The first time I saw a photo of a young Grandma Anderson I thought, Oh, that's where I come from. I don't share a strong family resemblance with my sisters, but in the gilt frame on my mom's piano, that young Irene Anderson looked like my kin.
Grandma A (as I knew her for most my life) died on Saturday.
So many memories...
The warm little kitchen in Vinton, IA with spoon rests from everywhere covering the walls. We girls really wracked our brains to try to count them all, pretty much every visit... 97 or thereabouts is my recollection.
Packs of Bubblicious gum always tucked into the big white drawer (because sugar-free gum is not for grandmas!). When we were little, a piece of Bubblicious could keep our jaws chawing for a pretty long time. And then we'd try to have contests to blow the biggest bubbles (a real bummer when it popped in our hair).
Sometimes we'd get to go to Grandma and Grandad's for an overnight. They'd take us to a bakery in the mall to get some huge, frosting-covered pastry, and then we'd look around at exotic stores like Dollar Tree.
Grandma played the organ at her little Baptist church for 50 years. She had an organ at home too, and I remember turning on the little light on top, looking through her Christmas hymns album, and marveling that someone could simultaneously play a left hand, a right hand, and foot pedals.
Saturday nights of pizza and pop and Rummikub. Her crispy sugar cookies. Orange Jello salad with carrots and pineapple. Reading her Good Housekeeping magazines. Wearing the slip-on fake plastic fingernails with bright red polish.
Our "Anderson side" weekends in Rochester were wonder-filled for me as a little girl. I couldn't sleep the night before, it was so exciting. We would meet Grandad and Grandma at McDonalds in Waterloo and eat pancakes with warm syrup on a yellow styrofoam plate. Then we'd caravan with them the rest of the long, long trip to Rochester. Grandma would have little baggies of animal crackers, which really helped to pass the time.
After f o r e v e r, we'd arrive at the Best Western and meet up with the rest of the family in The Dakota Room. Normally, we celebrated Grandad and Grandma's anniversary, and they always sat in the middle of the U of tables, sweetly happy with one another and with their family.
Laughing, laughing, laughing. That was the bulk of those Rochester weekends. Games of Pictionary, "dictionary" (what is a mome, we can all now tell you), swimming in the indoor pool, fuseball, pizza, lots of pop, and some pretty crazy April Fool's jokes. Grandma had a sense of humor right up to the last time I saw her, and that was a pretty strong gene that passed down in the family.
Years took their unavoidable toll, and eventually the Rochester weekends ended. But Grandma wrote letters--typed on her age-old typewriter, with the typos endearingly included. We all got them, but she would often write a little note at the bottom just for you.
"I'm so proud of you." If there was ever a gracious, thankful, and encouraging matriarch of the family, it was Grandma. She may have begun scrambling a few names and losing track of the babies, but she still had words of affirmation and care to the very end. It wasn't that we gave her no reason to complain--but I never heard her say a cross or discontent thing about God's care for her or her family's care for her.
I think the words of the hymns she played so long must've lingered in her heart, even when her fingers couldn't maneuver the keys anymore.
’Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
And to take Him at His Word;
Just to rest upon His promise,
And to know, “Thus says the Lord!”
O how sweet to trust in Jesus,
Just to trust His cleansing blood;
And in simple faith to plunge me
’Neath the healing, cleansing flood!
Just from sin and self to cease;
Just from Jesus simply taking
Life and rest, and joy and peace.
Precious Jesus, Savior, Friend;
And I know that Thou art with me,
Wilt be with me to the end.
He was with her. And because she trusted Him, and now Grandma's laugh is freer and brighter than ever before.
We love you and miss you, Grandma.
Obituary
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