Grama’s Rules on Housekeeping & Hospitality, Plus The True Story of the Wise Old Owl

This selection is an homage to my paternal grandmother, Beatrice Evelyn Bowen (1920-2016), who taught me much about life, love and finally, death. She gave me my love of cats and cows. I still grow the red raspberries, flowering maples and peonies she gave me. Such a beautiful soul, my Grandma Law was known as grama (that's how Rhode Islander's say it) to many. Her heart and home were always open to friends and family, for a day or more if they needed. I still use her party games at my own gatherings. Her advice is timely and worth sharing, as the one-year anniversary of her passing is approaching later this month and the holiday season is here, when families gather together everywhere.

Housekeeping Rules
Grama had eleven kids, so housekeeping quickly became a last priority. That is not to say her house was a mess. It was lived-in; floors always seemed to need sweeping or vacuuming, laundry needed to be taken to the laundromat (imagine no washer or dryer with 11 kids!) and chores always needed doing (just the thought of cooking and cleaning for all those bodies is exhausting). They actually had no indoor plumbing for over a decade with kids; the double-seater outhouse is still out back at the old place.

Grama always told me, “Never clean before the weekend.” She said to clean on Monday, which I have adopted as a life rule. I love it! My house stays clean longer, with just morning and night use during the week. If I clean before the weekend, the house is just trashed in minutes after everybody is home Friday afternoon.

She also said, “Never clean before company comes.” This goes against better judgement, right? Wrong. Gram said if the company are friends, they don’t care how clean your house is because they have come to visit you. She said if the company judges you based on the cleanliness of your house, they are not your friends and you probably don’t want them to come back anyway. How simple is that?

Hospitality Rules
Grama never said “No” to a guest, whether a friend or relative needed a place for the night, or the same needed a place until they got on their feet (except when it came to letting my brother Randy and my cousin Matthew J Lump stay over the same night due to too much shenanigans). Of course, Grampa Law had house rules that limited the length of stay. Over the 70 years she lived at Hoot Owl Farm, our family homestead in RI, she never turned away a person in need, even when she barely knew them or didn’t really like them. That is more than I can say I would really do.

There was always enough food, somehow. With 11 kids, 18 grandchildren, a ton of neighbor kids and friends, and eventually, a couple dozen great grandchildren, there were always cookies, freezer pops, or something to offer the masses. We learned to share what we had and enjoy it.

There was never a harsh word spoken from her mouth, either. That is not to say she did not reprimand or discipline, but somehow, she did everything with grace and love, never anger or bitterness. This is the real lesson. I should mention her favorite animals was owls and the farmhouse is full of hundreds of them, statues, trivets, pictures, paperweights, you name it. I want to share an old English nursery rhyme she used to recite, among others, which sums up her approach to life:

There was an old owl
Who lived in an oak.
The more he saw,
The less he spoke.
The less he spoke,
The more he heard.
Why can’t we be more like that old bird?

Gram didn’t say a lot. In fact, when she spoke, people listened. She remained a stoic yet humble woman, so typical of the women of her generation, survivors of WWII and the Great Depression. She was that old bird, literally, and even referred to herself as an old bird sometimes. Ironically, her last three and a half years were spent mute after she was struck by a stroke at age ninety-three. I had the privilege of helping my aunts to care for her during the last year or two. While I am sad she is gone beyond a phone call or visit, the memories of her life and death are not sad. They remain lessons I look on when I face life’s struggles or when I face life’s joys. I hope you are entertained by her story and life lessons.