Lake Superior Journal: The Hills of Duluth, The Inspiring Flow of Grams’ Big Lake Life

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The author’s grandmother. Catherine Westman, by the Big Lake she loves in Duluth.

by Jacklyn Janeksela

My grandmother swears by the hills of Duluth. She says those hills make strong children, build strong bones. She says the winding roads keep the brain sharp, alert. She says, “Look at this body, those hills gave it life.”

She’s standing over a pile of fish soaking through a paper bag. As she guts the fish, she smiles, pulling the spine from the flesh. And in that moment she begins another story about how she had to climb hill after hill, around the time I was born.

Before I can ask her why, she says, “In those days, men didn’t like women to work or drive cars. I wanted to do both. My husband said, ‘If you’re going to go out there, you’d better let your own two feet carry you.’ So that’s what I did. I walked the streets of Duluth looking for houses to clean.”

Grams – Catherine Westman to the rest of the world – comes from a different generation, one where women didn’t go into the workforce, but stayed home, held down the fort, ran the ship, so to speak. The house is a place of work, it’s just men don’t see it the way women do, Grams says.

Women from her generation multi-tasked like bosses. They raised children, educated, cooked and baked daily almost entirely from scratch, canned and pickled things from their own garden, sewed clothing, knitted, crocheted, cleaned, fixed, tended to gardens, animals and neighborhood children. At least, that’s what my grandmother did; and I imagine many grandmothers from the Lake Superior area, and those nearby, did the same.

The Nordic blood flows fierce in these women; they withstand the whitest of winters, they carry the roundest of babies.

The author’s beloved Grams inspires her today.

Still projects the youthful joy captured in the old photo.

Grams hasn’t changed much since those days. She’s still spritely and drives her car up and down the hills of downtown Duluth with remarkable ease. Arthritis keeps her moving at a slower pace, unable to do some of what was once part of her daily routine. Even opening her own jam jars is a frightful task; undoable, really. That hasn’t stopped her from living on her own, in the same house where she raised her four children. Once, she said she couldn’t imagine not living near Lake Superior, that view in the distance, the boat horns, the horizon divided by two shades of blue, the same color as her eyes, the original color of her early 20th century house and the color of almost all the clothes in her closet. She was born in Duluth, and will return to it when her life is over – dust to dust, dust to water, ash, mud, bodies of water.

My grandmother’s generation didn’t breed patriarchy. It had started long ago, so her generation withstood it, I guess, or, better yet, survived it. Women held down, held under, held tight inside a fist or outside of it and held fast to the home, too. Men who were aggressive or abusive were tolerated, excused, slapped on the wrist and told to “Take it easy, now, she’s just a woman, no sense in getting so rough.” But they did and still do. My grandmother, like many, has endured more than just the beating of hands, but the beating of life. Living on the Lake fortifies bones, it turns girls into women sometimes before they’re ready. She wouldn’t have it any other way.

She’s sifting flour. She’s making bread, but not like she used to. Kneading the dough would be impossible with her crooked hands, those bent knuckles like the limbs of the pines outside where squirrels and raccoons scamper, deer tiptoe, bluebirds and cardinals flit about. Her backyard is a magical place for animals and for humans. When the garden was in full bloom, nearly a decade ago, it was full-fledged fantasy for any young child. At least, that’s what it was when I was a young thing.

In this backyard, her children played, and her children’s children. In this backyard, she sunbathed, had picnics with the neighbors, planted seed and watched life grow. She, like her garden, wanted to grow. The hills of Duluth calling to her, whispering between oak leaf and raspberry vine. She tells me about the hills of Duluth in the winter and how they were as slippery as any fish. She tells me about how she wanted to wander those hills in search of something, a purpose perhaps.

She had met my grandfather at the docks. In one of the first pictures of them together, they’re standing side by side, not shoulder to shoulder, for he stood at least a foot taller. They are both smiling in that picture, like all couples do in the beginning. No woman ever knows what lies behind a man’s charm until they get married, live under the same roof, make love and unlove, make children, breathe the same house air. She married a man who was in love with the water, too. In his free time, he fished, left at dawn, rolled in at dusk with a trunk full of fresh fish. He won prizes for his catches. She has saved letters as proof of his accolades, one from the Minnesota Power & Light Company, a whole 50 bucks, big money for the ’50s. She understood him because the shores of Brighton Beach beckoned her – afternoon strolls where she daydreamed on the backs of lapping waves, on a handful of skipping rocks.

When she puts the bread dough into the machine, she turns to me. “I was feisty, you know. I wanted to hit those hills running.”

When Grams decided to make her own money, her kids had already left the house and were out in the world flying, like Lake Superior gulls, into and away from storms. She had done her job, fulfilled her duty as wife and mother.

She wanted her own money, she wanted independence; she wanted to trek up and down the hills and see where they would take her. The hills of Duluth hypnotize even those who have long since abandoned romantic ideas. With romance long gone from the marriage, Grams danced the dance of ghosts who rest lightly on hills built on Nordic noses, on Nordic stock.

Relying on her husband caused strife, which she could no longer bear. He wanted control; she wanted freedom. Two peas fighting for a life inside a sinewy pod. One afternoon, before he could retort or even realize what she had said, the back door had slammed shut, and she was out, stomping away towards the hills of east Duluth. I can only imagine his face … and hers, beaming like a reflected sun in a Lake.

He had prohibited her from work. That’s what most men did of her generation. She remembers life no other way. He demanded she be domestic, but grandmother’s feet were itching for the road, even if it meant she had to, quite literally, use her feet to get there. He denied her the possibility to drive because driving brought freedom, and liberated women could mean trouble. Decades later, when she finally got a license, she enjoyed a fresh freedom never known before.

The fight in her lives through me. I am from those same hills. While I might not know them like she does, I still know them. They live in me. They are me. I look at my body reflected in a mirror, and I see mountain ranges galore.

I remember the days when grandma couldn’t drive. I remember walking far up, up, up, way up into the hills that touched clouds, where it seemed raindrops could be plucked from the sky. These hills were spotted with buttercups and clover, best eaten in spring. These hills had thick stalks of grass that, when pressed between thumbs, imitated duck calls. These hills were good for rolling down and feeling dizzy with life and breath.

We huffed up those hills to giant houses where grandma dusted and mopped. I can still see her face as she shined windows that looked out over the hills and onto the Lake. “Do you see how clean the glass is? No streaks. You can barely even tell there’s a window here, like if you put your hand out, you could grab all those hills and all that Lake with your bare hand,” she said, smiling away, humming a tune that she’d learned years ago on a dock where she had met a boy.

This issue’s Journal writer: Jacklyn Janeksela writes about wellness, art, culture, travel and has written for Success, Thrillist, BBC Travel, Fodors and Time Out. She works in fields of healing arts at Hermetic Hare, belongs to a post-punk, experimental band called The Velblouds and lives between Prague in the Czech Republic and Paris in France.