Nana Greco – by Doug Greco

Eleanor “Nana” Greco, my paternal grandmother, grew up on the Isle of Que, a picturesque ½ mile wide and 5 mile long tiny island between the small town of Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania and the Susquehanna River.   Small, beautiful homes from the 1800’s and lots of boating and swimming activities.  In fact both my dad, Joe Greco and Uncle Jeff Greco raced speedboats there in the summer when they were younger. My uncle won the National Championship in his age category, and my dad the Eastern Seaboard Championship. The island had a small pond that froze over in the winter and became an ice-skating venue called “Little Norway.”   

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At the time I began writing stories about my grandparents, Nana Greco had been my only living grandparent, and was well into her 90’s.   She knew I was writing about her and told my dad the story of how she met Papap Greco.    My grandfather had been a student at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, and a football player named to the national “Little All-America” team for small colleges.  He played under Head Coach Amos Alonzo Stagg Jr., and his legendary father and Associate Head Coach, Amos Alonzo Stagg.  Such players were called “Staggies”.   Nana worked as a secretary in the President’s office.

They had spotted each other in an ice-cream shop near campus, and Papap asked if he could walk her home.  Nana concealed the fact that she lived just two blocks away, and led Papap on a two-mile circuit around town despite the fact that he was limping from a recent football injury.   When he asked why she misled him, Nana answered, “I just wanted to get to know you better.”   Sometimes families are born out of cunning.

Nana Greco caught butterflies as a pastime.   She ran through the fields at my grandparents’ cottage called “The Farm” in nearby Snydertown, dressed in a bright yellow blouse and white shorts and shoes, snagging them with a net.   Like capturing lighting in a bottle.   In her house we found books with butterflies pressed neatly between the pages, and others immortalized in tombs of rectangular glass. 

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Nana loved leopard: leopard pants, leopard jackets, leopard scarves.   She also loved brightly colored clothes and expensive shoes and purses.  Her brazen arrangement rendered sublime under the force of her charisma.   She and my grandfather bought a yellow Cadillac convertible with leopard interior, and my dad said he and his siblings had to wear matching leopard berets, much to his chagrin. My dad was the oldest of their four children, along with my Uncle Jeff, Aunt Linda, and Uncle Jon.

Nana cooked concoctions.   Casseroles with cold cuts and stray vegetables.  Soufflés with cheese and fruit.   Whatever she found in the fridge went into the stew.   Sometimes a bit too much: my mom was present when my Aunt Martie pulled one of Nana’s beautiful, fruit-laden Jell-O molds out of the fridge, only to find the mixing spoon inadvertently frozen in the middle.   

A bee stung me in the butt when I was a boy.   I ran crying into Nana Greco’s house.  She instructed me to drop-pant, and she pulled the stinger out.   Ironically, on a separate occasion my right butt-cheek collapsed for several days after my grandfather, the doctor, gave me a shot of medicine there.  It eventually popped back into shape. 

My grandmother was a civic leader: She served on the public library and Womens Club boards, and ran ticket sales for the community theater.   When show time came for any of these groups, she called in all her chips.  Like LBJ pressuring Congress members to vote for his bills, Nana cornered, cajoled, needled, and persuaded people to buy tickets and make donations.  She always worked the ticket table at events in order to know who followed through on their promise or not.

One day while visiting Nana when she was around 85, I put out my arm to help her across the street to church.   She snapped back, “What? Do you need help crossing the street?!”  I dropped my arm and she laughed loudly at me.

At age 88, Nana fell in her bathroom and broke her foot.   She crawled down the steps and hobbled to her car.  She drove to the hairdresser and kept her appointment.   She hobbled back into the car, drove home, hobbled into the kitchen.   A door in the kitchen led into my grandfather’s doctor’s office.  Now it is my uncle’s practice.   Nana knocked.   When the nurse came in Nana said she needed a ride to the emergency room because she broke her foot. 

She read two books a week, well into her 90’s.  She loved medieval and Renaissance court novels, historical fiction on the U.S. and Europe, and non-fiction thrillers like “The Secret Wars of the CIA.”  

A few summers before she passed, I brought Nana Greco a book on grassroots organizing that had a passing mention of me asking a question in a meeting.  I had previously tried to explain to Nana many times what I did for a living, but couldn’t quite get her to connect to it.  But when I showed her this book, she held it for almost an hour, combing through its pages, and for the first time gave me a heartfelt compliment on my work.   “My God.  How many people get written about in a book?” Something about the weight of the book in her hands made my accomplishments real in a way that explaining my work to her never did before.   

  

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My grandmother went shopping at least twice a week.   Philadelphia, Harrisburg, Allentown, and New York.   She dedicated herself to shopping.  It was part of her personality, her self-expression.  As a larger than life personality living in a small town of 5,000, it also gave her a momentary escape to the big city.   She once had the famous designer of the Copacabana Club in New York, Ruben Bogenhorn, redesign their basement into a “Mad Men” era rumpus room, as chronicled in an early post of the Yellow Pig.

When my grandfather developed throat cancer in his 60’s, Nana drove him to Philadelphia twice a week for over a year for treatments.  She was devoted him.  She had spent her life helping manage his affairs, supporting his business ventures and social engagements, and most of all nurturing their family.   This happened often behind the scenes and behind the flourish of her larger-than-life personality.   She pulled off the role of a matriarch like an artist.