JUNE 29, 2023 – (Cont.) Gaga was kind and generous, and she displayed these attributes best at Christmas time. A good two weeks before the big day, a large box would arrive bearing a shipping label with Grandpa’s company name and logo—a moving van. Inside the package were a dozen or more wrapped gifts for my three sisters and me. In contrast with the nice (but boring) shirt or sweater I’d receive from our other grandmother, Gaga’s gifts were always fun and whimsical—a wind-up, metal walking chicken anticipating Sesame Street’s Big Bird; a coin bank in the form of an organ-grinder’s monkey that waved when you slipped a nickel into the slot atop the monkey’s hat; a small giraffe mounted on a block with a recessed bottom button, which, when pressed, would loosen the strings that held the little animal together and cause it to collapse over the side of the block. These quirky gifts gave me endless delight and a positive impression of Gaga, despite her strict prohibition against gum-chewing and other forms of misbehavior.
Gaga was always pleasant enough, but she was not a doting grandmother. At least I have no memory of her being the cuddly sort when I was a young child. My sisters and I saw far less of Gaga than we did of our Swedish grandmother, but nonetheless, Mother made sure that we maintained sufficient contact to develop a strong enough rapport with our grandmother “out East.” Our trips to New Jersey were limited—every couple of years, it seemed—while Gaga was adventurous enough to find her way to Minnesota about once every year, at least when I was very young. She was deathly afraid of airplanes, and though she had ample opportunity to fly with Grandpa to one convention or business meeting or another, she refused to leave the ground. Either Gaga rode in Grandpa’s Cadillac or she took the train. Gaga loved trains, actually, and I remember accompanying Mother and Dad and my sisters to the old Milwaukee Depot in Minneapolis to pick her up or drop her off.
In later years, I would have ample opportunity to visit with Gaga, but throughout my formative years, the way I got to know her was through correspondence. It all started when I was in second grade. Mixed with the toys she gave me for Christmas that year was a dark blue box of stationery imprinted with my very own name—Eric B. Nilsson—and address. The “B” stood for “Bruce,” which was the middle name of UB, Grandpa, and Grandpa’s father, George B. Holman, except UB was the only one who went by “Bruce.” Mother told me that “Bruce” came from Robert de Bruce, 14th century King of the Scots, who, she claimed, was our distant ancestor on Grandpa’s side.
Anyway, I remember being very excited about the stationery, and I put it right to use by writing Gaga a thank-you note. But it became more than a note. I liked the fact that I was writing on paper that had come all the way from Gaga and Grandpa’s big house in Rutherford, New Jersey, and that it would be going all the way back to the same hands that had wrapped it for me. I wrote enough to fill several pages.
About two weeks later, I received a reply from Gaga on her personalized stationery, and so began a regular correspondence between us for many years to come. My sisters were writers too, so they got similar treatment. Our writing was quite mundane, but the critical thing was how it gave each of us plenty of practice from an early age. Such is the influence that one can have on another without realizing it, without intending it. For Gaga’s influence in this regard, I shall be forever grateful. (Cont.)
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
