Remembering Ginger Gramma…

Louise Etter Clifford. My brother and I always called my mother’s mother ‘Ginger Gramma’–after her bounding Chesapeake Bay Retriever named Ginger. My grandmother’s home in St. Michaels, Maryland was a cozy one-bedroom cabin–a summer cabin turned all weather home–built by my grandmother and grandfather and family. The property became fondly known as Whiskey Hill (we simply called it “the cabin”) and was situated right on the wide, salty waters of Edge Creek (a fantastic tributary of the Chesapeake Bay).

My brother and I felt at home in St. Michaels. We spent winter holidays in front of gramma’s fireplace playing cards, and long summer vacations crabbing and swimming in the creek.

My grandmother was a generous woman–at least from the perspective of a well coddled, oldest grandchild 🙂 Gramma infused me with a love of reading, a love of cooking (and a well equipped kitchen), and a love of the Orioles. She also fed my early interests in computers, by giving me my first computer: a Sinclair ZX81 with a whopping 1K of memory and a tape drive. That computer taught me more than any Windows box I’ve owned since.

Christmas was one of my grandmother’s favorite event holidays. She prided herself at having just the right gifts on hand, hand-picked for the individual. Nothing elaborate: Cheez-Its for my dad, cocktail hotdogs for my brother, a bird ornament for my mother, an Orioles trinket for me. She would collect odds and ends throughout the year to put in Christmas stockings. She loved to hear the stories of how each and every gift was used. She loved a good story, and would tell everybody she saw.

I could go on and on and on. I’ve got a gazillion stories.

In August, we held a memorial service and family day. The memorial service was at the Quaker Meeting House in nearby Easton. Afterwards, the family gathered at the cabin–we’re talking 50 people–all talking, eating crabs, and laughing. It was the best party at the cabin in years, and my grandmother is busy telling EVERYBODY about it in heaven.

The pictures below, start with three showing the catching, steaming, and eating of the crabs. Then there is shot of one of the multi-generational tables. Finally, there is a post-party shot of the calm at the cabin.