TRIBUTE to MOTHER
From MARION
How did I love her? Let me NOT count the ways. For if I did, it would take days!
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Rejoiced in the Lord
Was gentle, kindly, polite
LOVED Grandmother Throop deeply and poignantly
Had pet names for each of her four girls: Mariono, Ellababy, Lolly, and Doodle-Doo
Braided four heads of hair every morning
Stayed up countless nights sewing new outfits to be worn to school the next day
Insisted on correct grammar (It’s me? Me did it?)
Actually DID stand on her head (one reason why folks used to call her “Husky Gus”)
Designated the Red Cardinal as her Most Favored Bird
Wrote dates on food cans and packages
Made birthday cakes with lemon frosting
Memorized scriptures extensively
Prepared avocado and bacon sandwiches for Father’s poker parties
Served her daughters’ favorites: goozsh moozsh, worm meat, and guacamole
Lost the sugar ration coupons during World War II; canned our fruit with honey
Squawked and talked to the backyard chickens we kept during the War
Assembled picnics for family outings to Griffith Park Zoo
Read poetry and bedtime stories frequently
Inspired all four girls to obtain college degrees
Accompanied Eleanor to night school for a whole term
Watered her “Flower Babies”
Baked miniature fruitcakes for the annual Back East Christmas Box
Drove the new Dodge back from Detroit in 1950
Extolled her “four beautiful daughters” and “four wonderful sons-in-law”
Pulled up dandelions whenever she spotted them in her children’s yards
Always helped her daughters with their new babies, namely:
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Repeated memorable sentiments: “Es mi trabajo” and “I made up my mind to like it”
Remembered all eleven grandchildren’s birthdays every year
Cleaned Marion’s cupboards annually
Missed her “Hal Pal”
Nurtured her Leisure World orange tree
Voluntarily stopped driving at age 90
Pled “My sufficiency has had an abundancy” whenever she declined more food
Waited for her “Promotion to Heaven.” It came through on December 7th, 2009
Renee, Steve, Lisa; Marta, Carole, Neva;
Janet, Janice, Charlene, Anne,…and little baby Margaret
RECOLLECTIONS OF GRANDMOTHER SHEPLEY (GMS)
Prior to dating Marion, Grandmother Shepley was just someone's mother. However, soon after my
engagement to Marion, GMS became one of the major forces in my life, It sort of began with invitations
to dinner in the 3400 Dining Room, complete with wonderfully cooked breaded pork chops, the likes of
which I have not experienced since. I thought, "Wow, Marion and this too!"
To continue requires a short digression on Marion and Ray: They got together mainly because right or
wrong, good or bad, reasonable or unreasonable, Marion and Ray thought the same about nearly
everything. So, in addition to appreciating Marion's beautiful physical attributes, I felt an intellectual
bond. The bond became even stronger when I learned that each of us had an absolute abhorrence of
rubber bands. Enter GMS who seemed to use these icky things to hold almost everything together.
When her purse opened or she had something to give you, the Rubber Bands that seemed to be seeking
eternal life came tumbling out. Marion would internally shriek, and I would shudder.
At any rate, life went on, and I came to see that GMS was always in the corner of her four daughters and
her "God-Given, fine sons-in-law." I can't remember a time when she was not helpful and did not refrain
from being overly critical, even when it seemed obvious she did not like what was up.
On to another strong impression that came when you were sent a gift. To open a Grandmother package,
you were beset with fear and trembling. It was clearly wrapped for the War Zone. What tools would you
use to get it open?
How would you avoid cutting a finger off? With sharp knives, scissors of various sizes, pliers, and more
serious cutting implements, one did succeed. I can't remember any unopened packages.
To wrap it up, GMS was a barrel of fun. We chatted Beginning Spanish together. When she visited us, I
would wake her in the morning crowing "Cock-a-doodle-doo" like a rooster. She would always respond
with a "Cluck, Cluck, Cluck."
She is missed, but is always fun to remember
-by RAS
If one were to define Lucille Shepley, the one word would be Christian. She was first and foremost a
believer in Jesus Christ and she lived her life as she thought God would have her do it.
She was born in 1907, the year there was a money panic, grew up during WWI, had her babies during
the Great Depression, lived through the anxieties of WWII, the Korean War, the Cuba blockade, the
recession of late 70’s and early 80’s, the hyperinflation of the 80’s, the Cold War, the Gulf War, the war
on terror, the recession of 2008-2010.
She also experienced many inventions and innovations during her life. When she was a small girl, the
main forms of transportation in Illinois where she lived were horse carriage and streetcars in the city.
Then came automobiles and an explosion of the inventions that made life easier. Washing machines,
dishwashers, television sets, cell phones, computers, GPS, frozen foods, and other laborsaving devices
too numerous to mention.
As a young woman, she went to teacher’s college and obtained a teaching job in Illinois. She came west
to attend summer school at USC and met her husband in Pasadena where she lived during the summer.
He was a student at Cal Tech when they met and they wrote letters for a year before she came west to
summer school again. That November, she married Halsey and came west for the rest of her life. She
and her husband Halsey loved their four daughters and wanted each of them to grow up well and able
to get a good job after graduation from college.
Memories of my own childhood included sitting in the hall on Grand Ave. during air raid drills in WWII,
singing in a quartet with my sisters in church and at picnics put on by my father’s companies. We loved
the camping trips we took with the family and Mother mad the time spent in the campground fun. She
taught us how to read before we went to school, how to cook by helping her in the kitchen and how to
sew clothes for ourselves.
When we grew up and moved away from home, she would babysit our small children while Jim and I
took a couple of days of vacation. She did that same thing for all of my sisters and the grandchildren
had wonderful times with her and Halsey. Everyone got a special time with her at Disneyland as soon as
they turned four year old and they remember details of those times to this day.
Mother was always kind, helpful, and noncomplaining, a trait she had until the day she went to be with
her Lord. She was also independent and bought the Leisure World home she occupied for twenty years
by herself and planted her own roses, bought her rugs and furniture alone. When I offered to help, she
thanked me and explained that she would show it to me when it was finished.
She loved celebrating birthdays and toher holidays with members of the family and would travel across
the country to be there for an important event.
She learned to adapt to all of the changes that happened during her life, though computers came too
late for her to learn to use.
I know she is having a lovely time with the Lord, though I do miss her a lot.
Eleanor
Remembering Mother Dorothy Stewart 12/14/09 Teacher One of my earliest memories is of our move from Torrance to 3401 Grand Ave. in 1937. As she drove our car packed with dishes, silverware, linens and Jane and me, Mother explained that the new house had a big backyard in which we could play, a fishpond in which we would have fish, and that I would have my own “big bed”. Mother was always explaining and teaching. Throughout our childhood Mother would occasionally tell us of some of her more interesting experiences as a teacher of a multigrade class in the small rural school across the road from her parents’ home. I was most impressed that the classroom was heated by a wood‐burning stove and with her tales of snowstorms which, of course, we never had in LA. She read us stories and poems, all with the appropriate intonation and rhythm. She sometimes did this as she sat on the floor in the hall between Jane and my bedroom and Eleanor and Marion’s. She taught us to speak in a well‐modulated voice, always use proper grammar and words. We were instructed to stand up straight (a lesson I never learned) and to always use a title when addressing an adult, Aunt Violet, Grandmother Throop, Mrs. Bury and Mrs. Chaplin. And of course she was always Mother and Halsey was always Father. She explained we would look better if our clothes were made of quality fabric in a classic style and that we could wear this type of clothing much longer than “fads”. Dresses had to be mended; starched and ironed; socks had to match the dress and hair ribbons; belts and ribbons had to be tied with a “cat whisker bow”; and shoes had to be shined. She insisted we needed to have a college education. When we were older children she taught Sunday School to nursery‐aged children at the First Brethren Church in South Gate. She insisted these little kids were old enough to memorize simple Bible verses and to know that Jesus loves them. During the teacher shortage after WW 2 she was a substitute teacher in the LA system for a few years. Practitioner of healthy lifestyle Mother insisted that certain foods were unhealthy such as “pasty white bread” while fruits, vegetables, and parsley and onion sandwiches on whole wheat bread promoted health. The water in which vegetables had been cooked was to be drunk as that is where all of the vitamins were. Oranges had to be squeezed on a glass juicer and drunk immediately before the vitamins jumped out. Cookies, pies, cakes and ice cream were rare treats. Our desserts were usually canned fruit. Grapefruit tea might taste awful, but it was good for you as were cod liver oil capsules. Importance of family Mother was devoted to her family. She would tell us stories about her parents, sisters and brother who lived “back east”. Mother talked about how sad the entire family was when her 7yr old younger sister, Marion Rowena, died of diphtheria which Mother had first. She named her first daughter Marion after her sister. As sisters we were to be best friends. Mother sent Christmas presents to all of her family. The “back east Christmas box” usually contained homemade fruitcake, cookies and sometimes vitamins. After I moved to Indiana Mother would randomly send individually wrapped rice crispy treats with nuts packed in custom fit cereal boxes. Grandmother It seemed to me that Mother was more relaxed and playful with her grandchildren. The circumstances and deprivations of raising a family during the Great depression and WW2 surely influenced how we were raised. Perhaps the fact that she did not have primary responsibility for her grandchildren allowed her more freedom to indulge, or perhaps she just loved to be with children. Christian In all of what Mother did, she was first and foremost a Christian. Her faith impacted every aspect of her life. Dick has often noted that she was a woman who faithfully lived and practiced what she believed. She is gone from us but nothing can separate her from the love of Christ. Memories of Grandmother Long newsy letters on thin onion skin paper that were usually filled up on both sides and sometimes afterthoughts were written in the margins. She always used up every bit of space. She mailed these letter and “breads” every month. Whoever makes a mess has to clean it up. Telling stories. Give me 5 things. She always said a good story needed the introduction, a little bit of trouble, overcoming the trouble then the end. Enthralling all the children in line at Disneyland. Taking us all to Disneyland every year on our birthday. Eating lunch at the Blue Bayou Restaurant. Ordering Monte Cristo sandwiches and sitting by the water. I wonder how many times she went to Disneyland? Memorizing a chapter of the Bible each year – she would give us 10 dollars. Rubber bands, string, wax paper, the grease pencil to write dates on the cans and jars. Putting dates on the cans and jars – so far ahead of her time. All full of junk purse – she even had a metal bubble ring in there when we needed an extra for one of Sherry’s birthday parties. Rice Krispie treats Halsey loved his peace and quiet Playing Parcheesi, Authors or Scrabble. Playing Billy Goats Gruff down the hall on Grand Avenue. She was the troll. We acted out all the parts. Her bedroom with the treadle sewing machine and the shelf with all the grandchildren books. She saved all the letters and things we made for her. The first time Ken ever went to the house on Grand Avenue he was really amazed and impressed when she showed him how she could still jump up on the top bunk. Came to visit when Sherry was a tiny baby. Taught me it was OK to let Sherry cry. That was when she met our dog, Lucy. She thought it was funny that of all the children, grandchildren and great‐
grandchildren, only the dog was named after her. Grandmother always made me feel special and loved. She was an amazing woman. I only hope the someday I’ll be a “great” grandmother like her. ☺ Renee My Memories of Lucille T.Shepley a.k.a. Grandmother Shepley by Lisa E. Sjodin‐Feldman Giving a good picture of Grandmother Shepley will be easy because I know we all share alot of the same memories, so here goes: First and foremost I remember making French Toast with Grandmother in her kitchen on Huntington Park Drive when I was three years old. I watched fascinated by the mixing, taking on the smell of vanilla and wheat bread while she let me crack the egg (and of course taking care to remove all the pieces of shell). Around the same time, I loved to hear her read to me The Three Billy Goats Gruff out of a tattered copy that she kept wrapped in multiple layers of plastic, (a recycling accomplishment never quite seen since) kept intact by a dozen or so rubber bands. The unraveling of the manuscript made the event even that much more special. Not to mention her purse, the Eighth Wonder of the World. A world of compartments that always seemed to harbor some sort of treat ‐ like a stick of Wrigley's Spearmint Gum or even a representation of the local dime store with clear plastic rain bonnets, cough drops, flash lights, hair pins, sewing kit, tape measure, hand soap, hair brush, and don't forget about the multiple pocket bibles. My favorite was the little white one with Psalms. Speaking of flashlights, not to be forgotten is the first actualized Virtual Reality Tour ‐ The Tunnel. All doors leading to the hallway would be shut so that even midday, the entire area could be darkened. I remember being lead through the first door and travelling to the faroff lands down the Tunnel aided only by a flashlight!! That was the most excitement ever. And then there's the Trip to Disney Land with Grandmother, an all time favorite ‐ don't forget the teacups. Also at the house on Grand Avenue there was, next door, the home of another fascinating human, Mrs. Bury, who had the best old Live Oak tree in her back yard. Mrs. Bury was the local celebrity but I can't recall more....I hear she was an artist who collected things of historical significance. Just to change tracks ‐ at Christmas time or for birthdays, Grandmother needs special recognition for her packaging, she was Scott Paper company's best friend. I particularly remember the cozy PJs and even her Meyers lemons the way they were all wrapped individually in tissue paper if they were fragile eggs. Also, her fig cookies were the best. And the pounded round steak and a Grandmother salad. One of my favorite things about a Grandmother visit was to sit around the dining room table and play the bird game or the word games (I hate to say but I forgot the name). Or to help her pull dandelion weeds with a spoon in the backyard. She could get the stain out of any piece of clothing and I still use her advice today ‐ "if you can get it out a little of the way you can usually get it out all the way" As an adult I appreciate her love for children and her ability to instill a sense of wonder. I'm so glad that my son, Roger, got to meet her. She lived a healthy life, "the cook gets the worst" and was rewarded for her life path that she kept close to God. Her main focus was on giving to others to the extent that we would argue for minutes about who was going to get the last whatever ‐ usually I would be arguing to try, to no avail, to get her to endulge in some sort of luxury. Grandmother, her flower arrangements, Red Cardinals, Grandmother sweaters, the list goes on....oh...and I just remembered the way she gave me a ride when I was three on the dolly cart. Well, I gotta go, but I am always thinking of Grandmother Shepley, and I am proud to be her descendant, although she would disapprove of any thoughts of superiority. Sincerely, Lisa Sjodin‐Feldman Grandmother When I think about Grandmother, all of the things that she did for us as kids come to mind, she played games, read to us, took us places and made each kid feel special. Of course there are all the things that everyone remembers like Farmer Freds, Disneyland, marking the cans, the backyard swing, playing in the hall way, sleeping in the bunk beds, the stories she told, the all full of junk purse and the cooking. I think the thing that most defines her though is dedication. Dedication to her family and to others. Family was everything to her. She was proud of all of her daughters and she delighted in the grandchildren and great grandchildren. She had an awesome sense of humor and a love for life. She made sure that all of knew that she prayed for us daily. After I grew up and got married, she would send us “The Daily Bread” every month along with a nice newsy letter. We always looked forward to those letters and the Christmas boxes she would send. She was always so insistent on being called “Grandmother” until one day when Rachel was 2 years old she was try to get her to say Great Grandmother but she couldn’t get the grand in there and it came out “Great Mudder” She loved it and the name stuck. Some Memories of Grandmother Lucille Shepley From Neva Grandmother was old fashioned. No one who knew her would disagree with that and neither would Lucille herself. But in some areas Grandmother was actually way ahead of her time. She was excited about leafy greens long before anyone I know. I was never too surprised to see greens of all kinds (especially comfrey from her garden) simmering on Grandmother’s stove. I would chuckle with my cousins as Grandmother asked Farmer Fred himself where the kohlrabi was. Did you know there are kale chip baking demonstrations on You Tube? Grandmother would have approved! We all recycle these days. But aren’t those who recycle the most, more cool than the rest of us? Well I think Grandmother was very cool for recycling plastic bags. If she were alive and still shopping she’d definitely be using the recyclable grocery totes. Grandmother delighted in sharing her green plants and “Flower Babies.” She made lovely bouquets for neighbors, friends, church ladies and family. She loved to bring flowers (soaked in damp paper towels) all the way to the east coast on her plane trips. Whenever Grandmother sent us packages she put her home grown lemons in the empty spaces. (The Meyer Lemon tree thrived in its spot by the garage and its blossoms smelled heavenly.) It was fun to sit with Grandmother on the lawn swing in the “Outdoor Living Room” and gaze at the multi‐colored coleus and the tall daisies. She loved to tell us who had given her certain flowers and how some of the flowers in her yard were actually descendants of other flowers from Illinois. Passages from the Bible were almost always on Grandmother’s mind, and she frequently quoted scriptures to us including the following verses about God’s beautiful creation: “And why are ye anxious for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin, And yet I say unto you that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not arrayed like one of these.” Matthew 6:28‐29 “For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. The flowers appear on the earth; the time of the singing of birds has come, and the voice of the turtledove is heard in our land” Song of Solomon 2:11‐12 My Tribute to Grandmother by Janet Grandmother and food go together in my mind almost like a first and last name. Most of my memories are linked to the food she served: the generous hospitality with which she served it, the fun of its preparation, the joy in eating it and the community of our family which was strengthened by partaking it together. Grandmother’s table becomes a metaphor of Heaven and all that I look forward to when I will see her again…lavish generosity, the giving of one’s best effort, attention to the needs of those being served, an appreciation for the beauty of the elements, the Life‐giving sustenance, play in creating, thankfulness for bounty, deepened relationships and finally, satiation. In the way that Grandmother fed her family, she brought Jesus to each one of us, and I am thankful for a fuller, rounder vision of God as our Provider because of her ministry. Neither Grandmother nor Jesus would ever neglect to give their families Bread! The journey began with a car trip to Farmer Fred’s and a meticulous search for tire puncturing nails that lay among the crates at the edge of the parking lot. Passing through the doors we entered an otherworldly place of exotic meats displayed behind polished glass in row after row, barrels full of cool, shiny pinto beans and navel oranges the size of softballs. Driving back through the gate at 3401 Grand Avenue with purchases in hand, we continued the ritual. We cataloged the food, put it away, then arranged the fruit like a still life on the sideboard in the dining room. The preparation for the dinner commenced! With generous tastes of everything, we made mounds of garlic spiked guacamole, chilled purple onions in vinegar, green salad with more avocados topped with homemade French dressing, brown rice, pounded round steak, green beans with translucent onions and bites of bacon, homemade white bread served with a thick layer of fresh, salty moose butter, chocolate chip cookies with extra nuts and homemade vanilla ice‐cream churned in the whiny electric appliance in the garage. Sitting on the lawn swing listening to stories, playing scrabble at a card table on the grass or teaching the younger kids words from the word box, Grandmother directed the day like a conductor tuning an orchestra. After eating way too much, we would move into the living room where a sleepy kid could trace the pattern in the Turkish rug hanging on the wall or imagine being inside a castle looking through the window in the door or rock in the chair while listening to the adults talk about whatever they talked about. I remember falling asleep in the car, peaceful and content, as we made our way home. I hope I can create the same happy tradition for my own grandchildren, and I am thankful that I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that my Grandmother loved me. One of my first encounters with Grandmother was during the summer of 1981 when I travelled down to the Allders’ house for the first time to see Janet. I arrived early to avoid traffic. Janet was still working at Marineland and everyone else was gone except Grandmother and me. After being offered a glass of water, my anticipation of a relaxing break abruptly came to an end when Grandmother came out to the kitchen table with a pillowcase full of unmatched socks. Grandmother quickly put me to work with the reward of a cookie for every “successful match”. Motivated by the smell of freshly baked cookies and not at a point in the courtship process to tell Grandmother that handling the Allders laundry was WEIRD, I gladly cooperated while hoping that Janet (or anyone) would get back to Menominee soon. My concern was what other Allder laundry she would bring out next if we completed the all the matching. Since I never had a grandmother that lived close by, I will always consider Grandmother to be my grandmother too. I will always remember her love, devotion and concern for others. Brad Fredrickson Essentials The process of dying involves the peeling away of the outer layers of a person, and Grandmother Shepley’s process was long and painfully thorough. It’s hard to pinpoint when a person first starts dying: perhaps it starts quietly when an oldest child leaves home, or the youngest leaves an empty nest behind. Whenever it started, that process lurched forward for Grandmother in November of 1980, when Halsey was diagnosed with lymphosarcoma. She buried him four months later, and, a year and a half after that, said goodbye to 3401 Grand Avenue—a narrow 5000 square foot lot in Huntington Park, every grain of which was steeped in Grandmother’s own special magic. Her magic was a strange admixture of monetary thrift and lavishness of time; of ritual and inventiveness; of strictness and liberty; of the familiar and the strange. It left deep impressions on all five of my senses: I see multicolored polka‐
dot sheets hanging on a clothesline alongside a row of snow‐white sleeveless undershirts; I taste real butter, which I crave to this day; I feel the sensations of hair brushings and back rubbings; I smell T‐bone steaks grilling over charcoal on a Sunday afternoon; I hear the lonely sound of a train whistle through an open window in the middle of a summer’s night. She moved to Seal Beach Leisure World, and was still driving the 76 mile roundtrip to Glendora every Sunday all through her eighties. Then, in 1997, on her 90th birthday, she gave up driving, and with it, ties to her dear Church of the Open Door. There hadn’t been any problems, but she humbly and prudently wanted to stop driving before there were any. In 2001, she gave up her place in Leisure World and moved to Town and Country Manor in Santa Ana. She gave up her belongings, among them her treadle sewing machine, which sits two feet from my bedside and still works perfectly. At Town and Country, there was no need to cook, so she gave up all the natural and labor‐intensive specialties she had so enjoyed and so enjoyed blessing us all with: fresh bread and homemade jam; chunky applesauce; brown rice and pounded round steak; homegrown tomatoes, glossy with their skins removed, nestled in a bed of alfalfa grass that had been sprouted in a mason jar on her kitchen counter; her morning glass of fresh‐
squeezed orange juice. Six years later, she gave up the independence of walking unaided, but we got her a peacock‐blue walker that impressed the ladies on her hallway as though it were a Corvette. A half‐year later, she stopped remembering to use the walker when she got up in the morning, and she went down and couldn’t get up. She moved to skilled nursing and traded her last pieces of wood furniture for hospital steel. She lost more of her memory, but not her good sense. She lost her appetite and we coaxed her to drink chocolate Ensure. She lost weight. With so much stripped away, what remained was necessarily significant. And what she kept was these two things: a deep desire to give, and an abiding love of God’s word. Even when she had little to offer, she would offer it: “Please, you have some of this banana,” she would say, over and over. Even when she could barely remember us, the deep channels down which God’s word had flowed still carried living water. In the spring of 2009, I once began reading her the first chapter of John: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God…” She took over from the second phrase, and quoted the whole of John’s grand Prologue, word for word, at the age of 101. In her last six months, she gave up even her conscious thoughts toward her Savior, but, I am certain, was praying in groanings too deep for words. That summer, she could no longer sit up, and gave up her wheelchair for a bed, and her own blouses, lovingly ironed every week by my mom, for hospital gowns. One weekend, someone lost her teeth. In the fall, little by little, she stopped speaking. Then she gave up looking around her, gazing last and longest on the flowers we brought and on the faces of her family members. Finally on December 7, 2010, she gave up breathing. One tiny tear rolled down her left cheek, and then suddenly she was gone. Grandmother let all these things simply fall away, and in the end so graciously allowed me to look upon what lay in the most secret places of her heart: the desire to know God and to share what she had with others. It was no coincidence that these jewels lay at the bottom of the mine: she had placed them there herself. She had nurtured them, consciously, mindfully, across her many years, in response to Jesus’ great commandment: “Thou shalt love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.” She had obeyed it eagerly, because she loved her Jesus, and she had heard Him say, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.” And so it was that her love for Jesus was the last thing left, the thing that lay at her very core. It was what anchored those familiar passages and the attitude of kindness to her soul. It was the one thing that could not be stripped away from her. That love was the secret of the magic of her presence, it was her life’s blood, and it has, at last, found its object. To Grandmother: I miss you. With love from Annie Tribute to Grandmother Shepley Margaret Blue I don’t think Grandmother ever did anything without having a deeper reason behind it. Her whole life was an extension of her love for family, her desire to build a home and a sense of belonging, and her understanding of God as the Father of our family. As a child, I could spend a whole week at Grandmother’s house and I don’t remember feeling homesick. When I was at her house, I felt like I was at home. She gave us our own towel, our own pillow, our own teddy bear to sleep with and our own glass to use for water. We had routine and she even gave us chores. How she could make us feel like the center of attention without also spoiling us remains a mystery. Grandmother was the quintessential teacher and she understood both the responsibility and privilege of leaving a mark on each life she touched. She taught us what it meant to put others first, above her own comfort and convenience. Grandmother showed us that it is important to work hard, but also to take time to play along the way and enjoy the journey. She taught us what it meant to see a job through to the end, how to be frugal, how to give, and how our attitude was as important to our happiness as anything else that we have or don’t have. Of all the things Grandmother taught me, however, the most important lesson was how to risk being foolish for the cause of Christ. Grandmother demonstrated a faith in God that sometimes unnerved me but also had an undeniable ring of truth. As a child, I often marveled at (and sometimes questioned) how she could hear the voice of God so confidently and why she cried when she prayed about happy things. Her faith was dynamic and interactive. I realize as I grow older that Grandmother actually felt God and His presence in a way that most of us miss. She taught me that it really is possible to have conversations with Him, even if they are about ordinary things. She showed me that God really is that big. He can cause the sun to rise in the morning but also bless us with a parking spot at the grocery store. She showed me that God’s grace is what allows us to be restored to the way we were created to be and that it doesn’t matter if we open our hearts to Him because the Bible tells us so, or because we’ve compared, deduced and intellectually reasoned that Christ really is the truth. I believe that there was a fantastic party in heaven the day Grandmother went to be with her Savior. They had long been preparing and were waiting expectantly to welcome her home. It was what she lived her whole life for and I’m sure she beamed as she heard Christ proudly say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant. Let’s go play a game of Aggravation.” GREAT GRANDMOTHER "That lady is the nicest person I ever did meet." ‐‐Roger Andrew Feldman