Memoirs: My Grandmother

I thought it about time that I actually write a post entitled "Memoirs".  When I started this blog, I envisioned myself writing lots of autobiographical entries, because I enjoy talking about my personal journey with horses.  I believe that I inherited this trait from my maternal grandmother.  My Grandma, Simone, was from Switzerland and lived in her home country until she was thirty years old.  After years of working in her father's carpentry business and caring for her sick mother, she met a handsome American serviceman, my Grandfather, Charles, and moved to the United States to marry and begin a family.

Switzerland is a country so beautiful that it literally looks like a postcard.  My Grandmother went through "landscape withdrawal" when she moved to the United States.  She had recently lost her mother, she missed her family, especially her younger brother, Claude, and she missed the mountains and flowers of Switzerland.  My Grandmother always talked about her country and never failed to point out a beautiful landscape as we drove through New Jersey or Virginia.  My Grandma took her children to Michigan's Great Lakes and planned many camping trips in the Appalachian mountains; my mother can attest that Grandma never let a mountain or flower go unnoticed by her children (and grandchildren later on!).  Although I am sure that the Great Lakes and the Appalachians cannot compare to the Alps, this did not stop my Grandma from appreciating them or sharing them with her family.  My life with horses is not exactly "Switzerland meets Detroit" (my grandparents' first home together), but the desire to delve into the past a little, to reminisce, is definitely in my veins.  And it is not beyond me to think fondly of a horse from my life and feel tears pushing against my lower lids.

Despite my intentions for this blog, as I began to write, there were so many current topics that I wanted to discuss and, let's face it, I wanted to write about my horse.  So "Memoirs" will be a reoccurring topic, but I plan to continue mixing the present with the past, and maybe even some future in there, too!

First up: How A Horse Girl Afforded Riding Lessons