Thursday, September 19, 2019

120! Happy birthday, Cutie!

This seems to be an anniversary year. Yesterday was the 120th birthday for my dad's mother Iona Marguerite. Both of my grammas were the same age, born in the autumn of 1899. One was a Leo, and one, a Virgo... if that is something you follow. Both were homemakers and cooks, bakers and quilters.



Ma had 7 siblings. I can remember her wonderful giggle to this day. She was a beautiful woman with  kind eyes and thick brown hair that didn't gray as she aged. So many details hover around her in my memory... how she lived and planted extravagant gardens, canned hundreds of quarts of vegetables, fruits, pickles. She and my grandfather loved to entertain. They always had huge picnics and their small house, although full of treasures, could handle a crowd. When Ma had company for breakfast, she cooked huge menus filled with several kinds of meats, cinnamon rolls, fried potatoes, gravy, biscuits, stewed tomatoes, wilted lettuce, some kind of cobbler...and green beans... Yes, for breakfast!

She could tat in her sleep, and it was rare to see her without some kind of crochet or handwork tucked in her basket... and she always carried a big basket. She had a loom in her smoke house and quilting frames in her living room. A person could never count how many salt and pepper shakers were in her collection, and at night huge water lilies opened on her cement goldfish pool to join her rows of nasturtiums, dinner plate dahlias, zinnias, glads, and canna lilies.



At her funeral it was my heart's pleasure to hand over at least a dozen big, red roses from her spray to as many sweet little ladies who came up to whisper in my ear... "She was my best friend." Ma made everyone happy... She was an amazing woman with a legacy of love. Happy birthday to this little girl right here.



I decided to make memory books for myself and my cousins in honor of our grandmother's 120th. 



She loved pansies and poppies and Autumn... I learned to love coffee with the heavenly concoction of milk, sugar, and the tiniest amount of coffee all served in elegant bone china cups and saucers.



The tag here is a recipe in her handwriting...



Have a good week.



Whimsy and Hugs!

4 comments:

Ginny Hartzler said...

What wonderful memories!! She was sure really active and knew how to do so many things! The books you made are just awesome!! Beautifully full of such sweet memories.

Miss Merry said...

Your memory books are awesome - how sweet of you to share! She sounds like quite a woman, I wish I were her neighbor. Thank you for sharing the photos. They are very precious.

Chris K in Wisconsin said...

Such wonderful memories, and I would have loved to have been a breakfast guest!!! What an amazing menu! If they were born in 1919, wouldn't they be 100 years old ??

Gayla said...

Oh yes, thank you! They were born in 1899. I was still thinking about 1919 because I had been looking at my post on the anniversary of my grandparents. I fixed it, thanks to you!!!!!