731 Delaware Avenue

As the oldest of nineteen Jones grandchildren, I was blessed. There was never any doubt that Grandpa and Grandma loved us above all else. They taught us what love looked like.

First and foremost, Grandma and Grandpa loved each other. They met in St. James, Minnesota, where Grandpa worked as a telegraph operator for the Chicago Northwestern railroad. He had recently been transferred to St. James from Chicago and lived in a boarding house run by Grandma’s aunt.

Grandma was a high school student when her father, an Irish immigrant, was crushed between two train cars. He was killed instantly, leaving the family devastated and without any income.

Grandma went to work for her aunt, serving breakfast and dinner before and after school. It was there that Robert and Irene met, fell in love and were married.

Robert, always a hard-worker, continued to get promoted, first to Mankato, Minnesota and then to St. Paul, where he and Irene bought a home at 731 Delaware, and raised four children ~ Margaret, Robert Jr., Shirley and Gwen. 

Life was not easy for Grandma and Grandpa. The day the stock market crashed in 1929, Grandpa came home on the street car, fell on the couch and cried. “We’ve been wiped out,” he told my father. The next day, Grandpa went back to work, determined to salvage his life. Determined that all of his children would go to college.

My mother and I lived with my grandparents after I was born. My father was in the Navy and it was not a happy time for my mother. But it was heaven for me. Can you imagine? I was a baby with two adoring grandparents and three single aunts!

My brother, Bob, was born when I was eighteen months old. My father was still in the Navy. Mom and I moved in with her parents, at their farm in North St. Paul.

Gone were the days of being taken for rides around the block in a red coaster wagon. Having my picture taken every time I smiled. Instead of being the oldest grandchild, I was buried in the middle of the pack. My cousin, Lori, had tea-parties with me, but Grandma Hunt was too busy cooking and cleaning to pay attention to most of what we did.

Grandpa Jones retired from his job at the railroad and bought a second home in the country, a small log cabin with a huge garden where he cultivated and sold prize-winning peonies. Acres of peonies in every color, ~ pink, white, deep red, and magenta. My mind’s eye of happy memories is still flooded with Grandpa’s flowers. My brother and I spent weekends and idyllic summer days at the log cabin in the woods.

Grandpa sold the cabin in the  early 1950’s. As a family, we continued to visit my grandparents every two weeks for Sunday dinner at their home on Delaware Avenue. My mother wasn’t happy with the arrangement because she couldn’t smoke at Grandma’s house. It was clear that she found those afternoons stuffy and boring.

The Joneses are quiet people. We didn’t talk much. Mostly we sat around after dinner, murmuring small talk until it was time to leave. As an extremely shy child, that was just fine with me. I loved being with Grandma and Grandpa in their quiet home filled with beautiful things.

Occasionally we played games or answered letters from Shirley and Gwen, who by then were married with large families and living far away. Bob and I played the piano and Grandma and Grandpa beamed. Sometimes Bob would sing “Goodnight, Irene” for my grandmother and she would smile with tears in her eyes.

My grandparents died young. I was in sixth grade when Grandpa died and in eighth grade when Grandma passed away. I miss them to this day but I know how lucky I was to spend time with them while they were alive. 

This weekend, as we celebrate Grandparent’s Day, I realize there is no love stronger than the love of a grandparent. Good grandparents don’t spoil their grandchildren. They just love them, with all their heart.