Stubborness a Family Trait?

Yesterday my husband had an online conversation with a cousin I haven’t seen since he was a baby. They were talking about my nickname here around the house: “SWMBO” which stands for “She Who Must Be Obeyed”.  Brock (my cousin) suggested that the stubbornness was a “Brockway” trait- that his mother had it and seemed to run strong among her and her sisters. I have to tell Brock…I always thought his mother was the sweet, gentle, reasonable one! Looking back at Grandma B I may have to reassess my opinion.

Grandma had 8 children. Can you imagine the dishes done every day? Grandma hated doing dishes. And Grandpa couldn’t abide dirty dishes setting in the kitchen. In those days it wasn’t about loading the dishwasher or even about turning on the tap and filling the sink. Grandma had a wood stove and huge “dishpans” made of metal in which she could heat water to wash and then rinse. One day she washed, rinsed and dried one “load”, had the rinse pan full and put it back on the stove to reheat the water. Then she filled the wash tub and put it back on the stove. About that time Grandpa walked in…saw two pans of dishes setting there and picked one up. As he threw the pan of dishes out the door into the yard, he stated “If you can’t keep the?%#@ dishes clean then you have too many dishes!” My Grandmother picked up the second pan tossed it out the door saying “If you can throw out the clean I can throw out the dirty!”  It wasn’t his tossing the dishes that got to her…it was that he tossed the ones she’d already washed and left her the ones she hadn’t! Sweet, gentle, reasonable…

I never heard Grandma Brockway raise her voice. I never heard her swear and I don’t believe I ever heard her say no. She too was a sweet, gentle, reasonable woman. Growing up I remember Grandpa saying she voted the way he told her, he believed he literally cast two votes. It was only after his death that she made the statement “When I walked into that booth and that curtain closed, he had no idea who I voted for, and I took pride that my vote often canceled his.” Sweet, gentle, reasonable….

I grew up assuming that the stubborn gene came from our Grandfather Brockway also, only now have I begun to understand it was from our Grandmother --Adelaide Cadmas Brockway…Thereby being a “Cadmas trait.”

The link below is about a wonderful old lady....I am surprised shes not wearing purple with a red hat...When I'm an old woman....don't mess with me