I get a phone call from a customer with my card, "Are you Rosa or Josie?" "Neither" I say, "These are my two grandmother's names!"
I am Diane Cook, but my business is named after my grandmother's - Rosa Buechmann and Josie Schultz. I wanted a name for my business that meant something! Something to me!
I will start with Rosa (she & grandpa in top wedding picture) - Grandma Buechmann. She spoke mostly (only) German; and therefore, we didn't have much to say to each other. But our interaction was more action, than speaking when I visited. She grew beautiful mums in the front yard of her house, right up against the silver-wired fence. You know the kind, with large square corner posts, and a matching wire gate. I would occasionally go to her house, and she would let me pick as many mums as I wanted. Bright gold, white, yellow and deep crimson. I would have one of her large pair of sissors, and I would very carefully cut all the petals off into a large tin saucepan. I must have thought I was making dinner! She was a well-known seamstress in the area. She made me and my sisters matching dresses-WITHOUT a pattern. I have many beautiful pictures from Easter time where all 3 of us were dressed alike! (I will post the pics sometime!) She sewed my Pilgrim outfit for me when I was in the First Grade. I remember going to her house for alterations....I cried, of course, as the stiff material stuck me in places I didn't like! I had a matching white bonnet-I looked exactly like a little pilgrim girl. I am told she sewed many wedding gowns for local brides as well! She grew wonderful day lilies, strawberries, vegetables, and had fig, pear and pecan trees. She and my grandfather were farmers, as he grew sweet potatoes to sell. They were in a "butcher club" with their neighbors, sharing pork and beef on butchering day. They had some horses, for farm work, milk cows, chickens and pigs. Her life was not easy. She made a great coffee cake, and taught my mother quite a bit about cooking; as my mom & dad lived with them for awhile. One weekend, my mother dropped me off at her house, and she taught me how to embroidery! She had a tea towel waiting for me, with beautiful rows of embroidery thread. She taught me how to make a satin stitch, and a french knot that stood up just right!
She was of German and Czech descent.
And then there is Josie (she & Grandpa in Galveston, Texas)......Granny Schultz! I LOVED her so much! Occasionally I would get to spend the night with her, and she and I would go outside in the cool of the evening and water ALL her flowers using her big metal watering can! Later, we pulled the long watering hose thru all her little flower bed paths...being careful not to crush any of the flowers! She had a magnificent flower garden on the side of the house. The entire yard was white sand, and her flowers loved it.....roses, lilies, poppies at Easter, larkspur and bachelor buttons, corn flowers and cosmos. Have you ever smelled a four-o-clock at 4 o'clock? I have....with my Granny! (Debbie, I believe that is the smell we came upon on our Fun Run in Sealy quite a few years ago!) On Saturday nights, we would watch Hee Haw, and Lawrence Welk....a one...and a two...and a three! In the winter time we slept in her big old iron bed, under a feather bed that felt like it weighted 2 tons....it was GREAT! I couldn't move! My head just peeked out the top. But in summer, I would lie in bed waiting for her to finish spraying for mosquitoes with one of those old push sprayers...I can hear it now...swoosh...swoosh...swoosh! She was the Granny who made just a couple of jars of beets each year, and she gave one to just me! She had a hard life as well. Her husband was a barber, and they raised 13 children. Whew!...that wears me out just saying it!
So, this is my Rosa & Josie's Story....here it is, and I'm sticking to it!
Thanks to the both of them for teaching me so much! I wonder if they will every know what an impact they had on my life. Perhaps one day I will get to tell them......my Rosa & Josie's Story.
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