Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska

Wanda's Diary Entries

Thursday, September 29, 2005

Today is a shoot day in Greensboro. I always love going to that
city, in part because it’s a mythic city of my youth. My late
grandmother, Esther Booth Mitchell Olesen, went to college there at the institution that is now UNCG. It was then Women’s College and
the college’s mission was to educate females to teach.
Granny never did teach in the classroom—her main passions
in her golden years were bridge and reading—but she certainly
was a big woman on campus during her college years. My mother loves showing off Granny’s college yearbook, where “G”—as we call her—was named “Jolliest Junior” of the class of 1916. She was involved in the suffragist movement of that time. G passed away too young—in 1971 at age 75. As we move through the city of Greensboro, doing standups for our show and interviewing folks—primarily on the subject of obesity for show #210 of our new season—I think of Granny.