You know…in these days I feel a bit like a poor, orphaned child adopted by the Hatfields and the McCoys. It’s the election!
As far as I know, three of my four grandparents, my parents, and a sizable number of my aunts, uncles, and cousins were or are Republicans. Many of those who have passed on seem to be Republicans still!
Elizabeth, my mother’s mother, worked full time for the state Republican party. She answered phones and came home with fingers bloodied from stuffing envelopes. Somewhere, among her things, was a rhinestone pin that read, IKE.
Elsie, my dad’s mother, was a Republican, too. She was too busy farming to stuff envelopes but I’d bet there were contributions made to the Republican members of the school board who graciously opened their buildings for our family reunions.
Frank was the odd man out. When he and Elsie got engaged, the paper in Naperville, IL ran an engagement announcement that read, in part, “Elsie Hannah Royce to marry Frank Cornelius Boardman who is, of all things, a Democrat!”
I never met Frank. He died long before I was born. There’s another story, though, about him trying to shush Elsie.
FDR had died and my very Baptist Republican grandmother was, by all accounts, marching around the garden snatching up tender vegetables before a late spring frost, singing God Bless America at the top of her lungs, and leaving pieces of her apparel scattered around the rows to protect tender plants not ready for picking.
Frank, as the story goes, kept saying, “Else! Hush! The neighbors will hear!”
All I can say with authority is that it is certainly well within the realm of possible!
In my imagination, I feel a bit like Frank must have felt. You see, I’m voting for Bernie Sanders. And, while I’m a lot shorter on family members than I used to be, I’m guessing a sizable number are voting Republican. (We’ll save “How?” for another day!)
I’ll only say this…I think there are some obvious historical threads running between FDR and Bernie. Threads I think we need. And, as the questions about election fraud and voter suppression pile up, I’m more and more convinced that Bernie is the only one of those guys I’d trust with my granddaughters’ future.
I seemed to have turned into, of all things, a Democrat. The kind that wants food and clean water and education and peace for all our kids. And I’m Ok with that.
If I bring the cookbook I just wrote, my family might still let me come to dinner. Though I never learned to make chicken and dumplin’s.