Oh Spusch!: Happy Birthday, Nana

My grandmother would have been 100 on the 23rd of August this year. She's been gone almost ten years now, and I miss her all the time. She was a great lady, and had a pretty amazing life. In fact, she was one of the first people I wrote about on this blog. I wrote about her mother and how she lost her, and about her war experience, and her husband and children. Her father's family tree is the most extensive line on my family tree. She's just always been a very solid presence in my life.

Margaret Hansen was the eldest of three children born to her parents in Cleveland, Ohio. She grew up there, and seemed to have a wonderful life, with her mother sewing lots of clothes for her, and her father building houses and making a good living at it. Both of her parents were from Denmark, and so she grew up surrounded by friends and family who were also Danish.

Then, in 1929, her mother died, and Nana's life changed. She and her younger brother and sister went to live with her aunt and uncle and a young cousin. Their father built a new home for them, unable to stand the idea of living in the home his wife had died in. He married soon after, and Nana's family went from a small family of five, to a larger family of seven, with two new step sisters. As the one of the two eldest, she was expected to do a lot of chores around the house and take care of the younger children. Between that and the onset of the Great Depression, life became very difficult for her. Her father had a great of difficulty selling his homes, even with the help of his new wife, and fighting was common.

So the moment she got a chance to get away and go to boarding school, she took it. The school was one that trained girls in office skills, and at the end of their schooling, the school and the school trustees would help the girls get a good job. So as soon as Nana ended her schooling, she went directly into a clerk job. She held that job until shortly after the US entered World War II, when she signed up for the army, and became a WAC. When I interviewed Nana about her mother for my paper about her mother, I asked her about how she'd felt about being so important. Being a WAC was something new and unusual. She responded that she hadn't felt special or unique. It was just something she'd felt she had to do. For her, she was so intent on helping the US in the war efforts, she never saw her own role as anything specifically important. But I will always see her as someone very special for that. It wasn't the only special thing she did, but it definitely showed what kind of woman she was, and definitely changed her life.

Later, as a married woman across the country from the rest of her family, she found a new way to make a difference. She got involved with the mothers of several of the children in her kids' schools. First it was just a way to help each other out, but as they grew older, they found ways to help their community as well. They created garage sales, where the proceeds would all go to a charity that helped children of troubled homes. I remember the garage sales growing up, but it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized how much of an organization they had made. They'd bought a storefront in their neighborhood, and used it to sell the goods they collected in between garage sales. Though she has been gone for so long, the shop she helped to create is still there, at least, according to Google Maps. It seems fitting that her good has existed so long. She was a great lady.

It is also because of her that I have such a love for genealogy. After her father's death, her sister became more and more interested in finding out more about their family tree, particularly their mother's side, as they'd lost complete contact with anyone on that side of the tree. They contacted everyone they knew that might have information, then looked into the records they could access to find out more. My great aunt wrote to Denmark in the area that she was listed as coming from, and because of them, we have a much more complete tree than we'd had. I remember my father helping to write up the family trees for all sides of my family in the 80s, and I have also since written up some of Nana and her siblings' search for their mother's family, including visiting with their uncle near the end of his life, who they had not seen since their mother's funeral. I've learned so much more about this line since her death. I do wish I could have shared it all with her.

Nana's father died in 1977, and her husband in 2000, but Nana lived long enough to meet two of her four great-grandchildren. This year, to honor her, the family is gathering as best we can to celebrate her life again, and to remember everything she brought into our lives. She has four children, six grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren. So much has happened with our family since she's been gone. I hope, wherever she is, she is smiling down on us.

Some shots of Nana over the years: