The quiet superhero

In memory of my beloved grandmother

When I was growing up, my grandmother would make several hundred cookies in December. Pinwheels, lemon bars, cinnamon discs, magic cookie bars, Mexican wedding cakes, chocolate crinkle cookies, peanut butter cookies pressed with a fork and topped with a Hershey’s kiss, spritz cookies using her copper cookie press, and butter cookies with red and white dough twisted and shaped like candy canes. She would bake for several weekends and store the cookies in sturdy, white, cardboard boxes; separating each layer with waxed paper. Once she had made enough, she would put all the cookie boxes out on the dining table. She would have plastic cookie plates; red and green cellophane; red, white, and green curling ribbon; and several bags of Hershey’s kisses wrapped in red or green foil. She would have a handwritten list of all the families and friends to whom she planned to deliver cookies. My sister and I would help her assemble the cookie plates—she had a general idea of how many of each cookie should go on each plate with a generous sprinkling of Hershey’s kisses (and one or two that made their way into my sister’s or my mouths). She would supervise the assembly, then wrap each plate in Christmas colored cellophane, tie a curling ribbon to close up the cellophane, and place a personalized gift tag on the cellophane. All of this would be done with Christmas music playing in the background. It was a lovely start to the season.

She would stock up the ingredients over the weeks prior, buying large bags of Gold Medal flour, Domino white and brown sugars, McCormick vanilla and cinnamon, Nestle Toll House chocolate chips, Land O’Lakes butter. So much butter. Sometimes, I would accompany her to Bunn’s Natural Food store to buy pecans in bulk. It was the kind of natural food store that existed before places like Whole Foods. The produce section was very small, but there were several aisles of vitamins. They had nuts and grains in bulk. Sometimes, you could find handmade soaps, knitted hats or mittens, maybe some hand-painted cards. And it always smelled a little off to me, perhaps a bit like rotting produce.

Preparing for, baking, assembling, and delivering the plates of cookies was the start of Christmas for many years in my childhood. The recipes generally came from the Betty Crocker Cooky Book, circa 1963. It was a time before a hierarchy of ingredient quality, before everything was staged and photographed and curated and posted. The presentation was simple and understated. The cookies were not gourmet or elegant, but tasty and made with much love.

Image obtained December 5, 2023 from https://theculinarycellar.com/betty-crockers-classic-cooky-book-from-1963/

In addition to late November and the month of December, I spent many Saturdays with my grandmother. She and I would get in her two-toned, blue Chevy Cavalier and spend our day driving to used bookstores anywhere from a few towns over to up to two hours away. We would delight in overstock bookstores, spending hours going through books to find the one or two treasures. On rare occasions, we would head to B. Dalton or Waldenbooks, which were the big, chain bookstores at that time. But generally, we preferred to find already loved copies of Agatha Christie novels or musty hardcovers older than my grandma, such as Heidi by Johanna Spyri, Heart of Gold by Ruth Alberta Brown, Caddie Woodlawn by Carol Ryrie Brink, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm by Kate Douglas Wiggin, A Girl of the Limberlost and Freckles by Gene Stratton Porter, series such as The Five Little Peppers and How They Grew by Margaret Sydney and Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry. (Several of these titles still reside in my house.) My grandmother always brought home one or two books on the brain or neuroscience. She had a coloring book of the brain before adult coloring books were a thing. We generally punctuated the day with lunch at Friendly’s or Wendy’s. It was with my grandma that I first started ordering my now standard (and still weird) mint chocolate chip ice cream with peanut butter sauce at Friendly’s. My grandma would often order a pint of peanut butter sauce to take home. She would eat it right out of the container with a spoon.

When I was eight years old, my parents moved me and my three siblings to a small suburb northeast of Philadelphia. My mom had grown up there and my dad had come to boarding school there, where he met my mom. They married young and had me before moving back to a suburb of Cincinnati, where my dad had grown up. My grandmother lived in a big, six bedroom house with my aunt, who was still in college. She had raised her six children there, moving in in the early 1960s. It was not too long after they moved into that house that my grandfather died suddenly of a heart attack.

In the early 1980s, we moved in with her and took over the sprawling house on two acres of land with an Olympic-sized pool down the hill from the house. A creek ran behind the house and provided me and my siblings with hours of enjoyment as we grew up. One year, my dad grew corn in the side yard. Early on, he cleared out the front field and set up a volleyball net. For several years, my parents held volleyball games and potluck lunch/dinner on Sundays from late spring through fall. Cousins and friends ran around with us and played while our parents played volleyball or visited by the pool.

We had a large patch of raspberry bushes at one end of the front field. My grandmother would give us mason jars filled with soapy water and pay us a penny for every Japanese beetle we pulled off the raspberry leaves and drowned in that jar. We ate more berries than we drowned beetles, but we learned how to look all through the bush for the tender, ripe berries. We always managed to gather enough berries to make one or two raspberry pies each summer for my dad.

In many ways, it was a delightful childhood.

Growing up, I heard many stories about my maternal grandfather, a man who had died when my mom was 12. His legacy loomed large in my life—he was a graduate of Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania. He had worked for the space program, helping to design the Titan II space-launch vehicle that launched the Gemini capsules. It was his space work that brought the family back to the Philadelphia area for a job with General Electric’s Missile and Space Division. My mom and her siblings spoke fondly of their father—recounting his athleticism along with his intellectual abilities. He wrote several books, the most read being Beyond Tomorrow, a book that explored that possibilities of space colonization. My grandfather had fought in the Battle of the Bulge and come home with a shock of white hair. If I wanted to trace my love and thirst for knowledge, I was quickly pointed to my grandfather and his family. He was the hero of our lives and if only he had lived, it was often inferred, life might have looked very different for everyone.

My striking and whipsmart grandparents, Charlotte and Dandridge Cole. See how much he adores her?

But I never knew my grandfather. He existed in the memories of my mom, her siblings, my great aunt, and my grandmother.

I did, however, know my grandmother. She completed an associate’s degree in 1949, a time when just more than 5% of women attended college.¹ She was a talented artist, having completed a year at a fashion design school in Virginia before returning to her hometown to complete her associate’s degree there. She was an accomplished pianist and learned guitar as an adult. My grandmother raised six children on her own following the death of her husband. She was 37 years old with children ranging from 3 to 15 when she was unexpectedly widowed. She went back to work eventually, running the high school bookstore where she was much loved by the students. She then went on to work in the business office for the church and affiliated high school and college in town. She was one strong, independent woman.

I knew these things about her when I was a child. But what was most present for me was her love of learning, her love of music, her humility and selflessness, and her quiet kindness. My grandmother was a truly good person. She took in her daughter and her large family without complaint. She drove me and my sister to high school every day, despite her strong preference to be early, which almost never happened with two teenaged girls on weekday mornings. She listened to me complain and cry and be angsty for hours on our trips across Eastern Pennsylvania in search of the best used or remainder bookstores. She kindly encouraged me to look for the good in people, offer them grace, assume good intentions, always. She bought me hundreds of books, introduced me to authors I might never have discovered on my own. She smiled often. She chewed the side of her tongue when she was nervous or upset. She came to see me perform in the community orchestra, sing solos with the choir, perform in community and high school theater. She took me and my sister on a trip down the coast to Chincoteague and Assateague to see the wild horses that Marguerite Henry had lovingly captured. We visited Jamestown and Williamstown. She rode roller coasters with us at Busch Gardens.

She showed up for me. Consistently. Dependably. Without fanfare or expectations.

With a smile on her face, a hug, and a word or two of praise.

She was so proud of me when I went to graduate school. When I got my PhD. She came to Boston for my wedding. And then again, when her third great grandchild, my Z, was born.

In my world, she is the hero. She is the one I trace my love of books and learning and music to. She taught me humility and quiet kindness. She taught me to show my appreciation and gratitude for those you love through a plate of cookies or a kind word. She taught me perseverance and acceptance of what life offers while finding the simple joys. Like peanut butter sauce on mint chocolate chip ice cream. And the value of a good book.

We share a spring birth month. She died in that same month in 2019. I miss her every day. When I play the piano, when I learn something new about the brain and how it works. When I look at the bag of unread books stashed in my closet that I can never allow to get more than half empty. When I make cookies at this time of year.

I know she knew how much I loved her.

I only wish I could have told her that I have finally seen that the cape has always belonged to her. My superhero grandma. Who never wanted anyone to know that she was quietly wielding the super power of love.

In memory of my beloved grandmother, Charlotte Ellen Davis Cole, May 1928 ~ May 2019.

All photos were taken by the exceptional Dana Giuliana, unless otherwise noted.

Photos of my grandparents were not taken by him, origin is unknown.

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/184272/educational-attainment-of-college-diploma-or-higher-by-gender/#:~:text=Education%20%26%20Science-,Percentage%20of%20the%20U.S.%20population%20with,degree%2C%20by%20gender%201940%2D2022&text=In%20an%20impressive%20increase%20from,percent%20of%20women%20in%201940.