When Thanksgiving coincides with my grandmother's birthday, memories arise of past Thanksgivings and of a grandmother I never had a chance to know.
November 24, which happens to be Thanksgiving in 2022, my grandmother, Emma May Kopaskie (Hoffman) would have been 108 years old.
While I was only 11 months old when my grandma passed away in 1994, I had the consolation to know that she had the chance to hold the first born of her youngest child. (My dad is the youngest of 12 siblings.) I grew up seeing photos of her, primarily with my grandfather, like the one above, on the walls in a small one and a half level home.
This home was completely re-built in the 1950s after a bad fire, of which my grandma had scars from after going back into the home for her then small children. The article below describes the traumatic event in more detail.
Account of the Fire in the Newburgh News (1950s)
I last visited my grandparents old home in June 2021. Although my grandfather passed away in 2004 (at the age of 92), their home is still virtually untouched. Much of the furniture rests in the same places. The grayish blue carpet, with its frayed bits, still covers over half of the main room. Books line the back bookshelves and for added effect, a Christmas tree with strands of tinsel still stands in the corner. On the wall hang photos of Pope John Paul II and my grandfather's mother, Margaret Kopaskie (Clark). The only item that I can tell is missing is the upright piano, which is where I would play my grandma's old sheet music as she began to teach herself piano in her 60s.
Despite visiting in a different season, the main room looks like it is still ready for a Thanksgiving gathering. It was this room where multiple long wooden tables would be connected together to accommodate our large Catholic family, with primarily Irish and Polish roots.
Being one of the families driving the furthest to the home, we would typically arrive after others had already started to gather. My sister and I would shyly enter a crowded room, on the younger end of the spectrum of our 30+ cousins. Kids sat on the end closest to the front window. The food was usually a bit cold by the time it was passed around to the 30 or more people gathered, but it was still nice all the same.
Despite living further away, I relished when the crowds started to thin, as some family members had to travel for their second Thanksgivings. This is when I would have the chance to hear stories of family members either long passed or from their younger years. A time to imagine what the day would have been like if grandma was still alive, and years later, wondering if the home would still look as it does if anything had happened differently.
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