6:29 p.m. - 2004-12-27
A Life Well Lived

A Fond Farewell For A Life Well Lived

The following is a Euology I wrote for my Grandma's funeral tomorrow which I will not be able to attend. My heart will be with my family as my Aunt attempts to read this without breaking down. Some of it is bits and pieces of things I have written in the past, some of it is fresh. I leave it as my posting for the day in honor of my wonderful Grandma Slanchik.

Grandma Slanchik : A Eulogy

In the year 1904, there were only 8000 automobiles worldwide. You could count the miles of American highways in the hundreds. The life expectancy of the average person was 47 years old. The things we take for granted today like television, cell phones and the internet were unheard of. To look at photographs taken in 1904 is to look back on a time few us can comprehend, yet this was the year my Grandma, Francis Marie Kaska Slanchik was born.

In recent years I have come to appreciate that she has lived through a most remarkable century. I loved to sit with Grandma in her kitchen and listen to her tell me about her life as a coal miner's daughter, growing up in the coal mine camp town of Lansing, Ohio in a 3 room, company owned shack she shared with her father and 7 brothers and sisters.

Her mother died when she was just 6 years old. There is an old photograph in an album showing tiny 6 year old Fanny standing with her brothers, sisters and father, whom she called Pap; along side of the little shack in the dress her Mother had just finished sewing for her to start school in. Her Mother is in a coffin propped up for the photo while her baby brother, Pete is on Pap�s lap. The picture reaches out and speaks for the troubled times of her childhood.

She told me many stories; the fond memories and those that were painful. There was such a mixture of immigrants in the coal town. There were Italians, Slovaks, Slovenes, Polish, Bohemians and others, all with their own languages, accents and customs. The customs all blended together to create something uniquely American.

I listened with fascination as she told about winters in the mining camp shack. There were wooden slats that covered the spaces between the boards that made up the walls of the home. When it would get cold, someone would tear those slats off and burn them for heat, leaving the crack open for the cold winter wind to blow through. There were 3 rooms. A front room which served as kitchen and living room and two bedrooms with a big hole cut between that held the stove which was the only heat in the whole house. When holes would rust in the stove, they had nothing to patch it with but some clay dug from the ground.

She told me of cows and chickens that lived under the houses. That was where you got your eggs and milk and I suppose eventually ate the chicken.

Her personal story plays out in front of a backdrop of 2 world wars, The Great Depression, rapid growth in technology and other world events. It reaches back before her time, drawing upon the tales that her Pap told her.

In hearing her stories of growing up as a motherless girl, a young working woman, and a mother of 3 daughters and knowing her as a Grandmother, I have a sense of her being a strong woman. She was the kind of woman you couldn�t fool. When my Mother was a teenager, she went to a Halloween party at the high school. Grandma wanted to keep an eye on her so she dressed up in Grandpap�s hunting clothes and went as a hunter, unbeknownst to my Mother.

As a Grandmother, she was full of songs, games and stories. The most beloved memory we have as grandchildren is that of being lulled to sleep while she told us stories like �The People Cat� to the rhythmic squeak of her old rocking chair. She taught us songs like �Santa Clause�, �Big Fat Frog� and �Lily of the Valley�. We went for walks down to Weirton�s Main Street and she would walk up that hill on Haslett Street faster than we ever could. Another memory we all share is that of walking up the �crik� behind the house on Grant Street where she would clear it of fallen boulders so it could run free. I still remember her in her 60�s, hoisting a huge boulder and hurling it off to one side.

After Grandpap passed on, Grandma moved to Wellsburg to be near Aunt Edie. Most of us Grandchildren were older by then but Andy was still little. In a sense he had Grandma all to himself, one block away. He still remembers how she taught him his numbers when she would look after him before and after school.

After all her Grandchildren were grown, she still had so much in her to give that she became Grandma to other children in Wellsburg. If there was a child that needed a Grandma, they had Francis Slanchik to tell them stories, teach them songs and take them to the park�to be there when their parents were busy working. I will never forget seeing her at Uncle Freddie�s wake sitting in a chair while many young people filed past her saying �Hi Grandma�, one after the other.

When her Grandchildren started having children, she was still young enough at heart to have a Grandmotherly relationship with her 11 Great Grandchildren. Now, with the birth of little Sara Staffileno, there are 12. They called her Granny and each one of them has a fond memory to hold onto.

Another thing about Grandma is that she loved flowers and gardening. She could get lost for hours in that garden. I will forever remember her reaching out and pulling a weed or digging with her pitchfork. At the age of 97 she was still using that pitchfork and an old butcher knife to dig and plant with. Some of us have inherited Grandma�s �gardening gene.� One Grandson has gone into the landscaping business, having inherited the same love of the garden.

Grandma taught us by example. She taught us faith through showing her deep faith in God and love for her church and church family. She taught us patience by being patient. She taught us strength by quietly bearing her own pain with dignity and grace. She showed us the importance of family. She was the heart of our family and because of Grandma there is a glowing in us all like the burning of E.T.�s �Heart light�.

When we are together as a family, we are not individuals; we are part of an organism. This organism not only includes the family members who are here right at the moment, it includes all of the Aunts, Uncles, and cousins here in Wellsburg or in Chicago, Australia, Florida and South Carolina. It also includes the ones who have gone on to Heaven. When two or more of us get together for a visit, I can feel Grandpap, my Mother, Father and Uncle Freddie looking down on us, laughing at the tales we are telling, the news we are sharing about our lives and our loved ones and the memories we all have of Grandma and Grandpap and their old house up on Grant Street.

Grandma is with them now and when we gather in the future we can be comforted that she will be there looking in on us too.

Because of the love Grandma shared, we are a warm, hearty, happy family and the word "love" doesn't do it justice...It is more than love. There is a tie that binds that can never be broken. Even now as I sit here in Illinois writing this, my heart light is glowing bright.

Two short weeks ago, I was here in Wellsburg for a visit. I wanted to come and see Grandma before it was too late to enjoy her in her own little house. Sometimes while we were talking, she would fall asleep in mid conversation. Her head would nod over, her chin would hit her chest and she would doze for a couple of minutes, then wake up and continue the conversation where we left off. I remember watching her while she was watching her favorite show, Emeril Live, on TV. I wanted to drink her in as much as I could, trying to fill up on her because one of these days I knew that her little head would nod over, her chin would hit her chest and it would not come back up.

And that is exactly what happened on Christmas Eve, surrounded by family, listening to lively after dinner conversation, she nodded off and quietly left as God called her home.

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