Sun shinny day as I look outside. Cold, but then it's January. The anniversary of my Grandpa's passing 43 years ago comes this week. A lifetime ago. My second born was just a tiny baby. We traveled with my sister and brother in law to Colorado for the funeral. My dear Mother in law watched my boys as my sis brought her new born along with us for the journey from Kansas to Fort Morgan, Colorado.
Terribly cold when we went. Bitter cold. I was 21 years old at the time. A spring chicken. Grandpa was about 84. Everyday, he'd take a walk around the block. He and Grandma had moved from the country into town to live in large bungalow. Their country home was once a crude log cabin that they modernized and stuccoed white.
When I was a little girl I remember visiting them while they were finishing the dining room floor. Grandpa with his brother in law Ben were down on their knees laying tiles. SO they took a primitive cabin and worked it over into a nice ranch style HOME. 3 bedrooms, one bath, attached garage, living room with the dining area to the side. A nice size kitchen with a mud room that lead to the out of doors. The back yard was dirt with clumps of grass and native shrub. Isolated in the country. Dirt roads and blue sky for as far as you looked.
Grandpa would have been a man in his late 60s early 70s when he and Grandma moved to the log cabin. He still road horses ranching sheep and cattle. This was his lively hood.
In his younger day he was quite the cowboy that was an award winner with the lasso.
When he married my Grandma, he was 25 or 26 and she was 25. Today's standards would not consider this old, but back in the day it wasn't considered young. Grandma would have been an old maid. Grandpa served in the Navy crossing the ocean many times and before he came back to civilian life he stopped off in Philadelphia to buy a wedding ring for my Grandma.
For some reason Grandma's father did not like Grandpa. He had a great dislike toward Grandpa's father and for this he told my Grandma that he hoped he'd never see her again. So I do not know if he attended the wedding or not where Grandma picked wildflowers for her wedding bouquet and sewed her own wedding dress. She gave up her homestead to marry Grandpa.
After Grandma and Grandpa went on their honeymoon, Grandma's father got his wish. He'd drown in a flash flood. SO I don't know if Grandma attended her father's funeral or not. It's sketchy.
Imagine your father telling you that he hoped he'd never see you again and then would die while you are on your honeymoon. Grandma's mother always thought that her son in law was the nicest person.
Grandma stayed true to her Husband and Grandpa stayed true to his wife. They made their HOME together and lived through thick and thin. Becoming one flesh and married for 56 and a half years.
x♡x d
2 comments:
Wow that would be hard to have your father never want to see you again and then die before you could reconcile. I hope that your grandma and grampa had a very happy life together, and their children had happy memories growing up.
Thank you, Kathy. I think my grandparents loved each other very much and were very happy with one another. I can't imagine the hurt my Grandma felt over her Father's last words to her, I just know that when she shared this about her Father to my Mom that my Mom told me that Grandma cried. I only saw my Grandma cry one time and that was at Grandpa's funeral. She was a strong women with few words.
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