Alma was born on Tuesday, February 2, 1915, in Buffalo, NY, the daughter of Frank Harlach and Carrie Harlach (née Manquen), and spent many happy years in the family home at 38 Sprenger, near Schiller Park on the East Side, along with her sisters, Marie and Dolores, and her brother, Art.
On September 4, 1935, she married Leo Gruber, a water inspector for the City of Buffalo. They lived with his mother, Theresa, until her death in 1944, after which they moved back to the family home at 38 Sprenger. They had three children: Gerard, Mary, and James. At some point, when the children were young, they separated, as divorce was unthinkable in their strict Catholic upbringings. They stayed apart until the late 1970s, when Leo asked Alma to care for him after a stroke. She agreed, and stayed with him until his death on June 25, 1979. Alma was kind and compassionate, and this was but one example.
Alma was a hard worker and an entrepreneur; she owned Alma's Delicatessen on Harlem Road near Cleveland Drive and Alma's East Hill Diner on Main Street in Clarence, which later became Alma's Antiques. She also worked as a cook in the coffee shop at St. Francis hospital, and cooked for the Sisters of St. Francis, Third Order, at various convents, including St. Gerard's and Queen of Heaven. Despite having to leave school at the age of 15, she was a whiz at math, and customers marvelled at how she could add prices faster than the cash register. She had limitless energy, and always strived to keep her customers happy.
She also loved to have fun. Anyone who came to family Christmas parties will remember her dancing 'til the wee hours, and getting quite silly. She was famous for her Jell-O molds, and was adept at improvising recipes (once, when a recipe called for corn relish, she mixed together a can of corn and a jar of relish). She also enjoyed playing cards, especially Pinochle.
She lived at different places over the years, including Stutzman Road in Bowmansville and Harriet Ave. in Buffalo, but her happiest times were probably at the Shady Acres trailer court on Union Road near Old French Road in West Seneca. Her sister, Dody, and brother-in-law, Elmer, lived in another trailer, and they loved to walk around and visit. She loved her trailer, and loved to tend her gardens and relax in her Florida room.
Later on, she lived above Dody and Elmer in a flat on Stewart Ave. in the Schiller Park area, just a couple of blocks from where she grew up. They worked part-time in Dody and Elmer's spare bedroom, finishing gloves for the Perfect Fit Glove Company. It's important to have something to do, and I believe this was good for all of them, although I do remember Uncle Elmer grousing about Grandma waking them up in the morning to get an early start on the day's orders.
It was during this time that I became aware that Grandma had some very old photographs. Grandma, Aunt Dody, Aunt Marie, and I sat down on several occasions to identify who was in them, and I wrote the names lightly in pencil on the backs of them. I am really glad now that we took the time to do that, as these are family treasures that I hope to pass to my children.
When Dody and Elmer passed away, she moved into the Sisters of St. Francis Holy Family Home on Mill Street in Williamsville, near her daughter Mary. Failing health caused her to move to the St. Francis Home on Reist Street in Williamsville, where she lived until she passed away on Tuesday, April 6, 2004.
I remember sleeping over almost every Saturday night as a child, where she would make me tuna sandwiches (my favorite) for dinner and we would watch "All In The Family", "The Jeffersons", "The Mary Tyler Moore Show", "The Bob Newhart Show", and "The Carol Burnett Show". On Sundays we would go to mass, where she would always fall asleep during the homily.
While she was great at math, she shared a family trait of not being very good at remembering names. So, for example, my father, Glenn, became "Jerry/Jimmy/Elmer/Oh, Sh*t". Her brother, Art, had a simpler solution: all men became "Sonny".
Her brother-in-law, Elmer, often complained that he had two wives; Actually, I think Grandma hen-pecked him more than Aunt Dody did!
Thanks go out to my Mom, for helping me with this, and to my cousin Frank, for reminding me of some things I had forgotten when he read this at her funeral mass.
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