notes about callan relatives first names d thru g
Gertrude Veronica Collins Walcovy 1900 - 1965
My grandmother was known as "Gertu", not only by her son and grandchildren but by just about everybody in the family. It was a made up name, my father couldn't say Gertrude when he was a child. I remember the first time I saw the name spelled, it was at her funeral, Paul McGrath, (cousin and funeral director) had a lovely spray of baby pink roses with her name.
I have a carbon copy of a letter my grandmother wrote to her father in 1913.
Conshohocken, PA
June 15, 1913
Dear Father:-
I write you a letter to ask you if you will send me 4 dollars to buy tires for my bicickle (sic); I want them - this week we stop school to-day; so I want to get them I get promoted to-day; send the money as soon as you get this letter; are you coming home for the 4th of July try to come anyway; but don't forget the money
YOUR DAUGHTER GERTRUDE COLLINS
DON'T FORGET $4
Well, at thirteen, she was a pretty poor typist and her spelling was interesting but she got the point across, she wanted that Four Dollars for tires for her bike!
Gertu married my grandfather, Robert Lawrence Walcovic in March of 1924 and here is where I get conflicting stories. They lived with her parents, as my father said. They lived with his sister, Annie Campbell, as Annie Campbell's daughter told me. No matter, they lived somewhere in Conshohocken and after Dad was born my grandfather rented a small apartment. Gertu refused to move in and wanted to stay with her sisters. That's Dad's version. Whatever the story, she did refuse and my grandparents separated.
For some reason Gertu didn't like Gramps' last name. Their only child, my father, was baptized Robert Walcovic, but his birth certificate says Walcovey and she finally changed the name to Walcovy and we have been Walcovy ever since. Of course none of this was done legally.
My first memory of my grandmother was when I was about six. She lived in Norristown and we lived on a farm in Bucks County. She was driving me home from her apartment and taught me to tell time in her old green Chevy. She always drove a Chevy, trading them in every three years. It wasn't until years after her death, I learned she "went out" with the Chevy dealer in Norristown.
Gertu lived on Haws Avenue in Norristown from the time I can remember. For some strange reason she never lived in the same apartment but kept moving up and down the block. One moving day, I was about eight, I drew several new pictures for the new apartment and hung them in the hallway, at the eye level of an 8 year old. The apartments were always the same, one bedroom, eat-in kitchen, living room and a bathroom with wonderful tiles on the floor, perfect to practice tap dancing.
After we moved to NY when I was eight, I made several visits to Gertu's. In her bedroom was a desk with a large, wooden chair. She telephoned us, in NY, every Sunday night for three minutes. She had an egg timer. Also in her bedroom was a very large box with tons of old clothes to play "dress-up". When I found one of her 1920's "Flapper" dresses in the box, she taught me the Charleston.
In the apartment was a old wringer washer she would hook up to the kitchen faucet. She hung her cloths out to dry. In winter her underpants would freeze. There was nothing funnier to a kid then large, long legged frozen underpants. She always wore a dress, never slacks and as a business woman always looked perfect. For less formal occasions she would wear pop beads around her neck. She always wore a watch on a little silver bow on the breast of her jacket or dress.
Gertu had the most amazing purse. It seemed to have everything and anything anyone needed; a button, thread and needle, safety pins, always Kleenex, and the M&M's which she carried to give the grandchildren and cousins.
On my summer visits sometimes I would go to work with her at the Unemployment Division in Lansdale. I was always put to work stuffing envelopes, stamping the return address and licking them. I would get paid for my efforts and we would go to lunch. When she made her field visits I would come along. These were great, we'd go to the sweater factory, I'd get a sweater, to the ice cream factory and I'd get ice cream. Dinner was usually the same, a hamburger patty, (cooked to death), spinach, (cooked to death) and grated raw carrots. My grandmother had to be the world's worst cook. On Sunday's after Mass we would have Sticky Buns and then visit the relatives all around the Philly area. I loved collecting cousins!
I use to sit in her kitchen listening to the radio and her favorite program was Fibber McGee and Molly. She loved it when he opened the closet. Gertu had a television, but we didn't watch it much, we were so busy on our visits, or to the movies or the Valley Forge Music Circus, or planning the upcoming Cousin's Picnic.
At Christmas time Gertu would visit us in NY and the four of us always received the same present, different colors, but always the same so there wouldn't be any fights. Some of the presents I remember from various years were; very large stuffed cats, cots, and a suitcase for each of us, (that was so cool).
At Christmas of 1964 she was very ill and came for Christmas and stayed with us. She was too weak to always come downstairs for dinner, so we took turns having dinner with her upstairs. After school I would take her for a walk up and down the hall. She was a shadow of her former self, old with shocking white hair. I didn't know her hair was white, she always dyed it for business purposes.
Gertu died at our home in February of 1965. I miss her dearly. I wish we could have known each other as adults. A few years ago my father told my brother that I scared him, because I was so much like his mother. It's one of the greatest compliments I have ever received.
In loving memory of my grandmother
Donna E. Walcovy