Where do I begin, but to say, my grandma's house is a special place that I would like to share.   I believe everyone has a special place hidden in their heart that they can go to physically or refer to in their memories.   A place so special, that it soothes their soul in a unique way or renews their being when they re-visit that place.    It may be a special neighbors kitchen, a peaceful park, a special room or their grandma's house.   I think almost everyone has thought about "writing it down" or "getting it out".   Yearning for some kind of release or experiencing it in a deeper way.   I believe everyone should.   There is something theraputic about going through your thoughts in a detailed manner and describing events using the emotions your feeling.   My story has provided great satisfaction for me.   I hope this story might inspire others to put on paper, that which their little angel has whispered in their ear so many times to do. Go ahead.   Just do it!    Do not think the parts you prefer to leave out will render your story incomplete.   Also, if no one else ever reads it, so what!   I guarnatee you success as you start to tell that special story you have been putting off. God will give you the words and strength you need to complete the task.

   It all started when I was born, just kidding.   Well, in retrospect maybe it did.   In 1953 I was born the only child to Darline and Donald Arney.  When I came home from the hospital my grandma held and cared of me for the first couple of weeks because my mother was ill.   So mom says? Who knows, maybe those close moments bonded us together in a special way.   I do know my grandma made me a new dress almost every day when I was a baby.   Just imagine all of that love and special energy from her hands surrounding me.

   My grandma's house is on Lombard Street in Dayton, Ohio.   Whenever I need a special feeling in my heart, I can always go to visit there in my memories.   Since grandma has passed on, it houses a new family.    I can still remember every room, every closet, every cupboard and every other detail that will fill my life with special feelings for eternity.  Much of what I am today was molded in this place.   I believe the warmth it exuded helps me strive for positive environments to surround myself with.   The peace in her home has helped me strive for peace in my life.   Her simplicity has helped me to enjoy the simplest treasures and be content therein.   Her knack for celebrating the holiday spirit has ingrained the importance of creating traditions for my family and hopefully their families to come.   The solid friendships and family ties she built taught me to be the best friend I can. In doing so I able to recognize the qualities of those who truly care.   The love she gave to us was the glue that enables our family to stick together and accept one another unconditionally, if nothing else, because it's the right thing to do.

   Grandma was a tireless soother of souls.   Whether it be her daily inquiry; "Honey, how you doin' today?" or by offering us "somethin' GOOD to eat" (her #1 cure).    Always, her foremost desire was: what can I do for you?

    Practically every day of my adolescent life was spent at grandma's house.   Up until I was six years old, my mother, father, uncle Ray, his wife (aunt Tina) and I would go to grandma's house.    We were always welcome to eat and the rest of the evening was usually spent playing cards.   Every evening we all migrated faithfully to grandma's house. There we would eat, set out on the front porch swing, and then go in and play cards.   "Any body want to play a hand?" someone would ask.   And someone would reply: "well I guess", as if we had to.   Then someone would say "go get the cards!" and someone would go over to the special drawer next to the sink and retrieve them.   I was never taught to play Pinuckle, that was reserved for the adults (their time alone).   I would sit on a little red step stool high chair at the corner of the table and watch them.   My game was Gin Rumy or 500 Rumy with several adults or in a duet.   Most of my card playing was done with my grandma though.   On rare occassion she and I would play Old Maid.   Grandma and I were always up to "play a hand of cards".   Now I realize playing cards at the kitchen table created a time for all of us to linger in the wonderful energy she had created.   It was a place where we felt so comfortable and so loved, that we created this lifestyle so we could get our daily dose of that energy.   She was and still remains the foundation beneath our lives.   Yes, we have taken our individual paths, and have our own accomplishments and failures.   However, I truly believe grandma played a major part in how we look at life and have choosen to grow from many of our experiences.

   When I was six, we moved into the other half of grandma's duplex house.   She and grandpa moved there from Kentucky, after selling their restaurant.   They came to Ohio in an old buggy with the kids and what few possesions they could load on.   They resided in that house for over 50 years that I know of.   If I only had a way, I would buy that old house and recreate it again.   I would give literally anything to spend time there once more.   To walk onto the landing and up the stairs that led to the top of my wonderland.  I can hear the stairs creak now.  I will describe the rooms and special furnishings and some of the special customs she had in a later chapter.

   We continued the evening routine for as long as grandma lived.   After I moved away, Dad or uncle Ray continued a daily visit to take care of her.   I regret not being able to spend more time with grandma in her later years.   However building my life with my new family took presidence with me. I did the best I could to stay in touch and visit on holidays, considering the distance across country.

   After we moved next door, grandma and I spent alot of time together.   We would go upstairs to the tiny back bedroom and sew.   She taught me to make clothes that looked just as good as the ones in the store.   As a matter of fact, I continued to make alot of my own clothes up until I was a sophmore in highschool.   After that I had a job and could afford to buy more of the ready made kind.   She was a tireless quilter.   It was her meditation.   She had mounds of braded rug strips, quilt pieces and material.   She had boxes of it stored down in the basement.  These treasures were far back in the dark section.   I always got the willies when I went back there.   We would set and make quilt after quilt.   Once we had enough pieces and squares sewn together we would get out the big giant round quilt hoop and quilt it together by hand.   Grandma had an eye for design.   She never made the fancy kind with a star or flowers, until her later years.   Hers were pieces sewn together with no real pattern or color plan, they were beautiful.   Everything was done strictly by hand until she got too old to see.   In the ladder part of her life she would sew the pieces together by memory and touch because she was almost completely blind.   She would send them down to Kentucky to her sisters to finish up on a sewing machine. To this day I prefer the old style quilts.   A hand sewn quilt with all the love and special energy put into it by the creator is the best to me.   Patrick B. and I have many of her quilts.   I cannot imagine sleeping with out one of her quilts on top of me.    A part of her is with me then. I have a number of her quilts stored in the cedar hope chest grandpa and dad gave me on my 16th birthday.   I have my baby quilt, my adolescent quilts and all of the rest that were bestowed to me with much love.

   You may ask "What about your immediate home life?" which I will not expound upon here.   Simply to say that I absolutely adore my father and I have some very nice and special memories of my childhood homes.   As an only child with few neighbors my age, I played in my own fantasy world much of the time.   I had all of the Barbie's and their equipment.   I loved playing dress up with my mother's beautiful formal dresses and high heals that she handed over to me.   My mother was a very beautiful woman who had excellent taste in dress.   Through avid reading she educated herself in the do's and dont's of social life.   I.E. proper fork, use of the egg cup and other unique serving pieces.   She used to collect them and tried to incorporate them into our lives.  However our down to earth lifestyle did not afford her the opportunity to utilize her knowledge nor call for the use of those things.   Looking back, I think she tried to escape her inner frustrations through fantasy within her books.   She enjoyed reading about the 17th and 18th century social customs and lifestyles.   My mother taught me social etiquette and how to dress with simple elegance.   When I asked her a question, I was usually refered to the dictionary, astrology book or her Amy Vanderbelt Book of Etiquette.   I love and adore my father.   He is very diciplined, and usually takes the safest path.   For Dad, work is the key to his piece of mind.   Unlike myself and my mother who take risks and must pursue our hearts end knowing God is our source.   I think it has been hard for my father to understand my need to be such a free spirit and the need to follow my own drummer (God).   Therefore he does not relate to the peace I find by knowing that God is my source, and God always supplies my needs by His riches and glory not by my good works.   I would rather live a simple life and rely daily on God to bring little miracles into my life than live in the comfort of my own works.   I realize this principle will never be understood by some generations or mentalities within humanity. I do know that some day Jesus will hold them in His hands and will show them His truth: that love is unconditional, has no labels, and hands down no judgements.   If I am living in an unrealistic dream world, I do not want to wake up!   I feel my grandma's presence with me now from heaven and know she supports me in my life's path.

   Grandma's house was my oasis.   When I got home from school, I would usually put down my books and go out the front door across the poarch to grandma's house.   Through the front room, than through the second room (her bedroom). From that room I would enter a tiny hall with a door leading down to the basement.   Then on through the dining room and finally reach the kitchen.   There my heart would be at journey's end. There she would be.   Sometimes with the lights off (her eyes being sensitive to light) or cooking a meal.    "Hi honey, come here and give me a big hug". "Would you like some good this" or "some good that", whatever she had cooked up or had stored that she though I might like.    She was consumed with feeding us.   When the lights were off there she would sit, usually with a cup of tea and shortbread cookies or sometimes she would have a bowl full of warm jello she had just made for us to sip.   In the very younger years she would have a towel laying out on the table for us to build a card castle on.   Some times I would try to build an oriental one.   She would always inquire how things were.   She always had a proper cure.   Be it food, a medicinal remedy or a sympethetic attitude.    Everything was "GOOD".   "Would you like a GOOD biscuit?", "honey, let's go into the kitchen and have a GOOD cup of tea" or "let's go into the living room and watch some GOOD tv". "OK grandma" and I would follow.   Into the living room we would go with a "GOOD" treat or food in hand.   She usually had her special chair or place on the sofa.   Sitting in a seat in the living room was like sinking into a cloud in heaven, ahhhh, so nice.   So at peace and so comfortable.   I often stayed with her all evening long.   We would play cards, sew or watch tv (she especially love her soap operas) .

   Grandma didn't smoke, drive, own a dryer, wear pants until her old age warrented it or hardly ever cuss.   Once in a while you would hear her say "well shit honey" if she had burn't the beans.   On special occasions, like Christmas eve she would lead me into the kitchen when no on else was around.   As she reached far up into the corner cupboard and pull out her special bottle of berry wine, she would reach down and whisper "Honey, whyontchya have a good sip a' this with grama'?".   By then she would have poured about a shot of it into a couple of little Kraft Paminto Cheese juice glasses and we would have a sip.   We would giggle like we got away with something and I never told a soul about it until now.

The boys, as she called them (dad and uncle Ray) would take turns driving her to the bank, grocery store, Nellies (her beloved cousin) house or the doctor's office.   She seldom left the house.   "Miss Arney" as every one outside the family called her was one of the few patients that Dr. Stuleman or Dr. Scholl (the one who delivered me) would still pay a house visit too.   Their office was "up on Third Street".    Grandma's closest friends and and her siblings called her "Pet". The boys, aunt Grace (their sister,now desceased), my mother, Sharon (my step mother now) and aunt Tina called her "mom".   When I was smaller we would take the bus downtown to shop on a Saturday.   Sometimes grandma and I would walk up on third street.    We would go the the dime store or thrift shop.   At the thrift shop we would chat with friends and rummage through the huge bins of clothing looking for big full skirts to cut up for quilt material.

   As you can tell, grandma was the model homemaker and mother.   She rose early every day to fix grandpa's breakfast and lunch.   His lunchbox usually consisted of a sandwich, little jar of Kraft Paminto spread and some Ritz crackers. She fixed "good" biscuits and gravey almost everyday.

To be continued, (with some wonderful photos too).