She Almost Made It to 101

Well, she almost made it to 101. My grandmother passed away last Friday and was buried yesterday. Just a simple graveside ceremony...she never wanted to be any trouble to anybody. Her 101st birthday would have been December 4th.

She was doing really well and living in a nursing home just a block away from where my father and step-mother live, so they could visit her regularly. It's the town where my husband and daughters and I lived for 11 years, too, so I knew all the folks at the church who would be checking up on her, and that was nice.

Grandma was 98 before she gave up living on her own and finally moved to a nursing home. She was still getting around pretty well with her walker until a few weeks ago.

She was ready to go, though, and had lived a long and happy life. So although I'll miss her terribly, I know it was her time. And I know where she is now.

For years, my grandmother and "Granddaddy Cy" ran a hamburger stand in Temple, Texas on South First Street. When my father was a ministerial student at Baylor University, he introduced many of his classmates to them and got them hooked on the specialty of the house, the "Cyburger". As these students scattered to preach and lead revivals in many small town churches around central Texas, they knew they could always get a burger on the way back to the campus. And help was always available if they had a flat tire or needed a tow. When my husband was a student at Southwestern Seminary in Ft. Worth I met many of my father's former classmates and they'd get a little twinkle in their eye and say "I remember those hamburgers!" Later, when my husband was a campus minister at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor in Belton one of our students was doing her student teaching at a school up the road in Temple. I had told her stories of my father's roots in that area, so she knew just what the teacher was talking about when she mentioned the wonderful hamburgers they used to make at a little hamburger place on South First Street.




Here's a picture of her (undated) with a baby that I think is my older sister, her first grandchild. I've started to digitally clean this one up some, because it's got a lot of spots and creases on it. It'll take a while to finish that project, though, so I'll go ahead and share it with you as it is because I love her smile in this one.

Happy 100th Birthday, Grandma!

Yesterday was my grandmother's birthday...her 100th birthday!

I didn't get to go to the party since she lives in Texas and I live in Maryland, but I sent flowers to honor the occasion. I talked to my sister tonight and got a good report of the festivities and it sounds like a good time was had by all, especially Grandma!

A few weeks ago I was in Texas for a brief visit and my sister and brother-in-law and I went to see Grandma. We had brought along some old family photos we'd found that we'd never seen before. One photo showed what appeared to be a large family gathering of some kind...several couples with kids of all ages, one mother holding her baby in her lap. We showed it to her and asked if she knew anything about it. She perked right up and said "Oh, yes! That baby is me! I was six months old!" She said it was a family reunion and she pointed to each person, reciting their names and relationships, telling us the whole story of the event as though it had just happened last week.

We were spellbound. Well, at least I was. My sister was scrambling to write down everything she was telling us so we could have it all documented!

100 years. She told me once how she used to pick cotton as a child of 6 or 7, with the hot Oklahoma dirt burning the soles of her bare feet as she dragged that long sack of cotton behind her. And yesterday, I was ordering flowers for her over the internet and now I'm sharing the story with all of you. 100 years...amazing....