So Much Carried in a Name
I was named for my paternal grandmother,
born almost 150 years ago.
She was still alive when I was born,
though I never had the chance to know her,
except through stories my parents told me.
When I was a child I hated my name;
it was foreign and nobody ever said it right.
My mother used to tell me
how happy “Grandma in Germany” was
when she learned I'd carry her name.
I loved the presents she sent for Christmas and birthdays
but I can't honestly say I loved her.
How can you love someone you never really knew?
I never said that aloud.
Even as a child I knew that would be hurtful.
I'm sorry about that now.
I wish I could have really known her,
the way I knew my mother's mother.
It seems wrong that I don't,
especially since I carry her name.
In school I marveled at the idea
that my German grandparents
were born not long after the Civil War.
It seemed incredible to me then—it still does.
The older I get, the more I wish
I could've known my grandparents—
all of them.
Even the ones I knew,
I only knew as a child.
By the time I was ten, they were all gone.
Sometimes I wonder what it would be like
to sit with them today and hear all their stories,
especially the ones they wouldn't have told a child.
My mother used to say
if wishes were horses, then beggars would ride.
She might have heard that from one of my grands.
How I would love to ride away on those wishes.
Elise Skidmore ©2026
I understand your feelings. Both of my grandmothers died when I was too young to form memories of them (and both of my grandfathers died before I was born). I used to be envious of my friends who still had grandparents in their lives.
Thanks, Linda. My father’s father died when my dad was 16. It was his dying wish that his youngest son (my dad) get out of Germany before Hitler had a chance to draft him and send him to the Russian front. His mother did come to visit the US once after the war when my sister was a toddler. I wasn’t even a twinkle in my father’s eye as my mother used to put it. She & my mother became very close and my grandmother mentioned how disappointed she was that none of her granddaughters had been named after her. My mother, not thinking she was ever going to have anymore children told her if she ever had another baby and it was a girl, she’d name her Elise. My parents had decided on naming me Nancy, up until the last minute, when my mother thought she was going to die because she was hemoraging during my birth. She told them if it’s a boy name him after his father, if it’s a girl name her after her grandmother. I’m not going to be here anyway. Later, my father was surprised that I wasn’t Nancy (which is my middle name) and my grandmother was delighted when she heard the news. 🙂
Hey really nice photos…such a nice website. I sm jealous
Thank you, Michael. Those photos are a treasure to me. I have them framed in my living room.
Really love this. Your grandparents must have been unique. Did you ever meet them? Love to see yor photo album
Thanks, Michael.
As I wrote in the poem, I never met my father’s parents. His father died when my dad was 16 and it was his dying wish that my dad get our of Germany before Hitler could send him to the Russian front. My father’s mother came to visit the US when my sister was a toddler, long before I was born, so I never met her. I only knew her from the cards and gifts she sent. I knew my mother’s parents very well since they lived with us until they passed. I was 10 then (they both died in the same year), so I only knew them as a child would. These days I often wish I could’ve known all of them as contemporaries rather than grandparents.