Memories of Hardie Gramatky by his daughter, Linda Gramatky Smith

My mother, Dorothea Cooke Gramatky, recalled her first encounter with my father, Hardie Gramatky:

"Hardie arrived at Chouinard in 1928 after two years at Stanford. This handsome man with the nicest smile stormed into our life class, leaped over the sawhorses that we were using and started drawing fast and furiously. I really should have had blinders on because it was very hard to concentrate! He was so peppy!"

If her comments don't sound particularly objective, the reader will have to forgive her ... and me. My mother and I really enjoyed being a part of Hardie Gramatky's life, and we loved him very much. On this website, I would like to share some of our personal memories. I always called my father "Dad," but to keep it simple, I will refer to him as "Hardie" in this narrative. (And a side note is that sometimes people refer to him as Hardy Gramatky, misspelling his first name. That is understandable, since apparently the use of Y is usual for a masculine name and IE for a feminine name. My mother’s nickname was Doppy, so both of them got the “rules” reversed!)