This was the typical scene at a Hubner Thanksgiving celebration. It was spent with the four of us(Dad, Mom, my older brother Chris, and me) and my paternal grandparents. It was never anything too crazy; turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, and rolls. There’d be a pumpkin pie, and my grandma usually brought something like heavenly hash or some strange dessert that seemed to be popular pre- WWII.
My grandparents would sit at the kitchen table smoking More 100s incessantly while sipping on whiskey and sodas my dad was making as the festivities’ own personal Lloyd. As a little kid it all seemed very pleasant. The conversations are a bit of a haze, but I’m sure we talked about how we were doing in school(I wasn’t in school yet), how dad’s work was going, and I’m sure there were compliments on the smell of the food cooking in the oven. At this point, nearly 47 years later, what was spoken is just a blur. But knowing what I know now about my grandma I’m sure there were little jabs sent my mom’s way.
We spent one Thanksgiving at my grandparent’s house, but after I got severely sick afterwards and many trips to my doctor it was revealed I had a severe allergy to cats. My grandparents had had cats for years, well before I was even born. So essentially their house was a depository of cat hair and dander. They weren’t about to get rid of their beloved Siamese Ching, so I was relegated to the front porch or backyard when I went with my parents to their house. It was fine, I was offered ice cold Cokes and whatever snacks grandma may have had in the house. I found out recently that my grandma thought my parents(mom) made up the allergies because she just didn’t want me around my grandma. This was my grandma at her core : suspicious, bitter, never satisfied, and ultimately not a happy person.
I don’t know if she was ever a happy person.
My grandparents met when they were in their 20s and both living in Chicago. This would have been in the 30s at some point. Grandma was working in an office, but I’m not sure what grandpa was doing. He was a featherweight boxer at some point, but I’m not sure if that was in Chicago or Laporte, IN where he grew up. I think early on their relationship and romance was an exciting one. Grandpa was an independent guy, wanting to make it on his own with his own business. Grandma saw potential there and thought he could provide wealth and a place in high society. That’s where her mom’s side of the family came from. Her dad was, oddly, kind of like the man she married. A guy flying by the seat of his pants but never lacking ambition.
Grandpa wasn’t much for bosses, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t a hard worker. He ran car dealerships, worked in parts departments in garages, and even had his own home improvement business(pre-Lowes and Home Depot.) My dad said he’d go with him sometimes down to the train yard where he’d unload his supplies by hand off a rail car, picking up 100lb bags of concrete and moving them from the train car to the back of a truck(he had back surgery years later, which isn’t a surprise.)
Try as he did(and did and did) all of his business adventures never amounted to much. The home improvement business failed, as did his one dealership which lasted a year(Hubner Chevrolet in Lagrange, IN), so that meant frequent moves and flying by the seat of their pants. My grandma wasn’t happy with any of it. I can see her side to a degree. She wanted stability, but when you’re going from business to business that’s not going to happen. Her dad was the same way and eventually left the family at her mom’s behest. Turned out he hit it big in oil, investing in oil fields in Oklahoma. This was a year or so after the divorce. He moved to California to be with his sister and they opened a record store on Hollywood and Vine. My grandma and great-grandma saw none of that money until many, many years later. My grandma received oil dividends in the 80s, as well as my dad. It was enough that my dad bought my mom a car, a 1990 Nissan 240SX to be exact.
Maybe it was that reason that my grandma never left my grandpa. She was afraid she’d divorce him and then a year later he’d hit it big. She’d be left with a dilapidated house in Nappanee, IN with nothing but fading family photos and an old Siamese cat that quacked more than it purred.
I think a lot of that goes a long way to explain my grandma. I never had a bad relationship with her. She was always very kind to me and my brother, and she always had interesting stories to share. But knowing how she’d treated my mom all those years lessens those good feelings. Her disdain for my mom and my mom’s family, and that my mom wasn’t good enough for her son(would anybody have been?) only dampens those happy memories.
After my grandpa died in November of 1986 things only got darker. Without my grandpa to lessen life’s blows all her bitterness went straight at my mom with laser point precision. My dad would go over to her house once a week to mow her lawn, write out bills, and to just sit and visit with his mom. I’d go over sometimes and sit on the porch and talk with her while my dad did the yard work. Once again, they were pleasant visits as she’d talk about her life or my dad as a kid. They were oddly adult conversations, as in I didn’t feel like a little kid when she spoke to me. I felt more like a contemporary, which maybe it was because she didn’t talk much to anyone. So I guess a pair of ears and eyes – even if they were that of a greasy little kid – was good enough for her.
The Thanksgiving get-togethers would get darker as well. She was never jovial to begin with, but grandma became maudlin. She wouldn’t talk about “Hub” as many referred to my grandpa as, but you could tell he haunted the kitchen as she sat sitting in a haze of cigarette smoke.
There was a period where my grandma worked at the Nappanee Public Library when I was in high school. I would say that this period was the happiest she’d ever seemed to me, even when my grandpa was still alive. I’d found out that many, many years before when my dad was a still a little kid she drove a book truck for the library in Lagrange. So working at the library was sort of an extension of that(my oldest worked at a library after college, and still has an interest in getting her Masters in Library Science.) It was in that time frame where I got into Kurt Vonnegut, whose books my grandma would check out and give to my dad for me.
Once her eyesight had gotten bad enough she could no longer work nor drive, everything just went downhill. Her only source of info was talk radio, and in Indiana talk radio consisted of Paul Harvey, Rush Limbaugh, and local wannabe Paul Harveys and Rush Limbaughs. Thanksgiving dinners consisted of crazy conspiracy theories and how roving bands of lesbians were going door to door somewhere in North Dakota recruiting straight women to their gay causes. It would have been hilarious if it wasn’t so sad and pathetic.
Eventually we had to put my grandma in an old folk’s home near us. Her eyesight was so bad that my dad had come over to visit her and found her crawling up the stairs to get to her bedroom. Plus, the couch and floor surrounding it was covered in cigarette burns. If she didn’t fall down the steps and break her neck then she’d surely burn alive in a house fire. Visits to see her there were painful and ALL of her ire went straight to my mom. It was somehow my mom’s decision alone to send grandma to Miller’s Merry Manor. Out of spite, you see.
I wish I could somehow go back in time and sit down for a conversation with my grandma, and my grandpa. I have more memories of her because she lived up until I was 30 years old, where as my grandpa died when I was 12. Those memories are pretty well faded to that of an ancient Kodachrome photo you find creased and torn in an old family photo album. I have vague memories of him getting on the floor with me at Christmas and playing with diecast tractors and a Sesame Street play set. I also remember putting together those little airplanes made of balsa wood that came in a bag from Hook’s Drugs and flying them in the backyard on Easter. But to remember his voice or even his mannerisms is nearly impossible.
I have many more memories of Grandma. Sitting on her front porch drinking Coke and talking about her growing up in Southern Illinois(she was from Metropolis, home of Superman.) There were many more Easters and summer days visiting with her. I’d stop by when I was in town to see my cousin and we’d talk for a bit. Dropping off Mother’s Day flowers and birthday outfits my mom would pick up for her at Elder Beerman. There were birthday dinners at Jeremiah Sweeney’s in Mishawaka, and Christmas dinners of ham and scalloped potatoes. But it was Thanksgiving that I will always associate with my grandma Hubner. And if I stick to old Polaroids, then by the look of it they were happy times.
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