The Grandmothers::Freda Murray

My maternal grandmother was an amazing storyteller, and her memories of her early days were very detailed, down to descriptions of her home in England when she was very young, through the war years - WWI. She was born in 1895 and lived to be 95. She was a nurse, mother of 2, self-taught naturalist, and through WWII in Montreal, worked alongside the IODE to give soldiers' families (some very large) some assistance when the father's pay was not making it home and the families were destitute. Because her husband was head of Bacteriology and Microbiology at McGill from 1931, he also did government assigned research through the war years. They met many interesting people because of that, and she held her end of discussions eloquently, with grace and humour. She had many grandchildren and great-grandchildren; we still reminisce with stories about her. She was artistic, painted, was a writer of poetry & prose. She is remembered with love. Well, I didn't mean to write so much. I am a new grandmother of a wee one, and wonder if I can ever be what she was. 

~ Sarah Robinson