I will never know exactly what my grandmother expected to find when she left Puerto Rico and came to New York in 1950, but I don’t think she planned to be a divorcé with 4 young boys by the end of the decade. From the stories I’ve heard, I, maybe naïvely, guess that the small farming village she was raised in didn’t offer her enough. She had been making clothing since she was 12, when she took over her older sister’s sewing business. I also know she hated bugs – any small creature that crawled – including my favorite dinosaur toy, that would break out of it’s plastic egg and stumble around until someone either picked it up, or stepped on it.

I think she wanted to follow her passion, which is why she went to design school while keeping shifts in a clothing factory, and keeping her sons in line. With her baby in carriage, and her 11-year-old acting translator by her side, she brought her sketches to design studios in the garment district, and asked if anyone was interested in buying. I don’t think she ever expected those sketches, and the help of her friend from their neighborhood, to kick-start her 2nd career as an assistant designer in Manhattan.

I knew my grandmother from her sewing room in the basement, and from her closet of full of clothing I always wished I fit into, but I never knew her from her story until after she no longer could tell me it herself.