was over.  Talking about my Grandfather, she says, "Williams, Arizona is where we part.  He goes East and I go West.  I will feel sorry to say goodbye as he has been awfully good to me.  He is such a clean kid (25 years old).  Hasn't tried anything funny and talks a lot to me about me helping him chase dollars back east.  He wants me to go to Chicago with him as he has money waiting for him there.  But I guess I'm not built that way, anyhow, I'm going to see Grandma first.  Hope to get there this week.  Am so glad I'm across the Canyon I could shout for joy...."   They obviously kept in touch and when they were done with their travels, they got married in New Jersey.  They had 2 children, my mom & her little sister.  So my mom was born in Newark, New Jersey.   

I like to think of it as a cosmic force that drew them, from opposite sides of the country, to both walk to the Grand Canyon at that same time in 1933.  What are the odds?  How else would a farm girl from North Dakota have met a college boy from the East Coast, shared this experience and fallen in love?

I feel my Grandmother's spirit with me today, 

on Mothers Day, wanting her real story told.  

So I'll say this for her, this woman whom I never met, 

what I feel she wants you to know about her:

She was not some crazy lady from New Jersey.  

She was a farm girl from a diversified family farm in North Dakota, with an adventurous spirit.  At 21, she went on a cross country adventure, BY FOOT, across the Grand Canyon, to see her Grandmother.  On her journey, near the Grand Canyon, she met a nice boy.  They had a great adventure together and eventually they got married.   But within a few years, she found herself in the poor, sad city, that Newark, NJ was in the 1930's, married, with 2 small children, DURING THE GREAT DEPRESSION.   SHE FELT LOST.

THERE WAS NO MORE FAMILY FARM WITH "FRESH HOMEMADE BREAD & BUTTER WITH RADISHES FROM THE GARDEN AND ALL THE FRESH WARM MILK YOU COULD DRINK, RIGHT FROM NATURES SOURCE"  FOR HER TO GO TO IF HER CHILDREN WERE HUNGRY.   

Here was this woman I had never met and knew nothing about, and yet I was finding out how we shared many of the same characteristics, and shared many of the same struggles, even though our outcomes, hopefully, will be much different. 

I hope I told her real story, showed the real her, through her own words in her letters.  I thank her for showing me how important it is to write things down.  Maybe one day, my Granddaughter will read what I've written and feel my spirit.  I thank you Grandma for showing me how important it is to record who I am. 

Happy Mothers Day to the real, kind spirit of my Grandma,

the adventurer, Ethel Litchfield.