The Way I Remember Her

These are some of my memories of Grandmother over the past five years (since we've had a digital camera).


Our Wedding
June 14, 2003


Chapel at the WWII POW camp outside Hereford, TX
December 30, 2003

During the war, Granddad hired some of these prisoners to work on his farm. The prisoners here also painted a beautiful church in Umbarger, TX. Some years ago, a man traveled to Hereford looking for the church that he had helped paint while a POW. He ran into Grandmother and Granddad, and they drove him to Umbarger to see the church as well as to this chapel amid wheat fields and cattle pastures, the remains of the camp where he had been imprisoned.


5-month-old Gabi with her Great-Grandmother
August 9, 2005


Four generations
August 10, 2005


Great-Grandmother and baby Gabriella
August 11, 2005


Grandmother making fun of cousin Andrew for wearing jeans with holes
(Cousin James is holding 20-month-old Gabi)
November 14, 2006


Three sisters: Louise, Marie, and Patsy
November 15, 2006


Four generations at the Hereford Senior Center
November 17, 2006


Granddad and Grandmother


Grandmother at my brother Stephen's wedding
August 11, 2007


Grandmother, Granddad, and their daughters
(Jane and Lou Ann in back; Rita front-and-center)


Grandmother with cousin Leah
August 12, 2007

Grandmother celebrated her 90th birthday on February 21, 2008. Her siblings and children (as well as some other people) attended a wonderful birthday weekend with her. (I missed it because we celebrated Gabi's 3rd birthday the same weekend.) The family again gathered for Granddad's 95th birthday just last month. (I missed that as well; it was put together too last-minute to buy plane tickets.) We are all thankful for the love she shared and the memories she gave us.