Yesterday was my grandmother’s birthday. She passed away in 2001, but if she was still alive, she would have been 113.
Or maybe 112.
It’s confusing because she had two birth certificates: one for July 16, 1912; the other for July 16, 1913. Apparently, when she was a teenager, she wanted to work but wasn’t old enough, so she had a fake birth certificate made to get a job.
Resourceful, albeit illegal.
What makes this even wilder is that nobody knew until 1992 when she turned 80 — or, more accurately, 79. We threw her a surprise birthday party, but the surprise was on us.
That was Jeanne Dewey in a nutshell. She did what she wanted when she wanted, and didn’t give a damn what people thought. She was her ‘authentic self’ before that was even a thing.
My grandma was definitely one of a kind. She had a squishy thumb and a gemstone ring with the birthstones of all her grandchildren. She wore housecoats and slippers and kept her hair curls pinned with large silver clips until she was ready to the leave the house. She never wore pants or left home without lipstick on (even the three times she left on a stretcher).
She traveled by car service (the 1980s Brooklyn version of Uber), kept extra money in her bra when she shopped, and stealthily slipped a $20 bill in my pocket every time we hugged goodbye.
In the summer, she’d make my sister and me sleeveless tops out of hand towels. In the fall, she’d take us back-to-school shopping for new clothes, followed by lunch at Hinsch’s. She was big on traditions and even bigger on family.
A religious woman, my grandma recited the Rosary daily, read prayer cards nightly, and never missed Sunday mass. She didn’t curse, but was full of crass expressions — from “It’s as gray as the cat’s ass in May” to explain a dreary day to “Up the cow’s ass for a milkshake” to answer a nosy inquiry about where she was going.
She was smart and sassy with a wicked tongue. Like Sophia Petrillo from The Golden Girls, Jeanne Dewey was as critical, opinionated, and blunt as she was funny and fresh. Her fake smile was her only tell when she was being sarcastic (if you knew her well enough to tell the difference).
As one of only three granddaughters (out of eight grandchildren), I was named after my grandmother; my middle name is Jeanne. But the funny thing about being her namesake is that Jeanne wasn’t even her real name. Like her birth certificate, she changed it (from Genevieve) because “[she] wanted to” (as she once told me a long time ago).
That was the kind of woman my grandmother was: Confident and bold, even though women of her generation weren’t supposed to be.
Maybe it’s because we share a name. Maybe it’s because we share character traits (I, too, am opinionated with a fresh mouth, in case you couldn’t tell). Maybe it’s just because she just didn’t give a damn. For all those reasons and more, my grandma is my idol. My hero. My spirit animal (if people can be spirit animals, that is).
As I age, I try to channel my inner Jeanne Dewey every day — especially with my family. They may not always like my sauciness, but I think she’d be proud.
—LJDT
