The Life of Calla Della Jacobs - Part 4a, The Move to Kokomo, Indiana

I think life got better for Grandma in 1937 when Mom and Dad invited her to come live with them in Kokomo. She acted as mid-wife when I was born in 1939, was part of the family from my earliest memory, shared the house work, and went on vacations with us. Grandma was always there to comfort Don and I. I remember calling her “Mom” for a number of my early years, though I did know the difference.She had her own bedroom, and did much of the cooking with Mom’s help. She regularly prepared a variety of Midwestern meals such as fried chicken, chicken fried steak, roasts, beans, and fried or mashed potatoes. Her pies were great with the lightest of flaky crusts. Grandma’s only short-coming, according to her, was that she could never get the dumplings right - they didn’t rise properly or something… or the other. They tasted okay to me, but then again, I had never sampled the perfect chicken dumpling that she envisioned. Being a good cook helped to make her financially secure, as she got a job at the Guarantee Restaurant on Main Street shortly after arriving. As far as I can remember, she always had that position, and worked it till her retirement in 1950. It seems that her Social Security check was $65. She had no expenses, so it was all disposable income. Her old boss at the Guarantee ask her to help in the startup of a new restaurant on the south edge of town in 1952 so she returned to work for a period.In 1953 Grandma and a neighbor went into business. Mrs. Thelma Schofield, who lived across Sycamore Street from us, had a small neighborhood grocery, and the two decided to open a drive-in hamburger joint in the back of it. They pooled their money and bought a big stove, deep-fryer, trays that hooked onto car doors, etc, and went into business. Their food was good, but it takes more that a good cook to make a successful business - advertising for example, of which they neglected entirely. I hardly remember them getting any customers. They closed after a few months, and divided the equipment - Grandma got the deep-fryer and some trays amongst other things. Those items gathered dust in our basement for the next thirty years. Mom and Dad shipped the deep fryer to Alaska where it saw a bit more service - don’t recall what happened to the trays.
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