Madeline and Summer (Lassie look-alike) on the farm. This photo circa the 1980's.

Grammy Madeline

Pure Country Woman

I remember Grandma Madeline from the farm mostly. She's Bill's mom. She had a trailer that was set up next to the farmhouse, with it's own little kitchen and everything. She would play army men with me if I pestered her enough, but also taught me more contructive games, builting model houses and cars out of grass and twigs.

This Grandma was a bonfide Iowan. She cooked meat with every meal while we lived on the farm, totally overwhelming our attempt to be a vegetarian household. It wasn't that she was melicious, or disrespected vegetarianism... she just cooked such a good meatloaf it would be bad karma not to have some.

Even though I ideologically believe in vegetarianism (though I don't practice it. I'm a hypocrite), the Carnivorousness of Madeline and other country people is so honest I can't think of it badly. They know where cows come from, where they go to be killed, how they're turned into meat, and how that meat gets to the market. Most city people don't know/don't want to know. Country people know the whole bit, and they still eat it. I respect that.

Madeline had cancer later on, and she moved in with us in Eugene, where Bill and my Mom cared for her with the help of a wonderful hospice nurse named Donna until her spirit departed. That experience galvanized our whole family's support for euthenasia. Later on in life I lived in the room she'd occupied. It was a bit of a trip, moving in there.

© Josh Koenig | If you don't want information about you to be here, I respect that. Let me know if you have any problems.