Aunt Arlene's memories of her Grandma and Grandpa Wride

Aunt Arlene sent me these memories of hers and I wanted to share them with you. I remember Dad talking about throwing peanut shells on the floor.

GRANDPA AND GRANDMA WRIDE

My grandparents lived just two blocks away from us on 5th Avenue. I’ll always remember that my grandpa taught me to drive. At first I would just drive his little Ford coupe up and down his 20-foot driveway. Later we ventured out in parking lots and then to the street.

Grandpa had a fun backyard with chickens running around and a big compost pile. His garden was wonderful. Grandpa loved to have his grandchildren come over to feed the chickens and help gather the eggs. He was so proud of each one of us. I remember his “peanut parties.” He would buy peanuts in a huge bag; I remember it being a bag about three feet tall. For our Family Home Evening, Grandpa would sit and tell us stories and he would have us eat peanuts and throw the shells on the rug. Grandma must have hated it. She was a wonderful woman, quiet but loving. I always wanted to go to her house to help her cook and bake. She was so supportive of my grandpa in all of his ideas and inventions.

Grandpa Wride was an educator. He invented and patented several devices to improve handwriting. Another of his inventions was called a Pant-O-Graph. This was an interesting device to enlarge pictures. He also had a system of shorthand in which the characters were based on the hour angles of the clock. Another idea he developed was a system of phonetic writing that he wanted to make into a new language. He called it Novolingua. Grandpa hoped that it would someday become an international tongue.

My grandmother passed away in 1944, eight years before my grandpa. He came and lived in our home for the last two years of his life.