Grandparents are People

I was lucky to know three of my four grandparents. I didn’t know my mother’s father but that’s because she didn’t know him. She never met him. The man she thought was her father died before I was born so I never knew him either. My mother’s mother was Margaret Alger. She was a bit of a scary woman, prone to sudden rages and long-held grudges. She had 11 children with 6 different men. She was married to Bill Duclos when my mother was born but my mother’s biological father was someone named Lessard. I don’t know his first name. Margaret was apparently the life of the party when she was drinking. She had a good singing voice and loved to have a good time. She made delicious apple pies and could fashion a meal out of meager ingredients. She was a large woman, weighing over 400 pounds when she went into the hospital before she died at age 66. She was born in 1920 and raised in New Hampshire on land that is now owned by St. Anselm College. Her family gave much of that land to the Catholic…