A Real Beauty of America-Really!
When I entered my grandmother in a contest sponsored by Ladies' Home Journal, I never told her. That's because I thought I'd surprise her if for some wild chance she'd be one of eight women chosen from essays submitted by readers to be showcased in a special supplement in their July issue titled "The Real Beauties of America." It was 1976. America would be celebrating its Bicentennial! The minute I read about the Journal's search for those eight women in early February I focused on my grandmother-nicknamed Giddy by my older brother when he was a little boy. The name stuck. Everyone called her Giddy. I wrote my submission out on a legal pad over a weekend. I'd thought about what I'd say days prior whenever I had a moment to think. At that time I was the mother of 3 young children. There was no internet back then so once I was just about finished with what I was writing I took out my typewriter and began fine tuning it. I mailed it at the post...