My father never talked about his mother. I don't think there was a problem...he just didn't talk about her.

My maternal grandmother opened a gift shop in the house in which I grew up. It was called "A Better Mousetrap." The house was at the end of a dead end street.

She also stencilled things. This wasn't like the stencilling done these days. The furniture or whatever was painted black, then there was some sort of varnish or other sticky stuff applied where the color was to go. The color, in the form of fine metallic powder, was sifted onto the tacky substance, and another color was applied when it was dry. After the stencilling was done, she applied 50 coats of varnish, sanding in between each one.

I've got a rocking chair here with a design on it, and a metal cannister with a couple of test designs, and there's a hand painted tray (your basic fountain, flowers and bird-of-paradise).

She died of brain cancer in...I think it was 1949. She'd had surgery prior to that, during which they'd removed her entire 'speech center'. She woke up asking for water.