When my grandmother died in 1995, she was my last remaining grandparent. Perhaps that's why I have lingered on her memory longer than those of my other grandparents.

Evelyn Stroud Vodrey was invariably described by the family members speaking at her memorial service as"elegant" and "sophisticated." There was more to her, of course; she was intelligent -- both in terms of her education and good old-fashioned horse sense -- and she had a sly sense of humor. She could be reserved and almost stately -- my brother-in-law remembers at their first meeting that she held herself like a member of English royalty -- but photographs from her teenage years show a gangly girl who was perfectly happy to mug for the camera (cross-eyed and hanging upside down on a tree limb was a typical pose). She was warm and loving without being sloppy about it, and she had a highly developed sense of what was Done and what was Just Not Done.

My grandmother had her faults, of course. She started smoking at the age of fourteen, and once people knew about the dangers of smoking and chided her for the practice, she would lean in close and whisper, "But at least I know what I'm going to die of."

One evening during a church choir rehearsal break, she and Jack Eccleston, a wonderfully understated Englishman, went outside to have a cigarette together. She realized that she had left her purse inside and asked Jack for a cigarette. He obliged her. She patted her pockets, looking for matches or a lighter, and realized she'd forgotten that, too.

"Jack," she said, "I don't seem to have a light."

"No, Evelyn," he replied. "Looks like all you have got's the habit."

Another favorite vice was a good martini. Now, good is a relative term, and people like their martinis all sorts of different ways. My grandmother liked hers with gin, not vodka, and with such a precise (and tiny) amount of vermouth that she carried vermouth in a tiny sterling flask, complete with eye dropper for measuring.

My grandmother graduated from college in an era (the late 1920s) when few Americans -- especially women -- went beyond high school. She majored in chemistry at Smith, and before marrying my grandfather, was employed as a chemist somewhere on Wall Street, in Manhattan. After their marriage on June 29, 1929, she and my grandfather moved back to East Liverpool, where he had been born and reared, and where his law practice was. They reared three children: Barbara, Jackman (who is my father), and Dolly.

She was a strong lady. Although she and my grandfather had a happy marriage, he could be a difficult man to live with, and she put up with more than, say, I might have. He was wound tight as a spring in a lot of ways; she was more live-and-let-live. They complemented each other, and they mutually subscribed to the genteel notion that disagreements between them were not for public consumption. On one memorable occasion when my grandfather had, perhaps, gone too far for her mood that day, they were walking down a North Carolina beach to a restaurant for dinner. My parents and others were walking a short distance behind them. No one knows exactly what was said, but Granny abruptly turned on her heel and walked away from my grandfather, back towards the house. He continued walking towards the restaurant as though nothing had happened, and the others, bewildered, followed him. Not a word was said about Granny's departure all through the meal. When the group returned home later, Granny looked up from her book and asked brightly if they'd all had a nice supper. I like that image; she wouldn't stand for whatever it was he'd said or done, but she was such a class act that she simply removed herself from the situation instead of fanning the flames with theatrics. -

I never thought of Granny Vodrey as being typically grandmotherly. There were no faded cotton aprons, no endless stream of freshly baked cookies departing the oven. Looking back, though, I realize that one of the reasons I loved to visit their house was that it was so beautifully set up for children. In my Aunt Dolly's old bedroom, Granny had, on a bureau, a tiny porcelain family of Siamese cats. As a child, I was utterly entranced with them. Especially fascinating was the tiny silver bucket of spilt milk that lay near the cats, and from which one of the kittens -- as minute as the first joint on my child-sized pinkie! -- lapped a drink. For many years, I wanted badly to touch the kittens, but never did. When I finally worked up the nerve to ask if I could, she graciously allowed me to pick them up and examine them and -- the ultimate compliment -- to do so alone. She trusted me to be careful and to do the right thing. She also kept a large wooden toy chest at the foot of one of the beds in Aunt Barb's old room, and we were allowed to rummage through it whenever we visited.

She and my grandfather had a finished playroom in their basement which was a child's dream room. There were several big daybeds slipcovered in teal corduroy, each with huge firm slanted back pillows to lean on. No one warned us not to put our feet on the furniture here; anything went. There was an old upright piano, painted lipstick red, on which we were allowed to bang to our heart's content. The walls were covered with huge colorful prints done by Danish artist Bjorn Wiinblad -- all of which depicted impossibly bosomy ladies and satyr-like men playing musical instruments that sprang from their hair or from nearby tree limbs.

There were big toy and game cabinets, each plastered with port-of-call labels from all the exotic places to which my grandparents had traveled (they loved travel; their honeymoon alone was three months in Europe). The playroom was tucked into a hillside, and smelled of cigarette smoke and mildew and grass. It was one of the memorable fragrances of my childhood. Grandfather and I played Go Fish for hours on end in the playroom or on the patio. Granny would patiently break in as needed to rearrange my cards for me when the batch got too unwieldy for my childish hands.

Granny was a marvelous home cook. We spent many Christmas Eve dinners at their home, and they always consisted of lamb chops, some sort of potato, and something green: basic but delicious food. Many Sundays after church, my siblings and I spent lunch and the afternoon with Granny and Grandfather, and these must have been her "day off" meals, because they invariably consisted of something from a red Stouffer's package. To this day I associate Stouffer's meals with elegance, because I associate them with Granny. And to this day, I never buy Stouffer's anything -- Stouffer's is part of the past and part of the memory, and I don't want to chance that they've changed anything that will ruin that for me.

Post Office Box 835
East Liverpool, Ohio 43920 USA
E-MAIL: WordBanquet@gmail.com
Thank you for visiting www.WordBanquet.com!