My Cecelia

Cecelia. She was a flapper in Chicago during the Roaring Twenties—the happy-go-lucky days before a dust bowl, a depression, and a world war turned things somber. She was also our “Grama.”

My sister and I spent many summers with Grama and Grampa at their home in northern Wisconsin. Blissful and educational were those days. I credit Grama with the iota of lady-likeness I possess, my ability to clean a house in a whirl, and my love of everything vintage, even though Grama was very much a thoroughly modern Millie.

Grama told stories that have become a part of me. Her earliest memory was from when she was three. Her father lifted her to kiss her mother goodbye who lay to rest in a casket. A widower, Grama’s father did his best to keep the family together, earning a meager wage as a night watchman at a Chicago city park. He often brought home in his coat pockets stray kittens, frustrating Grama because they had barely enough milk for the family. At age eight, Grama was sent to St. Hedwig’s orphanage for Polish orphans in Northwest Chicago, where she was dubbed “Peanut” because of her petite size. She crocheted meticulous lace for the altar cloths and therefore was awarded an extra peanut butter sandwich by the nuns which only reinforced her nickname.

When Grama was sixteen, she left the orphanage and was betrothed to Grampa. On her wedding night, Grampa ducked out to the corner drugstore to get cigarettes. Young Cecelia lay in her nuptial bed listening to the kids playing kick-the-can in alley. Her biggest desire on her honeymoon night, was to join those kids in play.

You might conclude by these rather poignant and sad stories that Grama was a glass-half-empty kind of gal. She wasn’t! Summers with Grama exuded joy, adventure, and a spirit of play: day trips in her feisty Dodge Dart, swimming in the many glacial lakes, and yummy dinners of steak with a side of fried, white bread. Grama let us spray Pledge—a lot of the lemony goop, when she dusted and she taught us how to count coins from our dainty little purses with clasps that closed with a satisfying click.

My sister and I begged to paw through Grama’s dresser and cedar chest, digging up vestiges of her flapper days—long strings of dime store beads, gold compacts of compressed powder, tubes of red lipstick, and silky nylon slips with lace edging. We learned to dance the Charleston while Grama imitated Charlie Chaplin. We laughed and laughed and laughed.

Grama could be described as a woodsy Rosie the Riveter. She did what she had to do when she had to do it, rarely complaining. She worked tirelessly to fund the finery and capers we enjoyed during those summers. Her jobs included feeding the mink on Grampa’s short-lived mink ranch, and digging for nightcrawlers or trapping minnows which she sold to wealthy fishermen from Chicago and Milwaukee. She was a laundress at the Dairymen’s Country Club. Nobody could iron a sheet to crispness as quickly as Grama. Sometimes she cleaned the country club cabins and brought home the food that was left behind—fancy stuff like Cheese Whiz, deli salami, and once she even brought us caviar.

Grama drank her coffee with lots of milk and sugar and was partial to starched peter pan collars. She was a smoker until I turned sixteen when she quit cold turkey and diverted her monthly cigarette money into a savings account for me. I still have the account booklet that I cashed out when I was in college, receiving some sixty odd dollars.

I forgive Grama for spitting on her hanky to wipe away chocolate smudges on my upper lip before we entered church—and that’s the only thing I need to forgive. I could share so much more about Grama Cecelia. I can still feel her beside me and envision her—not as my grandma, but as a feisty 1920s flapper ready to take on the world. She was and always will be my “It Girl.”

In honor of Grama Cecelia Marie (Toppa) Psenicka, November 22, 1910 – May 30, 1991, pictured above with Grampa in their Wisconsin yard.