One hundred years ago, my grandmother, Isola Elizabeth Butler was born.  She was the oldest of 10 children - her mother was 20 when she had Grandmama and Grandmama was 20 when her youngest brother was born. They lived in rural Louisiana, farming cotton and vegetables.  Grandmama went to school in a horse drawn wagon, her father stopping along the road to pick up other children.  She used to tell the story of hearing the first car in West Carroll Parish before she saw it, it's noise splitting the quiet of the country.  She was always a fantastic student and in the depths of the Great Depression, she received a scholarship to go to college in Oklahoma.  When I went to college 50 years later - she would slip a $20 check into my hand when I left her house.  "I remember what it was like  - not having a nickel for an ice cream with friends or a new pair of nylons," she whispered to me.  Like clockwork, those checks arrived every month I was in school.

Grandmama remembered a lot of things - World War I, the Depression, World War II, her third cousin, once removed, all our birthdays, who liked their waffles cut into rectangles and who liked squares.  Her shelves were always filled with books - Velikovsky, Vonnegut, Heyerdahl, Shakespeare, anything she could find on Richard III and the War of the Roses, the complete Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys.  Her walls were a mix of our art work, editorial cartoons and articles she had clipped from the paper, and quality reproductions of works by the masters like Gainsborough.  She valued history - the personal and the public - spending hours in graveyards and archives, researching "our family."  She was so proud to be a member of the DAR and to finally prove she was related to the great Emily Dickinson, on her mother's side.

But above all, she valued education.  She truly believed every child deserved not just an education, but the best education possible  She pioneered special ed in Louisiana, believing in her students when no one else did.  She retired in 1976, the same year she and Granddaddy moved into the house in Lakeshore Drive.  When she moved to Georgia in 1989 after her diabetes was too much for her too manage on her own, there were still former students calling her every week, letting Mrs, Wright know how their jobs and lives were going, jobs and lives they would not have had if she had not been there them 20, 30 years before.

People say I look like her - we are exactly the same height, same raven hair, and laughing eyes. And I know I act like her - my obstinance, my quick temper, my rapier tongue.  I always stiffened when my siblings said "You are just like Grandmama" when I was younger.  She challenged me, wouldn't let me coast on my smile and charm, knew my games and anticipated my moves. But now, as I'm older, and hopefully a little wiser, I realize what a fine and excellent Hobbit she was.  On June 6, 2070, I hope my granddaughter remembers me with all the love, admiration, and gratitude I have for my Grandmother,

It's definitely the Christmas season here in Norway.  Everywhere you turn, there are decorations and Julmarkeds.  And snow.  Lots and lots of snow.  Bitter cold as well - the highest temperature I have seen in the last three weeks is 20 degrees Fahrenheit.  The extended forecast doesn't look much warmer.  Alas.  Although I am in favor of hibernation, I have bundled up and ventured out into the frigidness.  Brian, the kids and I met another Tennessee Fulbrighter, Sarah, and her son at the Norsk Folkmuseum.  The museum itself was fascinating. Part of it is a traditional museum - displays of artifacts with explanations, etc.  But it also houses a collection of buildings, many of which were moved from other parts of the country to the grounds of the museum.  The rooms are decorated with period pieces so you see how Norwegians lived in a particular era.  There are also docents who dress in period clothing and demonstrate cooking and other  techniques from their era. The picture above (taken by Sarah) is an interior shot of a 1900-era house, decorated for Christmas.  There were women in an adjacent set of 1700s buildings, cooking cabbage and baking bread in a stone oven.

There was a collection of medieval buildings as well - which is what Brian liked most!  The stylings and carvings are very similar to what I've always associated with Swiss chalets, not sure if there is actually a connection, though.  We took a break in the basement of an apartment building which had been demolished and reconstructed at the museum.  This also was a display - containing hundreds of household appliances spanning 100 years - bathtubs, irons, washing machines, telephones, electrical outlets.  (I think I like the fact that it was heated and out of the wind the best!) Each floor of that building contained an apartment from a individual decade, The displays simultaneously presented the material culture of the time period as well as the history of an actual occupant of that apartment.  There was a maid from the 1910s, a couple from the 1930s, a university student from the 1970s, and a Pakistani family from the 1980s.

My favorite building was  the reconstructed stave church.  The architecture was mesmerizingly intricate - carvings of spirals, animals, real and imagined.  The construction methods used were traditional to the Nordic area - until the Danes mandated all churches actually seat the congregation as opposed standing, which was the norm in the stave style.  Many were torn down, but some remain and are now on the UNESCO World Heritage list.  The museum apparently has two additional churches in storage as well as the plans to reconstruct them.

Despite the bitter, bone-shattering cold (about 9 degrees Fahrenheit with a stiff north wind), the Norwegians were out in force.  They love their Christmas.  There were vendors interspersed throughout the separate era areas of the grounds, selling sausage, crafts, gloves, pottery, jewelry and other goods.  Santa was there - with a wooden spoon - posing for pictures with children and taking notes.  We bought some wool mittens for Brian, some beautiful hand crocheted red silk wrist warmers for Liz, and a scarf for Patrick.