My paternal Grandmother was five foot nothing and weighed maybe 110. She was a saint when it came to most things but she did have a temper. When she was in high school, an older boy was beating up her brother. She jumped in the middle of it and was getting the better of him when he jumped up and ran home. She was hot on his heels when he ran into his house. She went in after him and finished the job there. Her parents were French and Irish from Quebec. The running joke was most days she was of Canadian descent, but on the rare occasion she was French, best head for the hills! She had a head full of jet black curly hair that stayed that way her whole life. Even in her 80's she had almost no grey in it.
My father was the oldest, as am I, and as the only grandson for fifteen years, I could do no wrong! My grandparents still had the family farm when I was in my teens. Grandpa was a professor so he had summer time off so I was loaned out to them to help with the farming. They had several acres under irrigation and it was my job to help with the water shares and all else farming. That was a good time, spending summers in a small town, taking a mid-day nap under the shade tree in the front yard, driving the trucks, shooting jackrabbits, helping around the place, and grandma's cooking! They had an old coal-fired furnace so Grandpa would hitch up his old dually trailer and we would head to Salina or Price, UT to get several loads to fill the coal bin in the basement; enough for winter time. That job wasn't as much fun; shoveling out several tons of coal from the trailer into the coal chute was a lot of work.
In the fall, there was always the harvest and lots and lots of bottling to do. That was an entire family affair with kids and adults pitching in to get everything picked, and bottled. My dad and his brothers and the rest all would pitch in and be rewarded with boxes and boxes of bottled fruits and vegetables; usually enough to last the next nine months. As they got into their late 70's the farm lot was sold as they couldn't keep up with it anymore and instead just kept a smaller garden at their house. Families grew and started careers of their own. Both grandma and grandpa were interested in family history and turned their remaining time to that in the years remaining to them. I sure miss those care-free days of summer and am grateful I was taught to work hard.
One of my earliest memories is of her singing in the church choir. She had a wonderful voice and us kids were almost memorized by her as she went about her daily work, singing and humming the entire time. She passed on to her eternal reward in 2005.
