The real Aunt Sadie

Aunt Sadie was neither fictitious nor my aunt, she was my grandmother. She wore pastel gingham dresses, her hair was always neatly pinned up and she had a distinct lovely fragrance, I can still smell it. . . an old fashioned soapy freshness with a sweet layer of peppermint entwined. My first memory of her is our family driving her to our home for a visit. My older brother and twin sister were in the back seat of the car with Grandma in the middle, next to me. I remember looking at her, thinking how much I loved her, then suddenly becoming very sad. She appeared so very old to this 4 year old boy and I feared I might not have her much longer. For 34 years after that car ride she remained in my life, living, loving, laughing, cooking and baking.

Grandma adored the kitchen and hopped at the opportunity to whip up a frosted cake or a batch of her signature chocolate chip cookies. I’m sure she baked well over 1000 of those scrumptious crunchy orbs just for me and when I shared them with friends and co-workers, if they raved about them, next time I saw her there’d be an extra batch tagged with their name on it. She also crocheted hundreds of metal clothes hangers as gifts, probably the only thing that exceeded the miles of yarn used was her spirit of generosity. I share that because that's what truly defined her, yet her life was one with virtually no-frills. She never owned a home or had a career, she was widowed at 40, lost her only daughter a few years later, and shared a small apartment with a sister for decades. Still, she cherished every day looking after and doing things for others. In my 68 years I’ve still not met anyone more selfless. I grew up in a town called Terryville, we weren’t poor or wealthy, there always seemed to be just enough. In the mid-1960s Grandma came into a small inheritance of about one thousand dollars. Rather than keep any of it for herself, she gave half to my father and half to my uncle so they could purchase color television sets for their families (it was a big leap back then from the world of black and white television we’d become accustomed to). She herself didn’t have a color television until 4-5 years later when they’d become more mainstream and affordable.

When she reached the age of 89 she asked me if anybody would remember her, her life was spent behind the scenes, out of any spotlight. I told her the family she created and nurtured her entire life was her legacy, but also promised that “people will know you were here Grandma”. Folks often ask “if she was your grandmother, why didn’t you name the company ‘Grandma’s Candles’”. Because it sounds too universal. When I was knee-high, I remember giggling as I heard my father’s cousins call her “Aunt Sadie”. Perhaps it sounded peculiar to me because my female classmates had names like Linda, Brenda and Debra and wore their hair long in pig and ponytails (it was the late 1950s/early 60s). She loved her name, we do too. And here we are, 27 years after creating Aunt Sadie’s, and between 1 and 2 million candles bearing your image and namesake have been sold around the globe. I think people know you were here Grandma.