Peacemaking: A Grandmother’s Legacy

Not long ago, I watched an old favorite musical, The Music Man. One memorable song shows a group of gossips. “Pick a little, talk a little, pick a little, talk a little. Cheep! Cheep! Cheep! Talk a lot, pick a little more.” As an owner of chickens, I laughed at the similarities of these biddies. It wasn’t funny, though, when a friend talked about her former workplace and the intrigues and chin wag that finally pushed her out.

But are we not counseled to live a higher standard? Psalms 133 says, “How good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity.” The psalmist talks about how this kindness is like the dews falling on the mountains, giving life evermore.

I recently heard a fascinating example of the power of peacemaking. A friend told the story of a church women’s group in the western U.S. during the late 1950’s that was awash in rumormongering. The group was so divisive that it threatened the whole congregation, and leaders, alarmed, decided that the best thing to do was to disband the women’s organization altogether for a time.

After about a year, the church reinstated the women’s group, this time with a newcomer selected to be the president: my friend’s grandmother. Her job was to quell the chatter and build unity. Over time, she was able to do exactly that. Through her example, the organization became a place of safety and trust for the women in her care.

This story intrigued me. How exactly did she instill harmony? What were her secrets? My friend was happy to share stories about her grandmother.

“Grandmother didn’t give in to criticism,” explained my friend. “She never spoke ill of anyone. Though she lived in the day when it wasn’t appropriate to ‘air your dirty laundry,’ she didn’t air anyone’s dirty laundry. She had a way of turning the conversation, and sharing insightful things about people. She had a gift for seeing the good.” My friend mentioned a cousin who made an unwise marriage that ended in divorce. “The man was kind of a jerk,” my friend confided. “No one had anything nice to say about him—except my grandmother.”

Her grandmother was particularly insightful and observant about the positive things she saw in the people around her, and was always ready to share her observations. “If someone was to say something like, ‘Oh, he isn’t a very good husband,” remarked my friend, “my grandmother would come back with a comment like, ‘have you noticed, he is always smiling?’ She was always saying things like that.”

As Proverbs 10:20 notes, “The tongue of the just is as choice silver.” My friend’s grandmother used her “silver” tongue over and over, demonstrating how to turn meanness to charity. My friend shared an experience from her teen years when she visited another state and attended a dance there. After the activity, she and other family members criticized the dance, comparing it to activities at home. Her grandmother heard the exchange. “She was very kind, and she never put us down, but she told us an interesting story” about two groups of disparaging people, and the consequences they wrought. The teens got the gentle message, and stopped nit-picking.

My friend talked about going with her grandmother to visit a beloved relative. The relative’s home had been ill-cared for, and animal smells and hair were everywhere. My friend and other family members felt concern about the reaction of their unfailingly clean grandmother. “She sat on that dirty couch and visited,” noted my friend, and said many loving things that made the host feel good. “Back in the car, someone tried to gossip kindly: ‘I don’t know about that house….’ But my grandmother said, ‘Really? I didn’t notice. But did you notice…’ and she went on to say something kind” and observant about the relative. “She really didn’t notice the dirt,” concluded my friend.

In her final days, the grandmother was ill and hospitalized. “The staff was sometimes a little rough on my grandmother,” confessed my friend, “my grandmother was fragile.” Nevertheless, Grandmother saw the good in her caretakers, praising them and sharing nice things about them with others. One nurse wept in my friend’s presence, saying, “No one has ever been so kind to me.”

Over the years those peacemaking skills, tenderly instilled by a devoted grandmother, have dropped as the dews over the mountains upon her offspring. “Every year we get together for a week in the summer—about 70 of her descendants. I can honestly say I’ve never heard anyone bash or criticize unkindly. There is so much love during that week that no one wants to go home. It is the highlight of the year for all of us.”

But sometimes hearsay does creep in. “When we find ourselves individually gossiping away from the main body of family,” my friend explained, “we are reminded of her example. I share it with my children and grandchildren.”

The result? Powerful family unity. “The younger generation are very close, adult cousins Marco Polo each other as well as the younger cousins. This goes on all year.”

My friend concluded, “My grandmother was not perfect, but she exemplified true Christlike love. Seeing the good and being blind to the externals is something most of us can’t do without a lot of prayer.”

Such a legacy is far beyond rubies.

Kristin Fry is a wife, mom, grandmother, musician and member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Currently she is an admirer of the sparkling facets of an Alaskan winter--especially while drinking hot cocoa by a warm stove.