"Nothing bad ever comes from hard work..."

This past weekend, Justin and I drove up to Buffalo to spend some quality time with the family. Grams, Justin's paternal grandmother, turned 90 years old on the 14th and a special celebration was in order. Justin and I skied at Holiday Valley on Friday (it was great by the way... my first good eastern skiing experience). On Saturday, the Elardo/Summers clan got together for a lunch to honor our matriarch, Marie Elardo.

On Sunday, we stopped by her apartment to spend a little one-on-one time with Grams before heading home. Immediately sitting down to a meal (is there any other way in the Italian tradition?), Justin decided to needle Grams by repeating a comment from a second cousin/uncle figure at the aforementioned lunch party.


Justin: Grams, Uncle Tom says that the only reason you lived to be 90 years old is because Gramps took such good care of you.

Grams: (rolls her eyes, sighs and looks away) Hmmm. Well, I guess I can thank him for one thing. You know (that is the Buffalo you know accent by the way!) what they say, nothing bad ever comes from hard work. I can thank him for my pension from 22 years of working at city hall. If it wasn't for him, I'd be on welfare.


Since most of the readers of this blog are actually from my family rather than Justin's, an explanation is in order. Its safe to say Justin's paternal grandfather was an addicted gambler. He worked an honest day’s living at Allied Chemical, but as Grams said "on payday, I'd pace the floor all night wondering if he would come home." Usually but not always, he did; rare was the night he came home before gambling away at least some of his earnings. Grams, early on in their marriage, went in search of work to have money for groceries and the mortgage despite “Robert yelling at me not to take the job so loud I could hear him on the street corner of Foldger. I paid no attention.”

The conversation above was the start of an hour's long storied history of her work for pay at a time where women weren’t particularly keen on being in the workforce, even in a blue collar town like Buffalo. Her memories of the players of her life in the 40's and 50’s were crystal clear. She told of taking the street car the first time she went down to city hall on a tip they were looking for a temporary part time clerical person of sorts. She got the job and worked for a year in the city tax area, 14-15 years in the city housing authority, and 7 years for the city police department. She would leave Bob, her son (my father in law) with her mother a few doors down on Foldger Street and take the street car and then a regular car into downtown Buffalo to earn a living for her family by typing and helping people out every day. On payday, she would take the cash and stop at the “A&P” for two weeks worth of groceries. It was her work that paid the mortgage and often, in increments, Robert’s small gambling/borrowing debts from angry family members or acquaintances. When his debts became too large, she was the one who approached her sister and brother in law for their help in cosigning on a second mortgage.

No matter what, she made it work. Sure, sometimes she got fed up with it. She repeated yesterday the story of him pawning her engagement ring 3 times. On the 3rd time, she “threw it at him and told him I didn’t want it anymore.” It is my understanding she never saw the ring again.

Yet, she was loyal to her marriage and family to a fault. Even today she interjects the story with numerous reminders about how much Robert loved his son Bob or about how he never loved drinking or women, only gambling. She quietly stated in only the way someone with 90 years of experience and many years of loneliness can that she was sure if he was alive today, it wouldn’t be a problem. Despite all of the obvious flaws of her husband, Grams views those challenges as a part of life, even as a good thing since it means today she has a good pension. She is fiercely religious and chalks it up to life. "These things work out; prayer is a good thing" she said at one point in the conversation yesterday.

In the spirit of fairness and accuracy, I probably need to mention that the family as a whole is protective of Robert’s memory. Perhaps it’s because in death, we try to remember the goodness in people. Maybe it has more to do with the fact that because I came into the family after Robert’s death, everyone wants to give me a balanced presentation of his life. Robert came from a large family where his mother died young, father flaked, and the children were largely left to fend for themselves. Surely the story of redemption works its way into this family’s fabric of stories: when Robert’s first grandchild, Jason (Justin’s older brother) was born, Bob told his father that unless he quit with the gambling, he would not have a relationship with his grandson. Robert did quit and played an extremely active roll in Jason’s life (and Justin’s for that matter).

Regardless, the next day I’m still pondering Marie’s story as a powerful lesson on hard work, perseverance, loyalty to family, and faith in divine intervention. As a working woman, it’s is a nice reminder that I do not work this fairly high powered career path for the accolades of others or even to increase my own self worth. Rather it’s because her statement resonates with my soul and mind: “Nothing bad ever came from hard work.”