A New Tradition

"...you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name." Psalm 61:5b

(Sorry about the picture quality. This was all I had close to my computer, and I didn't want to take up a lot of time hunting for a better.)

I am late in posting this. Yesterday would have been my Grandma Mayme’s 101st birthday. I got to thinking about this the day before, and I wondered if there was anything I could do to mark the day. Peanut remembers her, Junior doesn’t really.

At bedtime, I got out a little booklet that my cousin Nancy copied off for us. It is a little handwritten booklet that my grandmother wrote for her telling some of her memories of her growing up years. I went in Peanut’s room and told her what day it was, and I read her just a few paragraphs from the book. Peanut just loved it. She kept asking me to read her more and more. I finally had to stop because I still wanted to read to Junior, and they were already getting to bed late.

Junior had the same reaction. He kept saying, “Turn the page, read me more.” I also shared some of my memories with them. Somebody in my family will have to help me with something. There was some stuffed item at her house that was stuffed with pantyhose. I can’t remember if it was a pillow or what. But there was a little hole in it, and I remember pulling out the pantyhose and stuffing them back in.

Here is one of the exerpts I read to them:

Gertie and I found a lot to play with. We used our imagination in those days. We could make dolls from corn cobs and even sticks. We had stick people, glass people (from broken dishes,) and an out of date Sears or Ward’s catalogue was special. We had families and they went to church. We made towns from flat rocks, the rocks were their houses. We marked rooms. Christmas was the only time we’d see toys in the stores. I remember how thrilled we were to get to go see the toys.

Junior couldn’t quite imagine that part about toys not being in the stores all year.

So we’ve decided to start doing this on each of the great-grandma’s birthdays, just share memories. Todd reminded me that we actually did this on Gram’s (his grandmother's) birthday back in November. It was right after baby Bubby was born, and his folks were all here. They remembered that the day was her birthday, so everyone was just naturally talking about the things they remembered about her.