Ink and Vein

I keep thinking about my great-grandmother.

She had a reputation for her foul temper, her abruptness, and her bitterness.

My mother would finish another story about how dreadful my great-grandmother was, and then say, in an off-hand sort of way, “You’re a lot like her.” 

I keep thinking about my great-grandmother, her name Marie Leischter, changed to Mary Leister when the family immigrated from Austria to Canada. Marie was a chef in Austria, in the years between World War I and World War II. Mary was a farm wife in southern Alberta, in view of the Montana border.

Her husband was in the Austrian cavalry, in World War I. He was a horse whisperer. He could settle a horse with a touch, and never used any of the fast breaking methods, never raised a voice or a crop. He breathed puffs of air into velvet noses and they listened to the gentle touch of his hand.

These are the stories I have about him, that he was kind, animals loved him, and when he and his wife, my great-grandmother, left Austria to go to Canada, when political unrest told of another war, he became known on the farms and ranches as the man who could gentle any horse. He was slight, but worked the clydesdales without any struggles. 

My great-grandmother, the chef in a restaurant, who was known for her flakey and perfect pastry, was also known for her bitterness when it came to her grandchildren. She could shoot the head off a chicken when the mood caught her wrong, and her rolling pin’s heft smacking against her palm was enough to discourage unwanted visitors off the property.

Those are the stories I have about her.

She came to Canada to a hard life of farming, cooking all day for the farm workers, washing and mending clothes for her family, pumping water from a manual water pump, and using an outhouse. 

She still made the best pastry, but her meanness is what most recall. 

When my great-grandfather left Austria he got to continue doing what he loved, but Marie did not. Yes, she still cooked but it was one of many tasks, and she lost what she dreamed her life to be. 

It was really the only thing they could do, in the face of impending war, if they wanted to be safe, if they didn’t want to live in a potential war zone, but knowing a choice is the only option rarely makes it easier to bear. 

I just keep thinking about my great-grandmother, every time someone tells me I’m aggressive, or too opinionated, or tells me to tone it down, pull it back, be a little more quiet, a little less unexpected. 

I keep thinking about my great-grandmother, how the women in my family say she should have been happy with her life, how she could have made the most of it instead of becoming bitter, eaten from the inside and baking the bitterness into her beautiful, buttery crusts. 

I thought about my great-grandmother when I was desperately unhappy in my marriage, when my mother told me to change my expectations and make the best of it. 

I thought about my great-grandmother when my mother-in-law told me to have a baby so I’d have something to think about beyond myself. 

I thought about my great-grandmother when I got divorced, and when my next relationship ended, when people said behind my back, She could just be easier to get along with. She could just be happier. 

I can’t help but think of my great-grandmother as I remember all the times I’ve been told to make myself small, to take bits of myself and hide them away, trimming a little here and there, like the dough on one of Marie’s pie crusts, making it fit just right. 

I think of Marie–no, not Mary, Marie–how she kneaded bread in the kitchen and rolled out paper thin pie crusts in between wringing chicken necks and helping sow the winter wheat crop.

I think of how she’s remembered for her bitterness and not her skill. 

I think of the first and only time I met her, when I was two or three. I cried for most strangers, then, but I got right into her lap and kissed her heavily lined face, sending her into smiles.

“You knew she was sour and needed some sweetness,” my mother says, when she shares that story. “You remind me a lot of her.” 

I remember my great-grandmother’s smiles, and my lips on her paper-thin skin.

All I am told is of her bitterness, and how she made the best pie crust.

I think of my great-grandmother, and I know my mom and aunties got it wrong. They saw only her unhappiness, and completely missed her message for her daughters, and their daughters. 

For every person who tells me I’m too much, for every person who tells me my path is wrong, for every person who wishes I would be a little sweeter, take up a little less space, I can’t help but think of my great-grandmother.