Person:Thea Hustad (1)

Thea Hustad met Olaus J Ottum at a store in Wisconsin (Urne?). My grandma was just 16 and Olaus quite a bit older. They had 13 children, my father was the youngest. Here are some of my memories of the only Grandma I knew. She died when I was 5 years old.

My Grandma Ottum died when I was 5 years old, however even though I was pretty young, I do have memories of her. She had 13 kids and my dad was her youngest. When I knew her she was white haired and heavyset. Once we were at her house when I was little and I rememer her sitting and combing out her long white hair. It seemed like it went to the floor at the time. She braided it on each side and wrapped it around her head like a crown. She loved me and I knew it. She would hold me in her lap and say, "Are you my little girl?" Of course, I would say yes. I was born with club feet and she used to help my mom with the casts. I wore casts that incrementally worked on my soft bones to correct the crooked feet. Before going to the Dr. the casts had to be removed. I did the same thing with my daughter when she was a baby. So my grandma helped and maybe that's why I remember her so well. Other things I remember were once going to see her at a hospital on the way home from a trip to "the cabin" up north in Brainerd, MN. I remember thinking later when she died that she was in her hospital bed when a bobcat jumped through the window and ate her. I guess I had heard Little Red Riding Hood enough that I thought that's the way grandma's died. Someone at the cabin had been talking about seeing a bobcat up there so I guess I put it all together into what made sense to me-ha! Another thing that happened around that time was that I was sick and in bed. We had a lot of kids and used the dining room for a bedroom at this time. The dining room was connected by a swinging door to the kitchen and, laying in my bed, I could hear the adults talking about someone dying and what they were going to do. So, I think my mother was surprised when I walked into the kitchen with a worried expression on my face and asked her if I was dying. She assured me I wasn't and sent me back to bed. Of course it was my grandma they were talking about. She must have been getting pretty old and had been sick-I'm not even sure what it was. They moved her into a green house that had white shutters with red hearts on them. I remember going to see her once. She had a roommate with a doll and for some reason I remember one old lady who had a hole in her foot-who knows where that came from...anyway. My grandma died soon afterwards and I remember thinking that I should be very sad because my grandma died and that was a grievous occasion but I think I was too young to completely understand it. The main thing I remember is that she loved me. My mom said she was very frugal and used to bake bread and just slice it off of the loaf and hand it to the kids at the kitchen door. I don't imagine with a huge family that a loaf of bread would last too long. I look forward to meeting her again someday.