Things Your Grandmother Had

JupiterKid

If you were fortunate enough to remember your grandmother(s) when you were a child, what things did she have in her home that you have distinct memories of? Things like the " good room" or parlour for receiving important guests, little detailed ornaments, Art Deco mirrors from the 1930s and 40s, maybe a sacred heart of Jesus picture, picture of Dev or JFK?

My own grandmother loved little glass animal ornaments which she proudly displayed on her dark wooden dressers in her living room and had a collection of porcelain Pierrot dolls. She also had a Swiss cuckoo clock that I loved as a kid.

My other granny had a set of brass dinner gongs which my mum inherited when she passed away.

What things did your grandmothers have and do you have fond memories of them? Have you or your parents inherited any of these things and thus are they still in your life?

Shoelaces

Im sorry for your loss

antodeco

JupiterKid wrote: »

Art Deco

I got all excited for a minute

jonon9

A stick in the corner and a pot of bacon and cabbage boiling away I remember the smell. mighty times. she died in 1991.

JupiterKid

Shoelaces wrote: »

Im sorry for your loss

No need to be. My last grandmother passed away back in 1994.

cumulonimbus

She had a settle bed in the kitchen in which she kept books and magazines. The magazines had a kids section with stories about birds and rabbits. There were also little boxes containing buttons and beads and shells which we loved to pick through - it was like a treasure chest.

Wanderer78

Good room and rocking chair

tupenny

Irelands Owen

gifted

Usually a funny smell off her lol lol

PirateShampoo

Antique collection of Ivory Dildos.

Copper_pipe

Sewing kit in a biscuit tin

Lorelli!

She also had a dark wooden cabinet with loads of ornaments. One I loved was a little girl with a tear down her face. My mam has that now. In the cabinet, she also had photo albums which i would take out every now and then.

She had these little tacky novelty cactus plants that she got as a holiday present from one of the other grandkids which I loved and snowglobes. She also grew rhubarb and blackberries in the back garden.

amtc

Elephants. Obviously not real ones. But because they never forget. She had a terror of Alzheimer's. She has dementia now at 91 and holds the elephants so she won't forget any more.

My other grandmother died when I was seven. She had lovely jewellery and I wear it a lot. She also told me to always have my own money. She was a right feminist in the 1970s! Went on the contraception train to the north.

osarusan

Every time we left her house to go back home, the car got a splash of holy water from one of those small plastic Lady of Lourdes bottles.

Imallrightjack

She had a lovely bush we used to pick blackberrys from.

snowflaker

My nanny died at the end of last year.
My other grandmother died long before I was born.

Nanny I remember 2 things from my youth- washing 24/6 with the twin tub and the smell of Ariel washing powder.
Baking bread. She used bake a lot -while she could.

And pink Germoline - she'd get it out of the press if you had a cut or graze

Summertime making rhubarb and gooseberry jam!!!

infogiver

My granny had a big back yard with Rhode Island Red chickens in it.
The house was small and sparsely furnished but spotless clean.
Lots of religious icons on the walls.
She had lots of grandchildren who visited a lot and had long since smashed any trinkets she had about the place.
She was fat and she spent a lot of time in her "scullery" preparing food.
She would be 115 now if she was still alive.

CarrickMcJoe

My granny had toilet roll which resembled greaseproof paper, it would just spread it around and cut the hole of ya. I used to insist on going home for a dump 😀

Big Nasty

Can't believe nobody's mentioned the holy picture with the red light. Surely they all had one of them?

CarrickMcJoe

Big Nasty wrote: »

Can't believe nobody's mentioned the holy picture with the red light. Surely they all had one of them?

The sacred heart picture, no, mine didn't have one.

_Brian

Big Nasty wrote: »

Can't believe nobody's mentioned the holy picture with the red light. Surely they all had one of them?

Remember, grannies aren't all catholic!

Graces7

As my parents were born in the very early years of the 1900s,my grandparents go back a very long way.

My father's mother had a small back street grocery shop, the kind that sells everything.

In those days sugar, flour etc had to be weighed out for you in the shop.

When we little ones were taken to see her, she would take us into the back of the shop, open the big box of icing sugar and feed us any that had gone into lumps.

Every house had the "front room" ; never used. Overstuffed settee, china cabinet, and, as it overlooked the street, pure white net curtains and a red geranium. These were,along with the white doorstep, a sign of good housewifery. A woman who did not keep her doorstep and her nets white?

Graces7

CarrickMcJoe wrote: »

My granny had toilet roll which resembled greaseproof paper, it would just spread it around and cut the hole of ya. I used to insist on going home for a dump 😀

That was posh stuff. We got newspaper, cut into squares and threaded on rough twine, at granny' house.. outdoor loo she had too.

alchemist33

A butter churn. Best butter ever.

s3rtvdbwfj81ch

My granny had this really cool ashtray that was a kind of bowl like thing on top of a single leg stand. At the top of the the bowl was a pull-up handle that opened the ashtray, you'd butt-out the cigarette and drop it inside the bowl, then close it up again.

Just googling here, it was called a "floor ashtray".

She had a "good room" too.

My other granny had a glass cabinet full of creepy porcelain dolls, and a "Crying Boy" painting, not sure which one.

Samaris

Photos and teddy-gifts from a variety of grandchildren through the years, along with the scrawled "LoVe yoU NAnA" cards that five-year olds draw, possibly with the aid of dotted letters from a nearby adult. :P

JupiterKid

Big Nasty wrote: »

Can't believe nobody's mentioned the holy picture with the red light. Surely they all had one of them?

I mentioned it in my OP. The Sacred Heart of Jesus picture. Also pics of De Valera and JFK were popular too.

Sleeper12

Grandchildren

s4uv3

A dresser full to the brim with "good china" sets. I can still see them now, plates with all sorts of patterns, and I'd only be dying to use them. When there were visitors around, the good china would come out.
She also had two large stone chickens either side of the front door. We used to love sitting up on them and climbing all over them when we were tiny. Looking back now, they must have looked really daft
And the USA box full of buttons of course....

stimpson

A stroke.

Thumpette

One of my grannies is still going but all she has is an evil disposition. (Oh the stories!)

My other granny died at 57 in 1993. She used to live right next door to us and mind us while my parents worked. She was great at knitting- used to knit the Aran jumpers that then went onto being sold in shops for a small fortune. I always remember the wool coming in these big reels and then I'd help roll it into balls.

The main thing I remember is her food. She wasn't a great cook in retrospect. She used to make this stew and potatoes and then heat it in a thing she had which looked like a microwave but was a little electric grill/ oven. It was always dry and a bit burnt but I loved it. It had a particular flavour. One day a couple of years ago I tasted hp fruity sauce and there it was! The secret ingredient!

Lovely thread OP. Have such lovely memories of my Nanny. She had a tough life, sent to Scotland to pick potatoes at a young age, forced to pretend he first son was her brother for most of her life and burying her youngest daughter at 9 months. She was great fun though, warm and with this michievious laugh- the life and soul.

Hannibal_Smith

My grandmother had a big metal basin in the kitchen that she would use for washing us. She'd sit us on the kitchen table with a towel under us and put our socks and vests underneath the bowl of warm water so that when she put them on us they were lovely and warm.

She also had a parlour that she used for good occasions, or for shoving us into when the grown ups were talking about someone behind their backs :pac: In the parlour was a side board of all her good plates etc and there were these small little glasses, I suppose they were for sherry, but they were never used. They were multicoloured with little gold kind of Paisley designs on them. We used to pretend we were posh and play with them like they were wine glasses. Then you'd have to shove them back in and crash the sliding door of the cabinet shut when you heard someone coming because you'd be killed if you were caught playing with them lol

She also had a clear kind of plastic cover on the hall floor to protect the lino from people walking on it. Said piece of plastic would slide all over the floor, so we used to run and jump on it and see how far you could surf down the hall on it. We would have been killed for that too

Then she had the picture of the Pope on the wall and would always bless herself walking passed it.

JupiterKid

My grandmothers were born in 1902 and 1915 respectively. My older grandmother passed away when I was 10 and was the one who had the dinner gongs. She had my mother in her early 40s and I remember her as quite old and infirm. But she doted on me as I was the youngest grandchild. My younger granny had a lot of furniture and ornaments from the late 1930s and 1940s. Lots of dark wooden furniture from that era including a fearsome big black Hoover that reminded me of Darth Vader. She also doted on me. I was spoiled!!:o

My Dad when visiting my grandparents would give out about their old style electric bar heaters as being dangerous. But they loved the instant heat off them. Elderly people seem to need more heat in their homes.

I have a beautiful walnut bureau that was my Great Grandfather's and dates from about 1885. I inherited it and it is a prized possession.

childsplay

Headscarves. Nana always wore a headscarf. Frocks and Carrolls cigarettes.

Winterlong

My granny had a gambling habit long before they were fashionable.

andekwarhola

When we were kids, we found a lovely old chamber pot (porcelain or ceramic) in my late nana's house (she lived into her 90s) in South Tipperary as a kid. We thought my Da was winding us up when he told us what they were used for.

She had a lovely, big open hearth as well. Even to this day, certain smells like turf or wood fire put me in mind of it.

When we were kids, the whole experience of going down there from the city for your holidays was brilliant and you'd just run amok.

My aunt lives in the house now and the house and garden have been completely renovated/modernized and it always makes a bit sad when I'm in it.

.red.

Milky Moo's. She always had them.
We'd collect her on a Saturday evening for mass and back to hers after for tea. There was always a bag of milky moos on the table and she used to keep the little red sticker for me to take home. Could have wall papered my bedroom walls I had so many of them.

Aglomerado

One of my grannies lived in the middle of the Burren, in a 3 room cottage with no running water. There was a Stanley range set back in an inglenook. All the furniture was wooden and painted in the same colour scheme, dressers, sideboard, sugán chairs and a big old cupboard which had a folding bed inside for extra guests. The floor was bare stone. Clothes were washed using a washboard and basin although there was a curious electric contraption for getting rid of the excess water (not a mangle).

Water was retrieved from a rainwater tank beside the house. To go to the toilet, you just found a handy corner in a nearby field.

The house was spotlessly clean from top to bottom and always smelled really nice, turf and wood fire smell.

This was in the 1980s.

corner of hells

I can vaguely remember my great grandmother passing the 70's , she was living with my grandmother at the time and my dad having to dispose of an ancient Smith and Wesson style revolver that was found on top of her wardrobe. It's in the Shannon around Lanesborough.

Other than that my granny had the usual stuff , an outside bog , a barrel for collecting rainwater, a psychopathic Jack Russel etc.

Shenshen

Neither of my grandmothers are Irish, though both are Catholics.
My grandmother on my mother's side used to always have a tin of snuff in the dresser when I was very little (would have been during the 70s). Occasionally, she'd let us try some.
She must have kicked that habit a long time ago, though, I haven't seen any snuff in her house in decades now.

She also had a large kitchen garden full of vegetables and herbs. In summer, whenever we arrived in the car, my brothers and me would leap out of the car, run to the garden and pull up radishes. We'd rinse them under the garden tab and eat them right there and then. Best radishes ever, they were. She also had an apple tree and two cherry trees that were fantastic for climbing, and eating the fruit while sitting up in the tree.

She had a small galley kitchen, with just one chair at the end next to the door. I never fully understood what that chair was there for, it was old and rickety and hard, and covered with a pillow that had gone all stiff and hard, too, over the years. When we were little, we would take that pillow off and sit around on upturned pans using the chair as a table, and she'd give us hot boiled potatoes with butter and salt while she was making dumplings and cooked dinner.

Graces7

Caylee Sparse Dust wrote: »

My granny had this really cool ashtray that was a kind of bowl like thing on top of a single leg stand. At the top of the the bowl was a pull-up handle that opened the ashtray, you'd butt-out the cigarette and drop it inside the bowl, then close it up again.

Just googling here, it was called a "floor ashtray".

She had a "good room" too.

My other granny had a glass cabinet full of creepy porcelain dolls, and a "Crying Boy" painting, not sure which one.

That brings back memories; used to play with it, pushing it up and down, I can still smell that dreadful stale ash stink.

Graces7

Thumpette wrote: »

One of my grannies is still going but all she has is an evil disposition. (Oh the stories!)

My other granny died at 57 in 1993. She used to live right next door to us and mind us while my parents worked. She was great at knitting- used to knit the Aran jumpers that then went onto being sold in shops for a small fortune. I always remember the wool coming in these big reels and then I'd help roll it into balls.

The main thing I remember is her food. She wasn't a great cook in retrospect. She used to make this stew and potatoes and then heat it in a thing she had which looked like a microwave but was a little electric grill/ oven. It was always dry and a bit burnt but I loved it. It had a particular flavour. One day a couple of years ago I tasted hp fruity sauce and there it was! The secret ingredient!

Lovely thread OP. Have such lovely memories of my Nanny. She had a tough life, sent to Scotland to pick potatoes at a young age, forced to pretend he first son was her brother for most of her life and burying her youngest daughter at 9 months. She was great fun though, warm and with this michievious laugh- the life and soul.

and she got paid amost nothing for all that work; been there done that .

and yes a lovely thread; thank you OP

Graces7

snowflaker wrote: »

My nanny died at the end of last year.
My other grandmother died long before I was born.

Nanny I remember 2 things from my youth- washing 24/6 with the twin tub and the smell of Ariel washing powder.
Baking bread. She used bake a lot -while she could.

And pink Germoline - she'd get it out of the press if you had a cut or graze

Summertime making rhubarb and gooseberry jam!!!

Washing was by hand in the scullery and then through the mangle. Used to get roped in to turn the handle and of course each chlld would put their curious fingers in the rollers to see how they worked. You only did that once! Experiential learning

PandaPoo

My granny used to have a picture of Mary, the eyes would stare at you no matter where you were in the room. Always freaked me out.

She used to have a giant bucket in the garden with a net over it for collecting rainwater. She would use it to wash our hair, that's how she washed her own hair for years.

She had a family of knitted dolls too, they were gorgeous. I always wanted one!

PandaPoo

Oh and carbolic soap. The smell!

eviltimeban

The "good room", which was the front room, and was always cold.

A hatch between the "breakfast room" and the sitting room.

Batch bread.

A record player that was a big box, about four feet tall, with what seemed to be a massively complicated radio. Used to love spinning the dials.

A sewing box full of sweets, and we'd get one when we were leaving.

Sacred heart picture on the wall. And a strange Lourdes window decoration.

An outdoor toilet (and this was in Dublin!)

Piles of Reader's Digests.

A lava lamp.

bodice ripper

My grandma is currently very unwell in hospital. I can't bring myself to go in her house at the moment. She is the only member of my family who really has any old photos of my family, which are all over the gaff.

I am fortunate to still have a grandma, given that I am 35. I hope I continue to be fortunate.

JupiterKid

The housework our grandmothers would have had to do would have been so hard and tiresome. Washing clothes by hand and other difficult chores. The advent of washing machines, electric cookers, vacuum cleaners, dishwashers and other labour saving devices must have been a godsend to their daughter's generation.

My parents used to tell me about growing up in the 1950s with no television. I just couldn't imagine life without TV. :eek:

Youngsters now probably can't imagine life without smartphones, tablets and the internet. Life goes on and technology advances.

But hopefully people will always remember at least one grandparent and their cherished possessions with fondness. They had a lot less than we do now but in ways they had enough to be happy with.

Shenshen

She also had an old sewing machine - a big black heavy thing, on a stand with a foot pedal that moved a large wheel which could be connected up to the machine via a leather belt. Usually, the belt was off, and we'd play around with the pedal and wheel quite a lot.
She taught me how to sew on the thing, not that I remember how to do it these days...

seamus

One grandmother died when my mother was four. She had a stillborn child and then was put in recovery in a ward where four women had dysentry, she contracted it and died.

My other grandmother I kind of remember her house. It had that decor that was really 1970s - lots of browns, greens and grays - and hadn't been updated. She grew all sorts in her garden out the back, mainly rhubarb and gooseberries, but also blackberries and raspberries. I think she had a "good room", but I don't entirely recall. Whenever I was there, she had a living room, which was basically the walkway from the rest of the house to the kitchen, with a small TV in the corner. The odd time we went over for Sunday dinner, there was a larger room at the front of the house with a settee and a dining table, but no TV, that was never otherwise used.

When I was around 6 or 7, she had a "senior moment" which resulted in her setting her kitchen on fire and completely destroying it. So she agreed with my Dad that she wasn't able to cope on her own anymore, we converted our our living room into a completely self-contained granny flat and she moved in.

Somehow she managed to make this single room (plus kitchenette) a microcosm of the house she had just left. It had the same smell and feel as her house and despite being newly painted and decorated it, her furniture still made it feel distinctly 1970s.

There was definitely a picture of Jaysus on the wall (the woman went to mass every day until she was in her 80s). No red light though. She also had a number of Mary/Jesus/Baby Jesus statutes both in the room and in her bedroom. Bit creepy tbh. I think all of their heads were broken off and glued back on.

She was diabetic, so there was always a packet of "sweets" lying around that you'd never see in the shops - one you'd get in pharmacies. Also boxes of needles and vials of insulin hanging around where anyone could get them. Clearly child safety wasn't top priority
She used to break the tips off old needles and let us use them for sucking up water and spraying it around

All my grandparents were gone by the time I was 12, so I don't really have any particular sentimentality about them. They were all "old" when I was growing up, and so not particularly engaging - they didn't have the energy. The grandmother who lived with us would come in and speak to us often, I have good memories of her, but she was an incredibly reserved woman, personally very cold. I hindsight she really enjoyed having grandchildren to talk to, play cards with and bake for, but I never recall getting a hug from her or having a proper heart-to-heart conversation.

So for all intents and purposes from my perspective as a child, she was the nice woman who lived in our house, as opposed to a family member.

Malari

Peacock feathers! She always had peacock feathers arranged in a vase in front of the fire (because it never lit, as it was in the "good" room that was never used).

We weren't close, and she was a bit of a cow to be honest. She died when I was a teenager. All my other grandparents died when I was a very small baby or before I was born.