Gail Cynthia Hemhauser was born on February 27, 1938, in Newark, New Jersey.  I know Gail well because she is my grandmother on my mother’s side.  Let me tell you more about her.
         Grandmom was the youngest of three children to Gertrude and Robert Hemhauser and lived in Union, N.J.  She grew up with one brother Bob, one sister Judy, and a dog named Whiskers.  Besides a normal sibling rivalry with her sister Judy, my grandmom recalls a great childhood of spending summers at the beach in Mannesquan, NJ and ice skating and tobogganing until her fingers were numb in the winters.  During her childhood years she had to move three times, the first being to Maplewood when she was three years old.  Just think how that would feel.
         Do you know that old story, “We had to walk 5 miles to school each way when we were in school”?  Well that was true for my grandma.  In school she was an excellent student.  It was also in school where she met her life long friend Carol Hebler.  “ I went to school with Carol from Kindergarten through High School.  She was my best friend.”  “ I can remember this time in Maplewood Junior High when Carol wanted to put mustard on her hot dog.  She got a packet and started to shake it but the seal was already opened so the whole packet of mustard flew in her face!”  “We had a lot of good times together.  She saw me through one of the biggest tragedies in my life too.  The death of my dad when I was twelve.”  The death of her dad forced my grandma to move for the second time to an apartment in Maplewood in 1955.
        My grandma Gail is a huge sports fan and she herself played softball, basketball, and cheerleading in high school.  She was known as  “Peanut”, Little one”, and “Hemstitcher” at Maplewood High.  My grandma had quite a few crushes when she was in high school.  Bill Driscoll, Jack Brothers, and Bill Suiter were the boys she had her eye on.  Her sibling rivalry sprang up again when her sister Judy stole Billy Driscol from her. Life has a way of evening out though as my grandma remembers how her sister Judy tried to hide the fact that she had dyed her own hair black one day by saying she had just washed her hair with a towel up on her head.  “ It was the funniest thing to see her try to eat her dinner with black dye running down the side of her face!”  “Boy did she get in trouble!”  In addition to these boys, my grandma had a lot of friends.  Gail White, Carol Derona, and of course Carol Hebler.
         My grandma has always been a hard worker.  Her jobs in the summer were nice and simple; she was a waitress at a restaurant at the beach.  She then went off to Wesley Junior College in Delaware.  She graduated from Wesley with a 3.75 GPA and along the way met her husband to be, Kenneth Eugene Meredith, my Pop Pop.   Grandma Gail worked as a secretary while my Pop Pop finished his college years.  They got married on September 12, 1959 and later moved to Maryland to start a family of their own.
         Together my grandparents had three children, Kim (my mom), Scott and Kristen.  As a mother she liked to bowl, read, sew and attend the rec. sporting events that her kids were involved in.  She was also a member of the Cockeysville/Timonium Jaycees.   My grandma stayed at home to raise her kids during those years and then went back to work part time when they took in a friend of my mom’s when she needed a place to stay for a year.
         Sadly, my grandma and Pop Pop divorced which forced my grandma to go back to work full time.  She still enjoyed administrative work and finally wound up at Peat Marwick from which she retired on 12/29/00.
         Gail’s kids were growing older and so was she.  She really likes to travel.  In her lifetime, she has gone to Hawaii, California, Colorado, Europe, Disney World, St. Maarten, and Long Beach Island, NJ.   “We have bought ourselves a time share” was the souvenir that was brought back from her most recent trip to St. Maarten.
         My grandma remarried on November 8, 1991.  She now lives in Street, Maryland with my grandpop Ralph Vain and her dog Molly.  We celebrate many holidays such as  Christmas, Thanksgiving, Valentines Day, Easter, and New Years with her there. She also likes to make her own recipes for many meals.  These are a tradition too.
          Just a few weeks a go, I interviewed my grandma and I asked her, “What historic events have you experienced?” and she had a lot of answers.  First, she was a teenager when World War two was going on.  The assassination of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. also came to her mind. “ Just like you will never forget when the World Trade centers were bombed, I will never forget where I was or what I was doing when the President was shot.”  She was three during the bombing of Pearl Harbor, but she can recall the Vietnam War and the Korean War more clearly because her brother was in the service.  Neil Armstrong landing on the moon was another amazing event that she has witnessed.
         Knowing my Grandma Gail Vain for 11 years now, I can assure you that she loves to go after what she believes in.  Also, I know how she will let her emotions out whether it’s during a regular phone call or an interview about her life.  I’m glad I have a grandma like her because she supports me wherever I go whether its baseball, basketball, football, or even if it was an award for school.  All in all, I love my grandma.