The Time Capsule: A grandmother’s secret and a cigar pact
Sometimes one column leads to another, and such is the case with this one. A couple of days ago, I did a program at the library in Urbandale. When it was over, a woman named Harriett McConnell approached. From her purse she produced a newspaper clipping and asked if I remembered. It was an item that appeared in this column two or three months earlier.
Regular readers will recall a lady who has entered into a pact with some of her friends. These women share a dread of what might happen to their undergarments after their passing. I’ll not re-hash the column, but essentially they formed a contract stipulating that upon the demise of any member, the survivors will, with due haste, recover the dainties of the departed and burn them.
Yes, I told Harriett, I remember.
What, she asked, will happen to the last survivor?
This is an excellent question. If I was a keen, highly-trained reporter rather than a minimum-wage freelancing hack I’d have inquired at the time the story was being related. Doing so did not occur to me. Harriett wondered if the lady who performed a less-than-pleasant task for her dear friends would be left, so to speak, holding the bags.
Actually, I don’t think Harriett particularly cared. She brought up the column because it reminded her of another pact; one she wanted to talk about.
She told me her grandmother, Cora, had smoked King Edward cigars. She’d developed the habit as a teenager while growing up on a tobacco farm in Kentucky. As she grew older, married, moved to Iowa, joined a bridge club and a church group, she realized her King Edward’s were socially frowned upon. She therefore sought pleasure in seclusion.
Harriett was one of several grandchildren who did not know. It was only when she barged, unannounced, into grandma’s sewing room that she learned the awful truth. A somewhat flustered Cora swore Harriett to secrecy.
As time passed Harriett came to realize grandma treated her with deference. Harriett got the biggest cookie, the choicest slice of pie. Even better, she was the only grandchild allowed access to grandma’s sewing room. She remembers well the ritual; grandma would unwrap the cigar, hold it to her nose, breathe deeply and sigh, then open a window, turn on an exhaust fan, and light up. Harriet said that Cora, at 5’1” and perhaps 100 pounds, always immaculately dressed, her silver hair in a tight bun, seemed entirely out of place puffing and blowing smoke into the fan.
Cora did not want family members to learn of her cigars and asked Harriett to dispose of them when the time came. Harriett agreed. Now we move ahead to a few weeks ago. Harriet, married with children, got the call. Grandma Cora had passed peacefully during the night. The family would soon be gathering.
Harriet drove across the metro area, let herself into grandma’s house, and went to the sewing room. In the top dresser drawer, the usual place, she found a box of cigars, Zippo lighter and a package of mints.
Near the Des Moines Botanical Center is a walkway along the river. Harriett went, strolled to the water’s edge and prepared to fulfill a promise. Before doing so she opened the box. Inside, resting on a row of cigars, was a note. She read these words: “Thank you and God bless you, Harriett. If I had my life to live over I would not burden either of us with this vice.”
I’d expected Harriett’s story to have a funny ending, to see her reach the punch line with laughter. Instead she wept, and I felt a little lump myself.
Roy Marshall is a local historian and columnist for the Red Oak Express. He can be contacted at news@redoakexpress.com.