Words for grandparents

[Alice Faber]

Mark_Mandel at DRAGONSYS.COM wrote:
>Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> writes:
>
>>>>>>
>Subject: Re: Words for grandparents: was: Pittsburgh Dialect
>
>At 11:14 AM -0400 10/19/00, Alice Faber wrote:
>>
>>I grew up in the 50s in a NY suburb. In my immediate family, we
>>distinguished between the two grandmothers as "Grandma Faber" and
>>"Grandma Greenberg". One set of cousins, however, referred to Grandma
>>Faber as "Nana"; I don't recall what they called their other
>>grandmother, though, even though I should (this other grandmother is
>>the one who taught me to knit and crochet, with European
>>yarn-handling techniques).
>>
>>Alice
>>--
>this, or a variant, does seem to be a Jewish (at least Ashkenazic)
>tradition.  Growing up in NYC and its suburbs in the late 1940's and
>early '50's, my brother and I knew our maternal grandmother only as
>"Nanny" (not "Nana", but close), and her daughter--my aunt--is
>"Nanny" to HER grandchildren.  In each case, only one of the two
>grandmothers is "Nanny", but presumably it's not always the maternal
>grandmother.
><<<<<
>
>I also grew up in the 50s in a NYC suburb and then in NYC itself, in an
>Ashkenazic family. Our (my sister's and my) maternal grandparents were Nana
>(or Nana Tillie) and Grandpa Sam (never just "Grandpa"); our paternal gps
>were Gramms* and Pops, never with their names (Martha and Adolph) attached.
>
>* Transcribed ad lib.; I don't think we ever wrote these nicknames down.
>
>FWIW, the paternal side was a generation newer to Di Goldene Medineh (the
>USA): our paternal grandparents and maternal great-grandparents were the
>immigrant generation.

My family is also Ashkenazic; the grandparents I described were all
immigrants, from Russia. The grandmother whom my cousins called Nana
was born in Odessa and came to New York at the age of 17 (following
the abortive 1905 revolution, during which she was the original
"limousine liberal"--she went to student revolutionary meetings in
Odessa and, according to family legend, her mother sent a servant
after her in a carriage, in case she ran into trouble and needed to
make a quick escape). The other side of the cousins' family was White
Russian, so they might have used a Russian designation for the other
grandmother.

Alice
--
 =============================================================================
Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
New Haven, CT 06511 USA                                     fax (203) 865-8963