Grandma Susie

Allow me to jog down memory lane for a brief moment. I wanted to write a few words about an older woman that once was in our lives many years ago when we were much younger. Her name was Susie Masquat, but we called her Grandma Susie. She lived about a mile from our home. My Mother would take us along and we would walk over to her house (now we act like a mile-walk is torture) and they would visit in the Potawatomi language they knew and it sounded so easy for them. My Mother said Grandma Susie would tell her about old Potawatomi stories in the Potawatomi language.  Later when my Mother was older, I asked what stories did you talk about, but she had forgotten. I should have asked a whole lot sooner than that!  Wouldn't that been something to preserve?

Grandma Susie would walk back to our house with us. I can still see her and my Mother walking down that dusty road and can you imagine the whole slug of kids walking along side them. Oh, there was no black-top roads back then. She would stay with us for a night or two. One time she cooked up some “pugna,” a fried corn cake we have in our tribe when the corn is ready. When she made it the first time, we didn’t really like it since we were accustomed to boarding school food or whatever, but we were raised not to say we didn’t like any food. Poor people eat what is front of them and not complain, so we told her we liked it and she made us another batch. That was then, now we can eat it till the belly can’t take anymore.

She would go with us when we went swimming in the creek south of our house and would swim too. She was old then but she could walk a bunch and swim and cook.  She also was also an accomplished dancer at local pow-wows and she wasn't a bit shy! We thought so much of her and really did look forward to seeing her. Our times together were memorable. I can still hear my brothers and sisters holloring "Grandma Susie is here, Grandma Susie is here."

Now the old house Grandma Susie lived in is gone,engulfed by weeds and undergrowth.  She too is gone and only then did we find out she wasn’t really our grandmother and there was some disillusionment, but that fact never took away the good times of being around her.