Show and Tell Friday: Great Grandma and Me

Kelli is hosting Show and Tell Friday and I decided to participate again.

This time is shorter than last week. I promise.

This is a picture of my Great Grandma and myself, celebrating our birthdays together when I turned four and she turned 68. I was born on her 64th birthday. Notice that I have a cupcake of my very own and she has a cake too. I still have a birthday card she sent me once. The front says "Today is your birthday and on my calendar this day is circled twice." When you open it, it says "Once because it's your birthday and once because you're so nice.". My Great Grandma wrote in, "And once because it's your birthday and once because it's mine!".

That concludes my Show and Tell.

But if you'd like to read on, I will continue...

My Great Grandma Crowell was born in 1904 in Los Animas, Colorado. But most of my memories of her are from Priest River, Idaho, where she and my Great Grandpa had a dairy farm. I remember playing in the barn outside of the log house they lived in. Whenever I read Charlotte's Web to my children, I picture their barn. There was a long rope tied to the middle of the ceiling. We'd climb up a ladder (which was really pieces of wood nailed to the wall), up toward the loft, with rope in hand, and swing out over the barn, to the other side, where we'd land in a stall full of hay. Looking back now, and realizing how young I was, I must have been either brave or ignorant! Probably both (I think I was only 9 or 10 when it burned down). But it was sure alot of fun. I remember when we got the news that the neighbor kids had burned the barn down while playing with fireworks. It was a deep loss, a place where of a couple of generations of memories had been made. Maybe my mom or one of my aunts or cousins reading this will find a picture of that barn or house and email it to me. If they do, I will post it on this blog.

I also know that my great grandparents initially built their log house close to the river, as most people did. But when electricity came through, they moved it closer to the road so they could hook up to it. Of course I wasn't born anywhere near that time, but I do remember spending time in that log house. I remember GG making fresh green beans cooked with bacon, my great uncle (her son) encouraging her along and adding his own suggestions. When I returned years later, many years after the log house and property had been sold and many changes made, the current owner dug up some irises which had originally been planted by my Great Grandmother, probably before I was even born. When they are blooming I will share those on a Show and Tell Friday.

My Great Grandma was a woman of faith and family values. She was a hard worker, and very capable. She raised up four children, including one of the greatest influences in my life, my Gran. I will most definitely write of her another time.

Through my Great Grandma, my Gran and then my own mother, now with me to my children, a sense of family has been instilled and our faith inspired from one generation to the next.