believing she didn’t have the qualifications to do much more than that. In the decades that would follow, she worked her way up to being assistant to the chancellor for a large network of schools. When my grandpa ran off with his secretary, she wasn’t surprised. She used the extra time to go back to school and at the age of 62 she received her bachelor’s degree in women’s studies.
I was only four then, so while I have flashes of memory of her graduation day, who’s to say if those memories are mine or imprinted from actual photographs. What I do remember are those
Geraldine Matey was born in 1926 to a pair of Polish immigrants living in Detroit, Michigan. Growing up the oldest of three during the Great Depression undoubtedly left a mark. As did the fact that her high school class only had six boys in it - the rest had been shipped off to fight in World War II. After graduation she went to work for the telephone company and loved it. I’m certain that had she been born in today’s world she would have become the CEO of some major corporation. Unfortunately, times were different in post-war America so when all her friends started getting married, she gave in to peer pressure, left the phone company and married a young man returning from the war.
She went on to have her first son, my godfather, with that man until, fearing for their lives she chose to leave him. Divorce in the early 1950’s was frowned upon so when she met my grandpa just a few years later and he proposed, she said yes. While he was a good provider, he also had a wandering eye, so when their youngest child went off to college, Grandma decided to return to the workforce.
Doubting her skills after years of being a stay-at-home mom, she applied for a position as ’assistant secretary’ - believing she didn’t have the qualifications to do much more than that. In the decades that would follow, she worked her way up to being assistant to the chancellor for a large network of schools.
Saturdays that came after, spent with her at the pool, cultivating an awareness of my place, and where I could go, as a woman.
Fifteen years after her graduation, I found myself in a bit of a pickle. As a college freshman, my federal financial aid had gotten hung up on a paperwork technicality. While they sorted it out I wasn’t allowed to register for next semesters classes - unless I could come up with $7,000 cash. My dad was in Costa Rica, wooing the woman who would eventually become another wife. My mom was too overwhelmed raising my younger sisters to help. In a panic, crying into my phone walking down Michigan Avenue outside Columbia College I called Grandma. She would know just what to do. She always did.
Within a day my debt was paid, classes were scheduled, and I had a new hero.
“An investment” she called it, “in the next generation of our family legacy. Because of that investment I was able to graduate with honors in less than four years with MY bachelor’s degree. From there I’ve built a business, travelled the world and eventually came to land only five miles from her apartment. I wanted to be close. After all, she’ll be 95 this summer and I still have a lot to learn.