Elder sister of ‘Gramma & Ginga’ fame dies at 106
The interview with The Dominion Post was going just great, it really was.
Until Ginga squeaked her chair across Gramma’s floor.
The following is an abbreviated exchange of what happened next, with a then 103-year-old Gramma speaking first and her kid sister, Ginga (a spry 98, at the time), getting the last (four-letter) word:
“Why do you keep doing that?”
“Well, I have to move in, so they can see us for the camera.”
“Then get your a** this way. That ruins the legs of my chair.”
“Kiss my a**. Your precious chair is fine.”
“Yeah, blow it out your a**.”
“Aw, bull****.”
“****.”
“****.”
The bleep-fest was over just as quickly as it started, and the two sisters from Harrison County were soon back to chatting amiably.
Just like that.
“Ginga,” is Arlena Cody Bashnett, who is now 101 and still resides in Clarksburg.
Genevieve Musci (“Gramma”) died Christmas Day at the age of 106.
In the way of the 21st century, the siblings were famous just for being themselves.
It all started five years ago, when Frank Fumich, Gramma’s grandson, grabbed his cellphone to video an exchange that was funnier than most — if that was possible.
When he posted it to his Facebook page, it wasn’t long before he was shielding his eyes from the star-power suddenly wielded by his grandmother and aunt.
“I got friend requests from people I didn’t know,” he said. “People started sharing the video, so I did more.”
By the time it was done, Gramma and Ginga, as said, were social media sensations. They were interviewed by Jimmy Kimmel and London’s Daily Mail newspaper.
Another news crew from a Chicago TV station followed them around for an afternoon.
Steve Harvey flew them out to Hollywood to be guests on his NBC television show about human experience and perseverance.
Thousands of people flocked to their Facebook page and YouTube channel.
More than 40,000 condolences, and counting, have come in the three days since Gramma’s passing.
“From all over the world,” Fumich said.
“That’s pretty amazing.”
All you gotta do (is act naturally)
What’s amazing for him is that two ladies could have such a cultural impact, by — as said — just the collective power of their personalities.
“They weren’t trying,” he said. “This wasn’t an act. This was them.”
It was comedic gold with well-earned laugh lines, Fumich said.
With her striking white hair and soft, droll baritone, Gramma came off as stately and bemused at the same time — and one who was a good sport about her sudden notoriety.
Ginga, the more fun-loving and media-savvy of the pair, delivered her ad-libs and on-the-fly punchlines in a rasp like one of Marge Simpson’s sisters.
This sister act ended when Gramma passed peacefully around 10:30 p.m. on Christmas Day.
For now, that is.
More on that.
Fumich, meanwhile, said he’s grateful for Gramma’s life, and Ginga’s too. An American tale, he said. With an occasional PG-13 rating for sometimes salty dialogue.
Technically, the sisters were cursing in a second language.
Old-new country
They were daughters of immigrants, and grew up in Clarksburg’s predominately Italian North View neighborhood, where Gramma maintained her house (with its yellow-tiled kitchen now familiar to legions courtesy of YouTube) until the day of her death last week.
“We spoke Italian until we went to school,” Ginga told The Dominion Post during that “chair” interview of 2017. She wasn’t immediately available for comment for this story.
The same story was shared by the other first-generation playmates of the sisters.
Gramma and Ginga’s parents hailed from San Giovanni, in Fiore, Calabria, which is around the lower arch of Italy’s boot.
So did everyone else.
“All the Italians here are from the same place,” Gramma said. The sisters were able to make several trips to Italy over the years, where relatives still live.
Age is a number (and a Netflix entry)
For their grandson, it was all about living, no matter the initial date on the birth certificate.
He liked that Gramma became famous at 100.
Unconsciously, or otherwise, he too participates in acts that people his age aren’t necessarily “supposed” to be doing, either.
Known as “Frank the Tank,” the man who is now in his mid-50s still competes as an endurance athlete, crossing mountain ranges and whole continents by foot or on bicycle, and almost always for charity — particularly to raise money for critically ill people who can’t afford medical treatment.
While the pandemic has put an end to official races for now, he did garner $10,000 alone over the summer, with all the monies going to the family of a cancer patient whose disease came back after a lengthy remission.
The current roiling of the pandemic means Gramma won’t get her funeral Mass for now, he said.
She was a devout Catholic who faithfully attended St. James Parish in her North View neighborhood, but that service will happen, Fumich said.
“Once we emerge from all this.”
In the meantime, he said, look for the coming reemergence of Gramma and Gringa as media stars.
Two San Francisco Bay area filmmakers completed a documentary on the pair this fall, after a Kickstarter campaign.
And now, Fumich said, “Gramma & Ginga: The Movie” will likely be heading to Hulu or Netflix in coming months.
Just in time for one more video-streamed “Blow it out your a**,” he added, with a chuckle.
“The ladies will live on for a whole new audience.”
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