Wisdom from Grandma

Author: Sara Goldrick-Rab

My Grandma taught me to love learning and to constantly try and learn new things.  In poring through my records of her (I have emails dating back 10 years, a transcribed interview, my journals, etc) I've begun to collect her wisdom. Here is the beginning of that process...

First, "education is the way to freedom," Geraldine Youcha said. That is an appropriate starting point.

On literature, writing, and language

"I started school (at Columbia University). We're reading Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself." Whitman sounds adolescent to me, but I"m willing to give him a chance." (2004, age 79)

"All biography is fiction."

On a related note, "Never lie to your kids, just elide the truth."

"Wow! Wow! No more co-authors. Let freedom ring." (on my first sole-authored paper)

"I've done some nit picking, and you seem to suffer from what Hyman Kaplan called "tsplit infinitive", so I've cleaned up most of them."

"I think I've figured out what a blog is--it's often a first-person column, like the one I did for a newspaper for four years, only it's not on paper.They're great fun to write."

"Dear Phid, (I had to add a vowel so I could say it.) Congratulations!" (2004, on my graduation)

The best articles are "clear, powerful and buttressed by solid research."

On life and love

"Don't make a fuss. Do what you have to do, and then proceed."

"What I do when faced with a messy medical procedure is imagine I've stepped on a moving sidewalk and it just takes me where it's going until we get there. Then I can step off."

"Do you know the story of Charles MacArthur, Helen Hayes' husband, who, when they were courting, handed her a bag of peanuts and said , "I wish these were emeralds"? Later, for some big anniversary, he handed her a bag filled with emeralds and said, "I wish these were peanuts." Consider your peanuts emeralds in disguise."

"I've never paid attention to 'what do I want to pass on to my kids?' I figure you just live as you are, and they'll get it."

 "All we can do is try to help each other get through this. Here's a big hug."

When she met my grandfather, "we fell, really, 'madly' in love, there's no other word for it."

The secret to a 60+ year marriage? "Patience and a sense of humor."