Holidays at Grandma's House

By Polly Mazariegos nee Wagaman

When I was very young, I remember how excited I was to spend either Thanksgiving and/or Christmas at Nanny's house. We called our grandparents Nanny and Pappy. Nanny was Emma Wike nee Feaster and Pappy was Charles Wike.

We drove from Gettysburg to Fredericksburg, PA, where Nanny lived. It took us usually two hours. The roads were dirt back then. Nanny lived at the top of a mountain. If you sat on her front porch and looked out, you cold see vast farmland in the valley below. When cars went by we'd watch and see which way they went at the bottom of the mountain. If they passed our friends house, we could watch them appear in the valley. I had so many wonderful and happy memories at Nanny's.

Thanksgiving, we usually went to Nanny's house and later when she moved to her apartment in town, and we'd exchange Christmas presents because we were never sure we'd get down for Christmas, so our Christmas was Thanksgiving Day.

I'm not sure what our meal was, only that I got to see my favorite aunt who was a year younger then I was and Nanny's youngest child. Her name was Louise Bertha Long nee Wike.

I also remember Nanny telling us not to go into the woods because there would be hunters in the forest looking for deer.

Did we listen? Definitely not. We'd sneak out saying we wanted to play ball in the field.

My mother, Myra Riley nee Wike, told us about a hermit who lived in the forest and she said he was mean. He doesn't like people near his cabin. "He'll shoot first and check later to see who it was."

One time we snuck off and while we were walking in the woods, we heard rustling of leaves. When we'd stop to listen, the rustling would stop. We did this more than one time. We decided to run the rest of the way down the mountain and get out of the woods as soon as we could. We went to the Dave's house and played ball there. Then we were afraid to go back up the mountain road to go home. We ran up past the area where we heard noise and arrived back at Nanny's house. We told them about someone or something chasing us and stopping when we did. My stepfather Andrew Riley said it was him, but we did not believe him because we looked back and could not see anyone.

Holidays at Grandma's House

By Polly Mazariegos nee Wagaman