My Grandma

My Grandma with her parents.  This isn't the first big bow I have seen in her hair as a child so either Grandma liked them or Great Grandma!

Today, just six days shy of her 96th birthday, my Grandma passed away.  Its been expected, hospice was called in five days ago, but it somehow just doesn't make it any easier.  She was a very special lady to me and I have always felt I was sort of a younger but taller version of her.  Much taller. When my brother and I were little she often told us she was going to put bricks on our heads to keep us from passing her up.  For those of you who knew her, that didn't take much as she was quite a tiny little lady. I wanted to get some of my memories down and I'm sure I will think of more as family comes in and we visit.  And I pretty much feel like I'm not going to do her justice in describing her.  She was small but mighty, country but refined, stern but tender. Most importantly, she was my Grandma.

My Grandma was a great cook.  She had a locally famous raisin cream pie that she always made for church functions and at times it would disappear before they had it all plated up.  When my brother and I were sick when we were little, she would just show up at the back door with our favorite dish.  Her meatballs for Tony, red hot salad for me.  One thing she didn't make but always had for us kids were Fruit Loops!  She had an old coffee can that had a circus picture on the outside and she would keep it full of Fruit Loops.  I'm not sure why she started getting us Fruit Loops or really when but we spent a lot of time around her kitchen table eating bowls of the stuff.  I always thought it was interesting that she boiled her hotdogs to cook them.  I know, random thought, but she would put a pot on the stove and boil them.

Great Grandma Dolly and little Wyatt

Catching some winks with Great Grandma Dolly - Lorelai as a baby

There were a lot of grandkids running around the farm, especially for holidays, and from time to time, we got into trouble.  Grandma had some fruit trees in her yard, namely a peach tree.  Several of us got a wild hair to pick all the great fruit we could see for Grandma, nevermind it was as green as grass when we did it.  Oh boy was Grandma hot.  Holy cow.  And chasing the chickens.  That was a no no too!  It was fun though!

Grandma hated sticker weeds.  To the point she would head to the pasture to pull them.  Yep, would walk out to the pasture by the farm and just pick sticker weeds.  Many years ago she got started picking up all the sticks and branches that had fallen in the tree row just across the road from her house.  Piles and piles of sticks and branches.

She was never one to want her picture taken but I caught a smile.  I always thought she looked good in that color.

She had a great love of animals.  I really think she had a soft heart for anything with four legs.  She had a lot of barn cats when we were little and when it was time to feed them, she would walk across the yard hollering, "Here Bitty, Bitty, Bitty!" and those cats would come running from every direction.  She would be followed by a herd of cats all the way to the barn where she would feed them usually some sort of leftovers she saved for them.  Dry food was just not good enough for them.  She made them gourmet meals of sorts.  And she always had a dog.  I really think she loved dogs.  The cows always seemed to know she was on their side too. 

One of my all time favorite pictures of her.  Look at the size of that HUGE bow!

Grandma used everything to its fullest.  It was probably due to the era she grew up in but she didn't waste anything.  She would also save everything.  Lots of things we would just throw out today or put in our recycle bins, she kept.  I'm sure each item had its own purpose she was planning on.  Like milk jugs around your garden plants or old rags for the animals to lay on.  She lived a pretty frugal life.

We spent a lot of holidays together as a family.  Like I said earlier, there were a lot of grandkids around and many of us about the same age.  She would always get us matching pajamas for Christmas.  We would open them and then all have to put them on for a picture!  Oh boy those were the days!

Family picture from a couple of years ago at our annual Kemper Family Farm Weekend

I don't remember my Grandma ever venturing far from the farm.  She would go to town to get groceries and do some shopping in the surrounding towns but never went far.  I'm not sure why.  She had quite an adventurous life (or so it seems to me) as a young girl so maybe she felt she got all the traveling out of her system early on.  Maybe there is another reason.  But she just seemed to be most at home on her farm.  She used to tell me stories about life when she was younger.  I distinctly remember her telling me about a Shetland pony they had that loved to just stop cold while you were riding it and she said you would just go flying right off the front.  She loved to watch Wheel of Fortune and play solitaire.  The deck of cards she used was so worn you could hardly read what was on them and there were finger grooves worn on the sides.  She was given new decks but would never use them.  Must have been something about how those worn ones just fit in her hands.

I'm going to miss her something terrible.  She has just always been a presence in our lives, even if a quiet one.  She was my last living grandparent and I'm so glad she was there to meet my children and they her.  She seemed to take such pleasure in watching her family grow.  She had 4 children, 13 grandchildren and 15 great grandchildren.  Wyatt asked me tonight if Great Grandma Dolly was in heaven now.  Yep Buddy, she is.  She is.

Grandma on her wedding day.  She was MUCH shorter than my Grandpa.  I wish I knew what she was standing on in this picture to make her look so tall!

I'm already adding more stories since I posted this last night.  Things just keep coming into my mind and I don't have a great memory so I have to get them down on "paper" so to speak before they are gone. 

One day when I was at the farm, quite some time ago, Grandma was out by the road working in her yard.  She had her wooden garden cart with the big wheels and was picking up sticks and weeds.  I was out there probably messing with my horse and went over to see what she was up too.  As we were walking back to the house, we came through her yard and there was a small patch of these little tiny purple and yellow flowers.  Just randomly in her yard.  She stopped and stared at them for a moment and then told me that her mom loved those kind of flowers.  She said she had never seen them in her yard before.  They were violas!  In the middle of the yard just randomly sprinkled about.  I made a comment about her being named after the flower.  She said nothing.  I had always wanted to use the name if I ever had a little girl and got the chance two years ago.  Lorelai Viola came into this world exactly like I expect her Great Grandma did.  Full of determination, stubborn to the very middle and the sweetest little thing you ever saw.  I'm so happy that I got to use her name!