Marguerite Davenport

I remember Grandmother with her fascinating rocks and minerals which she had on the window sill in the living room. I remember oriental rugs and camel bags made with the same fabric. I remember peacock feathers in the front hall. She was almost reverential about these things and helped me grow to appreciate the unmatchable beauty of things in nature and the richness of the world with its countries and far off people. You were not to underestimate the things that Grandmother loved because she loved them so much. She didn’t always know that I had questions, however. She didn’t know how interested I really was.

I remember her standing by the privit hedges along the road waiting for us to go by, clippers in hand. There were long hours in the garden, moving bushes around, and there were the weeds, which she often protected because they were “beautiful”. She was not a snappy dresser in the garden.

She could paint very well and did lovely pictures of Squam or the ocean. She painted vines in the cracks in the plaster going up the steps to the garage apartment. Never one to scorn practicality. She made poker chips out of wave-smoothed shells at Nags Head and we played some game. Was it poker?

I remember her omnipresent large hat, mostly straw, in the middle of church about a fourth of the way from the front. She loved the ecclesiastical symbols, which I never really fell in love with, though I felt I should know them. She drove her grey Plymouth to church every Sunday. She drove so slowly that we worried about it, but we were proud of her.

Grandmother had a television for Old Sarah who couldn’t walk at all well and needed something to do. That was the first TV we knew. After Sarah died, Grandmother cooked for herself. Often it was only a boiled egg, and coffee ice cream which she got at the Clover Room. Mother and Daddy worried about that. She had breast cancer but never complained a moment and kept going, all cured.

When I took my first baby to see her we were up in her room. Otway was fussy probably because he was hungry. She was delighted with him. She took him from me, deftly placed him on his stomach across her knees and rocked him back and forth. It worked like magic. You could tell she was the mother of 5 boys. John was the last of my babies she saw. She thought he was beautiful and said, “I may never see him again.” She was not well at the time.