I was privileged to have lived with my grandmother, Fannie Hille. During the depression my family moved in with her and my step-grandfather, Bill Hille. Later in the late 1930's after Grandpa died, she took turns living with us, with my Aunt Lila and with my Uncle Dewey and Aunt Helen. Since my mother worked, Grandma Hille was often in charge of my sister Jean and me. She was great fun, very loving, and patient. She was talented in fancy needlework. We often sat by her feet in the afternooon while she worked on an afghan or doily. She told us stories, and in her work basket she kept some little bridge tallies in the shape of animals that entertained us. Mine was a red and white polka dot kiitten. She had a great sense of fun, and the need for humans to celebrate. Holidays were special because Grandma and my mother made them so. I remember the Easter that the Easter Bunny left Jean and me pretty organdy dresses. We knew it was the Bunny, because he left muddy rabbit paw prints all over the dining room tablecloth. We had to watch our step on April Fool's Day when Grandma was around. One April first we found our breakfast silverware sewn to the tablecloth, our chair legs tied to the table legs, and rags in the middle of our nice plump pancakes. At the neighborhood Halloween party that my folks gave, Grandma told such a scary ghost story that a little neighborhood boy wet his pants with fright. Another Halloween, Grandma dressed up like a ghost and took Jean and me "trick or treating". Then there was the Christmas that Grandma insisted that we leave Santa a glass of wine along with his cookies. The next morning she told us the unlikely story that he had found the bottle secreted in the cellar stairway, and had drunk it all. If Grandma said so it was true. Now I know my adult family members were the drinkers.

In the heart of the Great Depression, many children had no gifts, but it must have been Christmas of 1934 that Jean and I found under the tree a beautiful crib with embroidered sheets and a little blanket with a baby doll. The crib was the work of my craftsman father and the linens that of Grandma Hille. I owe some of my spiritual growth to her also. She was a devout Christian and loved Jesus. She was also a devout Baptist. Although I was raised in the Methodist church, we went to Vacation Bible School at the Baptist church and also the Early Release Program that New York schools had at that time in history. Every Friday we were let out of school early to attend religious education classes at the church of our parents' choice. For some reason Jean and I went to Grandma Hille's church. It may have been that our church didn't have Vacation Bible School and Early Release classes. I don't remember that. My sister is still a Baptist, but I have returned to my Methodist roots.

When my mother was pregnant with my brother in 1939, my grandmother didn't want to "bother" my parents with her problem of a growth in her abdomen. The result was that by the time she saw a doctor she had terminal cancer of the stomach. She died a slow, painful death, leaving us on her 62nd birthday. She left a huge hole in our lives and in our hearts. She had a profound influence on my life and the way I have lived it. Written by Marjorie Bacon Giebitz, her grand daughter and my mother