Remembering Mor-Mor

Mor-Mor means mothers mother in Swedish, which makes, Mor-Mor my grandmother. She recently left us for the great Goomba in the sky, and I had to put some memories down.


Mor-Mor always had gumdrops in a crystal bowl with a lid. I would only ever eat gumdrops at her house, trying to lift the lid of the bowl as quietly as possible so my mother wouldn't know I was on my 5th or 6th. Sometimes when I lifted the lid I would be surprised and find chocolate inside instead.

When I was young, I loved Mor Mor's pantry where she had big glass jars of cereal, homemade chex mix, nuts, pretzels and pasta. My dream of having a pantry full of food organized into the new Oxo Pop containers comes from her solution to a standard kitchen problem before the blessing of Oxo.

Mor-Mor introduced me to tuna melts one winter day when I was at her house doing craft projects. I loved the cheese, but hated the pickles added to the tuna. I remember sitting in the sun at her dining room table, eating lunch with her and my grandfather.

Mor-Mor didn't drink coffee, she had Lipton's tea with lemon. I loved it that at family functions she and I would have tea after dinner while everyone else had coffee. I could never convince her to try any of my foo-foo teas, she was always faithful to her Lipton's.

As a child, Christmas Eve was always at Mor-Mor's house. There was always a HUGE pile of presents under the tree, but Mor-Mor insisted that we sit down to a wonderful family dinner, and get all the dishes done, before tearing into a single present.

My Mom tells me that when she was growing up, Mor-Mor would make my grandfather, Mor-Far (mother's father in Swedish) a hard boiled egg every morning. When my parents were first married, my mother made a hard boiled egg for my father every morning, until he admitted that he doesn't like them.

Mor-Mor always made sun tea in the summers. You could be pretty sure whenever you went there in the summer time, there would be a jar of tea sitting in the sun baking until it was a perfect golden. I loved having a nice cold glass with 3 packets of Sweet-N-Low.