A Grand Ol’ Time : Grade-Schoolers Honor and Swap Stories With Their Parents’ Parents on a Day Just for Them

Winter Melanson’s classmates at Adelaide Price Elementary School sat captivated as her grandfather talked about how he attended a one-room schoolhouse.

“Did you ever see ‘Little House on the Prairie?’ ” Terry Moore asked. The children nodded their heads. “Well, it was just like that.”

Moore was one of hundreds of grandparents who converged on the school Friday for Grandparents Day, the culmination of a week of cultural activities. The grandparents, some dressed in clothes from their native lands, shared stories about their youth and school days. The children then took turns reading essays they had written about their grandmas and grandpas.

“My grandparents mean a lot to me. They are very nice . . . they love me and I love them more than anything,” said Winter, 11, reading aloud from her essay while her grandparents listened. “They are very supportive of me. My grandfather has been teaching me how to drive since I was 8.”

After reading her composition, Winter climbed onto Moore’s lap and listened as the other grandparents told their stories.

Grandparents Day was a way for the youngsters to learn about other cultures since the student population of 900 includes more than 20 ethnic groups, Principal Elizabeth Schuck said.

“What this week has done is let the children appreciate other cultures,” Schuck said. But in addition, Grandparents Day was a time to reflect upon and honor family histories.

The essays, which the children spent a day composing, were a way to pay tribute to this bond. One told of a youngster who taught her grandmother to speak English during the summer and in return was taught Spanish by the grandmother. Another child described how his grandparents help in complicated situations and teach him to become a better person.

Michael Patterson says his grandmother just spoils him.

“What I am saying is, she thinks of me first instead of being selfish,” said Michael, a sixth-grader. “I talk back to her and she still is nice to me.”

The grandparents began arriving at school about 11 a.m. Some walked, while others used wheelchairs or leaned on walkers as they made their way to the classrooms. Several reunions took place as the grandparents, peering into a classroom, spotted an anxious grandchild. In keeping with the Cultural Week theme, some of the visitors came dressed in traditional ethnic clothing.

When 11-year-old Desiree Martinez’s great-grandmother, Ruby, found her room, she didn’t need an introduction. Most of the sixth-graders recognized Ruby because the neighborhood children often play at her house.

With pride, Desiree announced, “She was in the Depression!”

After teacher Jeane Lombardo explained to Ruby that the class is studing the Depression era, the great-grandmother launched into a talk about what it was like to wait in rationing lines to get prunes and bread.

Absent grandparents also were remembered Friday.

In her essay, Angie Ruiz told of how she misses her grandfather, Frank, who died on Thanksgiving Day.

“I miss him a lot. We were very, very close. He was great too,” Angie said as she started to cry, her grandmother, Rose, at her side.

In another classroom, a special table was filled with pictures of grandparents who didn’t attend. Odey Ukpo’s grandparents live in Nigeria, so his mother, Theresa, came instead. Dressed in a traditional asooke, a white gown with gold embroidery, she told Odey’s class about the tribes of Africa.

After the essays were read and the stories told, the grandparents were treated to a free lunch of hamburgers, hot dogs and corn on the cob.

While waiting to eat, 82-year-old Alice Mathews recalled how her grandson, Geoffrey, invited her to Friday’s festivities.

“He said to me, ‘Nana, do you want to come to Grandma’s Day at my school?’ ” she said. “I thought, ‘Isn’t that nice, I never heard of such a thing.’ ”