It was 1944 and my grandmother was in Clarksville, Tenn.
She didn’t want to be in Tennessee. In fact, I don’t believe Gram had been anywhere outside the greater Western New York and Southern Ontario region her entire life until that point. Legend has it, she was so homesick, that she came back to Buffalo only to have her mother put her right back on a bus to return to Tennessee.
That was where her husband was. So that was where she needed to be.
My grandfather was stationed at the time at Camp Campbell, Kentucky with the 253rd Combat Engineers. They had married Aug. 14, 1944 and my grandfather often joked that he his European honeymoon followed a few months later, only the groom was missing his bride.
I had conversations from time to time with my grandparents about World War II, but never had the foresight to ask the meaningful questions. Gram was a great storyteller, especially when it came to talking about her wedding, which they planned when Gramps was home on a three-day leave. They managed with war-time rations and went door to door to invite their guests. She told that story so many times, with so much detail, I felt as if I had been in attendance.
But she never talked much about her time working as an honest-to-goodness real life Rosie the Riveter at Bell Aircraft in Buffalo. She didn’t tell stories about day-to-day life during those times. I regret not asking those questions. Particularly now.
Because right now, I wonder if she felt a little bit like I do.
My husband is not off to the front lines of a World War, saving the planet from unspeakable evil, with the uncertainty of whether he will return. He’s a nurse working in a COVID-19 unit in Western New York. We’re confident he will have the equipment he needs, but still, we’re taking extra precautions. And that means separating the family.
We had just started getting our ducks in a row to sell my house (purchased a few years before my husband and I met) when the COVID-19 pandemic hit New York. Procrastination turned into our favor, giving my husband a place to quarantine himself while he works 12-hour hospital shifts.
Technology will keep us connected. The situation is only temporary. But I worry about him getting sick. I worry about what that will mean for our family. And most of all, I miss my family. I miss having us all together, splayed out over coaches and watching The Masked Singer.
My husband is not off to war but just seven months into our marriage, on our “honeymoon” of sorts, he is off to work in this pandemic. And while my Grandmother was urged to become Rosie the Riveter, to take up the cause and go to work, I’m being urged to stay home and do nothing.
So my job continues to be focusing on the home front. I’m remotely making sure my dad is getting everything he needs. I’m living with my father-in-law and making sure he doesn’t slip into a boredom that escalates into watching nothing but TV shows about alien life forms and sustaining himself on canned sauerkraut and Busch beer. I’ve learned how to care for my husband’s fish tanks (say a prayer for the fish) along with taking care of the general household chores, like laundry and cooking and cleaning. It helps. For the most part.
But there are times when anxiety and fear take over. When the uncertainty of when I’ll have a normal family life again drives me to pull the blanket over my head and hide from the world.
I wish I could ask my grandmother how she managed through it. How she pulled the covers off her face and bravely went on, day by day, with faith and hope. Perhaps she wouldn’t have anything to say. Perhaps she never really thought about it. She just did it. And would tell me that was she certain I could do the same.
