Baba's Temper

I wish I knew why these things come to me at odd times, but today I've been thinking about my grandmother.  I often do when I'm trying to reason why I am the way I am--the way both my sister and I are.  We call it the Covill-Armstrong Woman Syndrome.  There is a strength there, a sort of denial, that when bad things happened, our mother and grandmother both moved on to do what had to be done without looking back.  My mother got it from her mother, and my sister and I got it from both of them!

My grandmother wasn't "Grandma".  She was "Baba" (pronounced "bab'-uh"), named by my sister who was the first grandchild...and it stuck.  Baba was a wonderful woman, made strong by some bad breaks early in her life.  Through everything, she always did the very best she could, but she was tough.

Just to illustrate her inner stubbornness/strength, I'll tell this story:
When she was in her mid-50s (1945??), with my mother and two sisters living with her and my grandfather while my father was off to war, their 12-room, 3-story homestead burned to the ground.  Mom was in town getting supplies for my grandfather's birthday which was that day, so Baba was busy making sure the very young granddaughters were out of harm's way while trying to save things from the house.  Neighbors came along to help, but there was no saving the house.  It had to have been an emotionally exhausting day.  When Mom came home down Mud Lane, she noticed that things didn't look right; then, as she turned onto the house lane, she saw that there was nothing left of the house but a smouldering pile of ashes.  Baba met her at the car.  As my mother blubbered, "Our house!  Our beautiful house!", Baba snapped at her:  "Don't you start!  I haven't cried, and you won't either!"  (I suppose that Baba probably knew her crying daughter would make HER weep, and she just didn't have the luxury to fall apart.)

As nighttime fell that day, there were five dispaced persons to find lodging.  My grandparents went to spend the night with my grandfather's brother and wife (Uncle Ray and Aunt Lola) in their farmhouse just 1/2 mile down the road.  Aunt Lola was a wiry, tough old bird who was not a particularly empathetic person.  As Baba hesitated, totally drained, at the bottom of the steps up to their kitchen, wondering how she would have the strength to go up them, Aunt Lola said, "Well!  What's the matter with you?!"  That was all it took!  Baba rankled, squared her shoulders, and said, "Nothing!"  And she marched up those steps like the soldier that she was!

Although I never saw it, there are family stories that indicate that my sainted grandmother had a temper. One tale ends with Baba throwing clods of dirt at my father in the garden, for some reason lost to us now. Another reports that she broke a plate over her one of her children’s heads. That story goes that when the children (my mother, uncle, and aunt) were young, she was out of patience with them and had plopped all three down on a radiator in the kitchen with orders to stay put. “I don’t want to hear another peep out of you!” Of course, that was an invitation for Uncle Bud to say “peep” as she walked away. Plate already in hand, she turned and broke it over his noggin! (She told me a generation later that the plate was already cracked, as if that made a difference!)
I think I remember someone saying that she also threw a skillet at my grandfather once…


In retrospect, it appears that my grandmother tolerated things to the snapping point. My mother mentioned once that Baba shot a BB-gun at some chickens in the yard, trying to get them to move, and felt bad when she hit one and killed it. Another time, Baba went on a rampage with a shotgun to eliminate some of the 25 or so cats that were on the property and in the way. (Mom was upset because one of the eliminated cats was her favorite, Boots.) Baba probably didn’t want the cats to begin with but put up with them around the house for the sake of the children until there were too many to feed and were always underfoot. Those were different days, but I understand the mentality!

My favorite Baba temper story has to do with the plumbing in the homestead house. The old lead pipes under the kitchen sink leaked. Popo (my grandfather) kept promising to fix them, but somehow the job wasn’t getting done. Every time Baba did the dishes, she also had to clean up the dishwater on the floor under the sink. One day, after mopping up the water on her freshly waxed floor, she’d had enough. She marched out to the garage, got a hatchet, came back into the kitchen and hacked the pipes to pieces. “I guess he’ll fix them NOW,” she said. And he did!

Only once did I personally witness a tantrum on Baba’s part. I was in high school, staying with them for a week in the summer to help out. Baba was in a wheelchair by then, or she would have done the job herself, but Popo was directed to paint the door from the dining room to the outside.  He managed to drip some paint on the parquet floor. I wasn’t in the room when she saw it, but Baba’s shrill cries—half weeping, half anger--were quite audible. It was like she KNEW it would happen and, sure enough, it did.  Popo scrambled to clean it up. A year or two later, the floor was covered in carpet.

If anyone ever questions why I am not more emotional about bad things when they happen, I just say it is because I suffer from the Covill-Armstrong Woman Syndrome.  I accept that falling apart does not change the need to face the problems when the smoke clears.  What needs to be done next?  That, and the fact that my best friend once told me when I was going through a difficult divorce, "Peg, don't fold up.  You'll just have to unfold again."  So wise.  So true.  So much like my Baba!