Maybe it is because I am now a grandma of two. Or maybe it is because we are celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of her death, that I have been thinking about my great-grandma, Catherine Back, a tiny-framed lady with a strong spirit and a determined attitude.
Because she lived to be ninety-five years old, I remember her too. She died when I was ten. In her later years, she lived in the small town of Fertile, Iowa (pop. 385). We lived three miles south of town on our family’s farm. Because of her longevity, she was known to most in our community as "Grandma Back". It was fun in elementary school to have other kids talk about "Grandma Back" and silently think, "But she is really MY grandma!"
Grandma Back and her husband were both born in Denmark, They knew each other and dated in Denmark. He moved to America and two years later she came to this new land of opportunity. They were married and settled near Council Bluffs, Iowa.
In 1889, their family had grown to include five children -- Mary, eleven; Tade, nine; my grandma Petrea, seven; and two little boys. Grandma Back was to have another baby any day. Just before the baby was born, the Back family contracted the dreadful disease - typhoid fever, for which there was no known cure. Both of the little boys died. The new baby girl, Christina, was born, but six days later her father...my great-grandfather died too.
Grandma Back was thirty-eight years old, a mother of four---one a brand new baby. She knew of no other relatives or friends in her new country and knew very little English. She had no education in American schools and there were no safety nets provided by the government, such as Social Security, food stamps, or medical care.
Grandma Petrea used to tell that for the next few years they heated and lived in only one room of their house. They had a few chickens and sold as many of the eggs as they could spare. Petrea and her brother Tade would go to people's homes with their wagon and pick up laundry, which their mother would hand wash in their kitchen sink. She would dry and iron the clothes for the kids to return to their neighborhood owners. She also told that many meals consisted of bread, which they would dunk in tea or coffee.
Grandma Back would sometimes tell her children she couldn't understand why God had allowed all this to happen to their family, but she always had faith that God would show them the way day by day. And He did!
Later some people, who knew the Backs in Denmark, wrote their family a letter asking them to move to Northern Iowa. This couple had no children and they were getting older. They lived on a 40-acre farm, southwest of Fertile, Iowa. If Grandma Back and her children would move in with them and help care for them in their declining years, she would inherit the farm when they died. My Grandma Petrea remembered the joy of the move. Now, her mother could grow vegetables, raise some livestock, milk her cow. The country school was only a half-mile down the road. My grandma would tell that she could remember everyone working hard and that they didn’t have much money, but compared to the few years after her father had died, they felt very well blessed and taken care of.
I recall how everyone loved Grandma Back! She was always more concerned for others, than she was about herself. In her late sixties, she sold her farm to a grandchild and moved in to a modest home in Fertile. She put her farm sale funds in the Fertile bank, which failed during the depression. It never reopened its doors. Grandma lost all deposits! No matter, she had her house. She had her health. She had her hobbies and abilities to take care of herself and others. She had survived before and she would survive again!
One of her hobbies in her later years was knitting. She had the reputation of knitting enough mittens for everyone in our schools. Once a year the governor’s car could be found in front of her house getting his yearly supply of mittens to share with young people in his life. She also would take old topcoats and men’s suits, cut the material in to strips, and make heavy braided rugs. These were made in the days before the word “recycling” was a household word.
Grandma Back never owned or drove a car; she always walked wherever she went. She would walk the three-mile trek out to our farm home when she was moving through her 80s.
I was seven when my sister, Jill, was born. I can still see Grandma Back, with her wire-rimmed glasses and white-haired bun at the back of her head, coming to our farm home. She was now in her early nineties. She took a bill of some denomination, rolled it up and put it into our new baby’s hand. This was her gift to Jill, as she handed off some of her meager resource to another generation.
Grandma Back had the reputation that she refused to say anything BAD about anyone. If she couldn't think of anything nice to say, she would say nothing at all. Sometimes she would remove herself from negative conversations. The reason, she'd tell, was that God had been so good to her!
In the later few years of her life, Grandma Back suffered from some memory loss. As a young child, I thought, "How could she say that about God? She must have had dementia for a LONG time!"
Life continues to teach me more and as I learn more, I know that Grandma Back wasn't celebrating all the GOOD things that happened to her along the way. Instead, she was ENJOYING a relationship with a God who would take care of her and her situation. Any situation----all of the time!
Even though she’d met with hard circumstances and was alone with her small children in a foreign land with no way to support her family, she never lost confidence in God. She prayed and believed God could help her out of her situation. She was always grateful for the life He had given her on her small farm. She did it all with hard work, faith, belief, and the help of other family members and friends. She did it without Social Security and other government programs, doctors, pills, or counselors.
Maybe that is why the Bible calls God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit names like "Great Physician, Healer, Counselor, Father, Bridegroom, . . . . ." There was no one and nothing else on which she could depend. She never remarried, living as a widow for nearly 60 years.
Because of who she was and what she did, Grandma Back’s family continues to keep her memory alive with their stories and memories of a truly remarkable woman. And her legacy continues from one century to the next.
Grandma Catherine Back – Born: October 5, 1860
Died: April 18, 1956