Alexsandria Vilhelmina Henriksson Kosonen

Alexandria was my great grandmother and I was fortunate enough to have spent some time with her. Although I was young I still carry memories of her.  She passed when I was around 16 or 17.
I always remember her as a frail older woman who spent most of her time sitting by a window that overlooked the rail tracks. She spoke little English so she sat there drinking her tea and thinking about the past.
Alexsandria was lucky to be surrounded by family, two of her siblings moved to Gloucester with their families and she birthed 13 children, several of them surviving and raising families of their own. Most stayed in the Gloucester area so you can imagine the family gatherings.
So these are my memories of my great grandmother. My earliest are going to my great grandmothers home with my aunts and mom. We were all bundled up in our winter clothes with our bathing suits underneath.
Once at Alexandria’s house we would all stip down to out bathing suits and leave the house wrapped in a beach towel.
We walked from my great grandmothers to a little shack that was on her property but still a little ways from her house. Once we got into the shack someone would throw water on hot rocks and the room filled up with steam. Us little ones would always end up on the floor so we could breath easier.
After a while it was time to leave so we all wrapped up in the towels and headed for the house.
It was a good memory of her, unfortunately I don’t remember too many, perhaps going blueberrying up on blueberry hill with all the family.
There was one other time i do remember distinctly. We were all at my grandfather’s cottage on cape ann. It was a special day because my great grandmother was joining us there. She was up there in age now so was hard to communicate with. She was sitting by a window, drinking tea. Sister Donna, into her terrible teen years, was sitting on the window sill. I guess you can imagine what happened next. Splash, right into Donna’s face, thankfully the tea wasn’t hot nor the cup full up. Everyone jumped up trying to clean up, Donna, overdramacising the effects of the tea in the face and Alexandria, sitting there as if nothing was out of the ordinary. You have to remember, at home, an open window was there to dispose of the leftover tea.
I am sure I had a lot more contact with “Itey” (the name we used to call her, it probably is not the way it is spelt) when smaller because we used to spend the summers in Gloucester.