Nana Redux

Nana, as I’ve mentioned before, was our ‘woo-woo’ grandmother. She was proud of being a co-founder of the Cleveland congregation of the Spiritualist Church which, she carefully and regularly explained to me, believed in two things: the Golden Rule and communication with the dead.

Nana lived with us from 1956 to 1963. I was 12 when she died.

My earliest memory of her is of the tea parties she hosted for me. She lived in an apartment over a drug store and had a seemingly vast collection of teacups, teapots, and all the necessary paraphernalia for serving tea. Her whole apartment was a collection: glass globe lamps, plush velvety couches you could sink into, doilies on everything, and gleaming wood everywhere, both furniture and floors.

She’d let me choose the teacup I wanted. Usually I went for the bling: a shiny gold cup and saucer with a mother-of-pearl interior. The gold was finely filigreed and the inside of the cup glowed in an opalescent rainbow of colors. I thought it was beautiful.

Every now and then, I’d select one of her tiniest cups, maybe twice the size of a thimble. She had several with raised dragons flying around the cup and saucer. I liked those, too, even though they required constant refilling. Nana didn’t mind.

Actually, Nana never seemed to mind anything. A truly gentle soul and one of the most Christian women I’ve known. She quietly lived the Golden Rule, though she wasn’t above stretching the truth.

Born sometime in the 1890’s - she lied about her age and I’m not certain – she had to quit school in the eighth grade to go to work and help support her family. Her father had left them.

When she told me stories of that time in her life, her father was never mentioned. Instead, I heard about her setting pins in a two-lane bowling alley or playing the piano and organ in the silent movie theatres.

When the “talkies” came along, she needed a new source of income and decided to go into real estate. There was one big problem, though: the state of Ohio required real estate agents to have a high school diploma. So Nana told them she’d graduated from a high school that had burned to the ground. The fire, of course, had taken any records with it. (No computers in those days, boys and girls.)

By the time I came into the picture, she’d built her own real estate agency. I remember visiting her at her office in downtown Cleveland’s Arcade Building. It was a magical place – Cleveland’s first skyscraper (all of nine stories) built in 1890. It was a ‘50’s version of a shopping mall: you entered a five-story atrium covered by glass and metal, connecting the two nine story towers. There were shops and an area with lots of games to play – I remember pinball and bowling.

Nana’s office was a little boring in comparison. At least to a five year old…

Nana at work - circa 1955

A Nana Story for Halloween

Nana moved with us when my father was transferred to Connecticut. A widow, my dad was her only child. I was seven. Our little family was all she really had.

As the oldest of four, I got to stay up later than the rest on those nights Nana babysat. She'd read me poetry from slim and seemingly ancient leather books embossed with gold curlicue lettering. I had regular readings of "The Spider & the Fly;" "The Owl & the Pussycat;" and something with the ominous refrain of "And the goblins'll gitcha if ya don't watch out..."

She'd read me grown-up poems, too, poems by Whitman, Longfellow, Shelley, and Dickinson. But it wasn't all serious stuff - I recall taking particular delight in Robert W. Service's "The Cremation of Sam McGee" and "The Shooting of Dan Magrew."

Later, she'd sit on the edge of my bed and say a night-time prayer with me. We had any number of conversations there in my darkened bedroom. Nana especially liked to talk about her religion.

"I'm a Spiritualist," she'd tell me solemnly. "And we believe in two things.

"We believe in the Golden Rule - 'Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.'"

I already knew that one from Sunday School.

"And the second thing we believe," Nana continued, "is that you can communicate with the dead."

"Okay, Nana..."

(Needless to say, my religious education has been eclectic.)


Years later, in my mid-20's, I saw a tiny newspaper notice for services at the local Spiritualist Church. On Wednesday nights, they held 'readings.' I liked the sound of that. Something unusual to try and, in a way, paying homage to my grandmother. I wanted to see what it was all about and, who knew, maybe she'd get in touch!

The church was brick and tiny, somewhere off Van Brunt as I recall. One big room, painted sky blue, with a small, raised wooden platfom on one end.

There were three people seated on the platform in old wooden chairs. Two women and a man, each as old as the chairs they were sitting in. They were the readers, and they took turns talking with an individual in the audience, until everyone had been read.

The old man pointed to me and asked, "Does the name Bernie - or Ernie - mean anything to you?"

I told him it didn't.

"Well, he's real close to you." Then he asked me if I knew an Alfred. "He lived on a farm," the old man said.

Nope again.

What a disappointment. I called my parents the next weekend and told them about it, that Nana would have loved it but that there was really nothing there.

My father asked me what the old man had said.

I dismissively told him about "Bernie or Ernie" and he said, "Bernie was my father's real name."

That was a shocker - I'd always been told my grandfather's name was the same as my father's middle name: Burns.

"Okay, then," I said, "is there an Alfred in there somewhere?"

My mother answered in the affirmative. I'd forgotten both the great-uncle and the farm.

I went back to the Spiritualist Church the next Wednesday. The same guy read me but came up with zilch. The week after that, the sweet little old lady with the snow white hair and piercing blue eyes pointed to me and said, "You - the little girl in white. Does the name Hazel mean anything to you?"

Hazel was Nana's name.

She told me Nana was close by, watching and protecting, at peace. That she loved me very much. Then she started patting her chest and asked, "Did Hazel have lung problems?"

A negative on that one. Nana had a lot of problems, but her lungs weren't one of them.

"Well, I just feel like I'm having a hard time breathing," the old woman told me, continuing to pat the front of her housedress.

Two hours later, having a cup of coffee with the friend who'd accompanied me, it hit me.

I was with Nana when she had her fatal heart attack. By that time, we were both babysitting (I'd reached the age where I didn't need - nor did I want - to have a babysitter. I was 12.)

We were watching late night TV in the downstairs family room when she fell over onto the floor. She lay there with her eyes open but glazed, unseeing.

She was trying to breathe, but her breath came in a long, harsh rasp, over and over and over.

That's my last memory of her.

Happy Halloween...