Lisa Alzo’s “Fearless Females” blog prompt for March 16th is: If you could have lunch with any female family member (living or dead) or any famous female who would it be and why? Where would you go? What would you eat?

This is a hard one. I would definitely choose a female family member over someone famous – but which one?

After making a long list of possible lunch companions, I finally settled on my grandmother Nora Marie Kieron Blacker.

Nora was 100% Irish, having been born in Butte, Montana to immigrant parents – her father from County Monaghan and her mother from County Galway. Nora’s mother Kate died when she was only 36 years old – Nora was just a toddler. Sadly, history repeated itself when Nora also died at age 36 leaving my grandfather to raise five children. The youngest was 8 and the oldest was 14.

As most of us can only imagine, her death deeply affected each of her children for the rest of their lives – and her memory haunts the grandchildren who never knew her.

My mother was only 8 years old when her mother died, but she has a few wonderful memories –

About how her mother had a beautiful voice and loved to sing and dance. Her favorite song was “Cheek to Cheek”. As my mom puts it, “She’d really belt that one out!”

About how she was very fond of baseball and was known to jump up and down on the couch with excitement while listening to a game on the radio. Once during a prolonged hospital stay, she went so crazy while listening to a game that the nurses had to turn the radio off to calm her down.

About how she would take all five of her children on long walks to Cox Lake, stopping for a picnic under a tree along the way. Or sometimes to the NP Depot to buy penny candy – for herself and the kids. She loved anything with nuts, especially Mr. Goodbar.

And about the time just before the 1935 earthquake hit Helena in the early morning hours when she gathered up all her children and brought them out into the middle of the street to keep them safe.

I would love to have a picnic lunch with my grandmother – under that tree on the road to Cox Lake. We would have fried chicken with potato salad – and brownies with nuts, of course. I could ask everything I’ve always wanted to know about her and she could ask about everything she’s missed.

And it would be a wonderful afternoon.

Copyright (c) 2016, Lark M. Dalin Robart