We got a call this morning from Don's mother informing us that her mother died sometime during the night. My heart is heavy. Grandma Dreher was a delightful sprite of a woman - tiny, vivacious, a powerhouse with a great sense of humor and a love of life and family. She was not my mother-in-law's birth mother, who died when Carole was a young girl. But you never would have know that. I didn't know until, during a visit to her house once, we were discussing Don's ethnic roots. My father was convinced Don's family was Welsh, and we were trying to figure out why he thought that. Grandma Dreher spoke up and said she was Welsh. "There you have it," I announced. I couldn't quite see why this had been a puzzle for the rest of the family. She looked a little surprised and then said that she had no blood connection with them, so the Welsh descent couldn't have come from her. I was shocked beyond belief. I certainly had not had the slightest indication that she was anything other than my mother-in-law's birth mother. The family then went on to explain the history of how Grandma Dreher came to be the matriarch of the Dreher clan.
And Matriarch she was. When she married Grandpa Dreher, she married his children and the rest of the family, as well. My mother-in-law's youngest brother, Uncle Ron, never knew any other mother. Grandma affectionately called him "Boy". Uncle Ron must be at least in his 60's so "boy" he was not, but he was always Grandma's little boy.
She loved a good glass of wine in the afternoons and Ron handmade her a wine rack once that she bragged on. She made quite sure everyone knew that the wine rack was handmade and was a present from the boy. And all activity and noise had to cease in the house when Colorado's football team played. The T.V. got turned up loud enough that the neighbors could hear the game and Grandma was glued to it, yelling and rooting for her favorite team.
She loved Carole - her only daughter. Carole was older when Grandma married Grandpa so it was never assumed that the relationship would be natural. But, at least by the time I married into the family, it was easy and carefree and the affection between the two was very obvious. One afternoon, soon after Don and I were married and he had taken me to spend Christmas in Colorado with his family, Grandma and I had a long chat about her love for Carole. She said that it was very hard for this young woman, a teen by the time Grandma appeared on the scene, to accept a new woman in the house. But Carole graciously (very typical of my mother-in-law) opened her arms to Grandma and always made this new woman feel like the house was hers.
Grandma had one other child - a son, Tom. Carole lived a long distance and seldom was able to come home, Ron lived nearby and saw Grandma daily, and Tom was in a neighboring town, near enough that holidays always included Tom and his family at Grandma's. Again, the relationship was easy and seemed very natural. Tommy was greatly loved by this mother.
Carole, Tom and Ron have suffered a terrible loss, but the whole world will mourn the loss of Grandma Dreher. She was a stately, beautiful woman inside and out, and her children grew up to be much like her. Her legacy is the grandchildren and great-grandchildren that this woman influenced through the love she had for the three children entrusted to her.
The world is a sadder place without you, Grandma, and I will miss you.
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