Grandma Des Moines

Alvena Margaret Leona Reinertson Larsen (center) surrounded by her daughters (clockwise from bottom left to right) Janice, Nancy, Sandra and Lois.

When I was growing up, I had an interesting challenge when it came to grandmothers. My mother’s maiden name was Larsen and she married a Larsen. That gets pretty confusing for a kid especially when you had to explain which Grandma Larsen you were talking about all the time. Luckily I had one grandmother who lived in Rice Lake, Wisconsin and one who lived in Des Moines, Iowa. I solved the problem of which grandma was which by naming them Gramma Rice Lake and Gramma Des Moines. This story is about my Grandma Des Moines – Alvena Margaret Leona Reinertson Larsen. I find it interesting that even though her Alzheimer’s robbed her of her memory of us at the end, she left us with many, many lasting memories of her. This is just one of them.

As kids, my sister and I were thrilled whenever we got to travel to Des Moines to stay with Grandma Alvena. In 1963, Grandma drove a navy blue 1963 Cadillac – gotta love those fins.We had been out somewhere in the Cadillac with Grandma – I can’t remember where we went but I vividly remember where we wound up. As we were driving down a very busy, main street in Des Moines, all of sudden she started holding the steering wheel very tight and saying “I can’t hold it, I can’t hold it.” Needless to say we got a little nervous. “What’s wrong Gramma??” we hollered. “I can’t hold it.” she said again as she started to pull into a driveway. It wasn’t until that moment that we realized that we had turned into the driveway of a Dairy Queen. “I don’t know what’s wrong with this car, ” she said. “It just won’t drive by a Dairy Queen! Banana splits anyone?” We volunteered to go with Grandma Alvena every time she left the house. You just never know when she might drive near a Dairy Queen again.

Robin Michelsen