generations

The first president my Grammie, Carolyn Becker, voted for was Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964, after Kennedy’s assassination. She wasn’t even allowed to have a credit card in her own name. But she still went to the little electric schoolhouse in Brandt, Missouri that had been closed for a number of years to cast her ballot. It was a peaceful and exciting social gathering.

“You had both parties sitting next to each other at the table and counting votes,” she said.” They were mad at each other and it was civil. It was just a pleasant time.”

Nowadays, in the first election I’ve voted in, there are hoax bombing threats at the polls in certain swing states like Georgia and Pennsylvania. The environment of casting a ballot is different, but the issues that my Grammie was concerned about in her first election remain the same — choice for women, ending wars and women’s rights and safety.

When she first started voting, Roe versus Wade hadn’t happened yet, and abortions were illegal in Missouri. She’s watched it rise and now, recently, fall. As a woman who has suffered an atopic pregnancy, the right to abortion is why herself, my mom and I are alive.

“I don’t like abortions either,” she said. “But Caroline, I’d be dead if those laws were in place.”

Married to a staunch Republican, my grandpa Larry, her goal has always been one thing: cancel out his vote. Politics or religion were never discussed, but she had been raised by strong Democrats, and she knew that he was a conservative, Missouran farmer.

“We just didn’t talk about politics,” she said. “I just knew I was canceling his vote.” After her divorce, she got involved in a political campaign for a local Democrat, traveling and standing in front of crowds to give a speech on behalf of the campaign. Now, she’s married to my Papa Tom, and they grab the Republican ticket together to vote for the worst candidate, that way the Democrat wins.

It didn’t always used to be so divisive. Grammie has even proudly voted for some Republican candidates like Glenn Ford and Bob Dole. She attributes this political divide to the Rush Limbaugh Show, a conservative commentator who aired on Fox Radio in the ‘90s, and now the era of Donald Trump. “And it seems like it has just snowballed until we’re to this point where the two parties hate each other,” she said.

But she thinks back to the Vietnam War era, a time where the country was fiercely divided between pacifists and pro-war protesters.

“It was a tough time because we were so divided as a country again,” Grammie said. “Parents weren’t talking to their kids and vice versa. But we came out of that and it’s all been forgotten. So I hope in this division, we find that that same thing will be true.”