the pictures are dark, but...
love the look on Matthew's face
all covered up with one of Granny's denim quilts.
Showing posts with label Granny. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Granny. Show all posts
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Saturday, November 27, 2010
Holiday Traditions
I have always loved going to Granny's house. Easter, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, and lots of summers. Playing in the pasture (amidst pasture things!). Swimming in the creek and calling that our bath. Catching toads 'cause Granny said they were good for her garden. Flying June bugs on a string and squealing when they came too close. Cramming as many cousins as you can in the hammock and hoping your not on the bottom of the pile when it tips over. Somehow, I always was. Getting creative with the tire swing. SO many great memories for this city girl. This Thanksgiving was the first major gathering we've had at Granny's house since she passed away, a year ago July. Mom and her siblings have kept the house and the land. While the rest of the country was having their BlackFriday/weekend spending frenzy we were spending time with family, and enjoying every minute! Here are some of my mother's pictures that I stole from Facebook.
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| The Annual KickBrawl Game in the pasture. Special thanks to Uncle Raburn and family for cleaning it up a bit for us. |
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| Keri gets pancaked by Aunt Jill in the Annual Kickbrawl game. Can you see her grin? She was safe! |
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| Grandpa pushing Hailey in the infamous tireswing. Matthew patiently waits for his turn. |
This Blog Challenge chosen by Mia
Sandi, Teri, Verda, Jalaire, Melanie
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Alma Anderson, by Jesse Anderson
This is the long awaited paper that Jesse wrote. Well at least by my siblings and cousins.[with this kind of editing by Edna and Alma] I copied the whole thing even though I don't think the whole thing was read at the funeral. You'll have to edit as you read and I'm sorry that I haven't yet learned how to do that line-through edit thing.
Jesse Anderson
12/10/07
SC 312
Final Paper
12/10/07
SC 312
Final Paper
An American Leader
Along the Beeline highway in northern Arizona, thirteen miles south of Payson, a small town named Gisela rests in the bed of a valley. Gisela is the home of approximately 2100 people and for the past thirty years has been the home of Alma Anderson. After the death of her husband Joseph Anderson, Alma decided that she no longer needed to stay in Phoenix where her adult children lived. Instead she chose to retire to the small community of Gisela where she could live out her later years in peace tending to her garden and helping the local community where and when she could. By making friends with neighbors and volunteering her time to the many community and church functions held in Gisela, Alma created a respected name for herself within her community. She is a humanitarian by nature and, unbeknownst to her, Alma has become a leader to many of those that she would humbly consider neighbors.
Alma’s style of leadership is a product of her upbringing and the values that she has maintained through her adult life. Born in Duncan Arizona in 1921 to Katie [Harrison] and John Harrison [Raburn], Alma spent the greater portion of her childhood on her family’s homestead on the Arizona/New Mexico boarder. John held a veterinary license but also did construction work for the railroads and dams in the surrounding country, Katie tended to the home and children. When John died in 1933 Alma’s mother Katie was forced to work to support the family. Katie worked in many fields during that rough period in the beginning of the great depression. Serving and cooking in restaurants, cleaning houses, nursing the ill and milking cows were among the many jobs she held to make ends meet. “My parents were hard workers,” said Alma during an interview in late 2007 “they were a big influence on me.”
In 1938 in Las Vegas Nevada, Alma married Joseph [Lawrence] Anderson at the age of seventeen. They stayed in Duncan for a while where Alma gave birth to her first two [three] children with Joseph: Joe [Joseph Edward] junior and Elaine [and Edna]. Soon after they decided to move to Park City Utah, where Joseph could work and Alma could raise the family. Joseph began work in a coal [silver] mill as an assayer on the outskirts of town. Because the mill was a few miles away from Park City, Alma and Joseph decided to live in a tent close to work provided by the milling company. The tent had a dirt floor [this tent was in Duncan or East Camp and the tent was one of the only ones with a wooden floor] but that didn’t bother Alma; she had two [three] small children to keep her occupied. While in Park City Alma and Joe had three [two] more children, Edna, Alma Rae and Raburn. Times were good in Park City until tragedy struck. Park City had just opened a new public pool and Alma decided to take the family out for some swimming. When it was time to leave the pool, Joe junior, the eldest son, was nowhere around. Joe junior had epilepsy, Alma speculates that he had a seizure while swimming, bumped his head, and drowned. He was fifteen years old.
Soon after their son’s death, Alma and Joseph left park City and resettled in Phoenix Arizona. Joseph found work as a machinist in an engine repair shop and since all of her children were old enough to either be in school or take care of themselves, Alma decided that it was time for her to get a job as well. For 25 years Alma worked as an employee of the S & H Greenstamp Company in Phoenix. She held many managerial positions during her time there and was responsible for opening many of their expansion stores. After Joseph’s death in 1971, Alma stayed in their home and worked until she retired in 1983. Alma’s older sister, Elaine senior [Laverne], had found a small town in northern Arizona named Gisela to which she planned to retire. Alma visited her sister in Gisela and liked it. She sold her house in Phoenix and bought the acre plot next to her sister’s where she has lived ever since, hosting holiday functions for her four children, thirteen grandchildren and 45 [36] great-grand children [and 1 great-great-grand child].
In the book “Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life,” Robert Bellah et al explore the lives of many different Americans while comparing and contrasting their ideals, values and ideas of success. Joe Gorman is one of the many people Bellah interviewed. Gorman’s values and ideas of success are highlighted in “Habits of the Heart” because they mirror the values and ideals of many Americans today including Alma Anderson. Joe Gorman believes in the idea of the “Public Good” which is defined by Bellah et al as “that which benefits society as a whole and leads to what the founders of the American republic called public happiness. It includes everything from adequate public facilities to the trust and civic friendship that makes public life something to be enjoyed rather that feared.” (Bellah et al p.335) Joe Gorman upholds this ideal by taking an active role in community functions like his towns annual anniversary celebrations.
Alma also believes the idea of the “Public Good.” She feels that people should do what they can when they can if ever there is a need for their service. A community as a whole does not gain much if its citizens are not willing to contribute. The difference between Joe Gorman and Alma is Joe works on a larger scale to help his community and Alma works on a personal level, providing help and care to individuals in her community. Joe Gorman organizes town celebrations to promote community cohesion while Alma feeds and bathes an Alzheimer’s patient who is incapable of helping herself.
A major catalyst for the help that Alma provides to her community has been her church. Bellah et al says, “Religion is one of the most important of the many ways in which Americans ‘get involved’ in the life of their community and society.” (Bellah et al p. 219) This is true for Alma. When Alma married Joseph, she parted with the Baptist religion of her parents and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the church to which her new husband belonged. The church provided Alma with an outlet to satisfy her need to be a helpful part of her community. For a short while, she was president of the Relief Society for her chapter [ward] in Park City and was a scout leader for her son’s Boy Scout troop. She continued to work with the church after her move to Gisela, joining the Payson chapter [ward] where her daughter Alma Rae attended church.
While Alma will be the first to say she is not a leader, many of the services she has provided to her community would suggest otherwise. John C. Maxwell, author of “The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow,” suggests that a person must be adept in most if not all of the 21 qualities listed in the Maxwell’s book, it is not necessary to evaluate Alma’s expertise on all 21 qualities. For this reason, four of Maxwell’s qualities have been chosen to illustrate Alma’s competence as a leader: character, generosity, responsibility, and servanthood.
“How a leader deals with the circumstances of life tells you many things about his character.” (Maxwell p.3) Throughout the 86 years of her life, Alma has had to face many hardships. She grew up during the great depression with her two sisters and remembers how hard it was for her widowed mother to keep all three children healthy and fed. Alma has suffered through the death of two of her children and her husband. During these hard times, she has had to manage not only her own grief but her husband’s and her children’s as well. Illnesses in her own life have also created obstacles of which she has had to overcome. Through all of the hardships Alma has maintained a positive attitude and amazingly, does not regret or speak crossly about these experiences in her life because, truthfully, it would not be characteristic of her.
Generosity is a quality that Alma has in abundance. Giving is something that Alma knows well. In the 24 years she has lived in Gisela Alma has donated over 116 pints of blood to the American Red Cross; that is approximately fifteen gallons. She also sewed together a quilt made out of blue jeans to donate to a local charity auction and earned them $500. But among the things that she has given to her community the most valuable has been her time. For six and a half years, Alma cared for a local woman named Myrtle who had developed Alzheimer’s. Myrtle’s husband had to work all day and could not afford a live in nurse. Alma took it upon herself to care for her and when Myrtle’s husband died, Alma packed a bag and moved in with Myrtle a cared for her until she died a year and a half later. Calvin Coolidge once said, “No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.” Honor is the only thing that Alma would ever take in return for her generosity. She was offered a boat for the services she provided to Myrtle, but she would not entertain the thought.
Responsibility has been an underlying theme in Alma’s life. When she was young, she helped with the cooking and the household chores so her mom could work. When she married, she knew she had an obligation to her husband and children to be the best mother and wife she could be. She had many responsibilities as an employee of the S & H Greenstamp Company. As a manager, Alma had to direct many employees in their daily operations. When S & H opened up their first expansion store in Scottsdale it was her responsibility to make sure everything ran well. Lately Alma’s only obligation is to her garden but it’s doubtful that it will ever get overgrown.
Concerning servanthood, Alma has served and helped many people in her life. She served the S & H Greenstamp Company as a valued employee, she served her husband and children as a mother/grandmother/great-grandmother, she served Myrtle as a caretaker, and she served Jesus Christ as his follower. The church in Payson that Alma belongs to noticed her achievements in services to her community and so recently named an award after her, “The Alma Anderson Humanitarian Award.” Maxwell says, “The first mark of servanthood is the ability to put others ahead of yourself and your personal desires.” (Maxwell p.136) Alma has always put others before herself and it might not be that she is putting her own personal desires aside to help others but rather it is her personal desire to help others.
Alma Anderson would agree that she has led a fulfilling life. Some might suggest that the sum of the successes she has enjoyed in her personal life and professional life would add up to the American Dream. Most people would not consider Alma Anderson a leader. Alma herself will tell you that she is not a leader, she and many others might only consider her to be an ordinary American woman. However she perceives herself it is evident in the views of her children and her grandchildren that she is a leader and a very good one at that. She leads by example and follows the golden rule; Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s no surprise to her family or to those with whom she shares her time with, to learn that the Spanish word for soul is Alma.
Alma’s style of leadership is a product of her upbringing and the values that she has maintained through her adult life. Born in Duncan Arizona in 1921 to Katie [Harrison] and John Harrison [Raburn], Alma spent the greater portion of her childhood on her family’s homestead on the Arizona/New Mexico boarder. John held a veterinary license but also did construction work for the railroads and dams in the surrounding country, Katie tended to the home and children. When John died in 1933 Alma’s mother Katie was forced to work to support the family. Katie worked in many fields during that rough period in the beginning of the great depression. Serving and cooking in restaurants, cleaning houses, nursing the ill and milking cows were among the many jobs she held to make ends meet. “My parents were hard workers,” said Alma during an interview in late 2007 “they were a big influence on me.”
In 1938 in Las Vegas Nevada, Alma married Joseph [Lawrence] Anderson at the age of seventeen. They stayed in Duncan for a while where Alma gave birth to her first two [three] children with Joseph: Joe [Joseph Edward] junior and Elaine [and Edna]. Soon after they decided to move to Park City Utah, where Joseph could work and Alma could raise the family. Joseph began work in a coal [silver] mill as an assayer on the outskirts of town. Because the mill was a few miles away from Park City, Alma and Joseph decided to live in a tent close to work provided by the milling company. The tent had a dirt floor [this tent was in Duncan or East Camp and the tent was one of the only ones with a wooden floor] but that didn’t bother Alma; she had two [three] small children to keep her occupied. While in Park City Alma and Joe had three [two] more children, Edna, Alma Rae and Raburn. Times were good in Park City until tragedy struck. Park City had just opened a new public pool and Alma decided to take the family out for some swimming. When it was time to leave the pool, Joe junior, the eldest son, was nowhere around. Joe junior had epilepsy, Alma speculates that he had a seizure while swimming, bumped his head, and drowned. He was fifteen years old.
Soon after their son’s death, Alma and Joseph left park City and resettled in Phoenix Arizona. Joseph found work as a machinist in an engine repair shop and since all of her children were old enough to either be in school or take care of themselves, Alma decided that it was time for her to get a job as well. For 25 years Alma worked as an employee of the S & H Greenstamp Company in Phoenix. She held many managerial positions during her time there and was responsible for opening many of their expansion stores. After Joseph’s death in 1971, Alma stayed in their home and worked until she retired in 1983. Alma’s older sister, Elaine senior [Laverne], had found a small town in northern Arizona named Gisela to which she planned to retire. Alma visited her sister in Gisela and liked it. She sold her house in Phoenix and bought the acre plot next to her sister’s where she has lived ever since, hosting holiday functions for her four children, thirteen grandchildren and 45 [36] great-grand children [and 1 great-great-grand child].
In the book “Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life,” Robert Bellah et al explore the lives of many different Americans while comparing and contrasting their ideals, values and ideas of success. Joe Gorman is one of the many people Bellah interviewed. Gorman’s values and ideas of success are highlighted in “Habits of the Heart” because they mirror the values and ideals of many Americans today including Alma Anderson. Joe Gorman believes in the idea of the “Public Good” which is defined by Bellah et al as “that which benefits society as a whole and leads to what the founders of the American republic called public happiness. It includes everything from adequate public facilities to the trust and civic friendship that makes public life something to be enjoyed rather that feared.” (Bellah et al p.335) Joe Gorman upholds this ideal by taking an active role in community functions like his towns annual anniversary celebrations.
Alma also believes the idea of the “Public Good.” She feels that people should do what they can when they can if ever there is a need for their service. A community as a whole does not gain much if its citizens are not willing to contribute. The difference between Joe Gorman and Alma is Joe works on a larger scale to help his community and Alma works on a personal level, providing help and care to individuals in her community. Joe Gorman organizes town celebrations to promote community cohesion while Alma feeds and bathes an Alzheimer’s patient who is incapable of helping herself.
A major catalyst for the help that Alma provides to her community has been her church. Bellah et al says, “Religion is one of the most important of the many ways in which Americans ‘get involved’ in the life of their community and society.” (Bellah et al p. 219) This is true for Alma. When Alma married Joseph, she parted with the Baptist religion of her parents and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the church to which her new husband belonged. The church provided Alma with an outlet to satisfy her need to be a helpful part of her community. For a short while, she was president of the Relief Society for her chapter [ward] in Park City and was a scout leader for her son’s Boy Scout troop. She continued to work with the church after her move to Gisela, joining the Payson chapter [ward] where her daughter Alma Rae attended church.
While Alma will be the first to say she is not a leader, many of the services she has provided to her community would suggest otherwise. John C. Maxwell, author of “The 21 Indispensable Qualities of a Leader: Becoming the Person Others Will Want to Follow,” suggests that a person must be adept in most if not all of the 21 qualities listed in the Maxwell’s book, it is not necessary to evaluate Alma’s expertise on all 21 qualities. For this reason, four of Maxwell’s qualities have been chosen to illustrate Alma’s competence as a leader: character, generosity, responsibility, and servanthood.
“How a leader deals with the circumstances of life tells you many things about his character.” (Maxwell p.3) Throughout the 86 years of her life, Alma has had to face many hardships. She grew up during the great depression with her two sisters and remembers how hard it was for her widowed mother to keep all three children healthy and fed. Alma has suffered through the death of two of her children and her husband. During these hard times, she has had to manage not only her own grief but her husband’s and her children’s as well. Illnesses in her own life have also created obstacles of which she has had to overcome. Through all of the hardships Alma has maintained a positive attitude and amazingly, does not regret or speak crossly about these experiences in her life because, truthfully, it would not be characteristic of her.
Generosity is a quality that Alma has in abundance. Giving is something that Alma knows well. In the 24 years she has lived in Gisela Alma has donated over 116 pints of blood to the American Red Cross; that is approximately fifteen gallons. She also sewed together a quilt made out of blue jeans to donate to a local charity auction and earned them $500. But among the things that she has given to her community the most valuable has been her time. For six and a half years, Alma cared for a local woman named Myrtle who had developed Alzheimer’s. Myrtle’s husband had to work all day and could not afford a live in nurse. Alma took it upon herself to care for her and when Myrtle’s husband died, Alma packed a bag and moved in with Myrtle a cared for her until she died a year and a half later. Calvin Coolidge once said, “No person was ever honored for what he received. Honor has been the reward for what he gave.” Honor is the only thing that Alma would ever take in return for her generosity. She was offered a boat for the services she provided to Myrtle, but she would not entertain the thought.
Responsibility has been an underlying theme in Alma’s life. When she was young, she helped with the cooking and the household chores so her mom could work. When she married, she knew she had an obligation to her husband and children to be the best mother and wife she could be. She had many responsibilities as an employee of the S & H Greenstamp Company. As a manager, Alma had to direct many employees in their daily operations. When S & H opened up their first expansion store in Scottsdale it was her responsibility to make sure everything ran well. Lately Alma’s only obligation is to her garden but it’s doubtful that it will ever get overgrown.
Concerning servanthood, Alma has served and helped many people in her life. She served the S & H Greenstamp Company as a valued employee, she served her husband and children as a mother/grandmother/great-grandmother, she served Myrtle as a caretaker, and she served Jesus Christ as his follower. The church in Payson that Alma belongs to noticed her achievements in services to her community and so recently named an award after her, “The Alma Anderson Humanitarian Award.” Maxwell says, “The first mark of servanthood is the ability to put others ahead of yourself and your personal desires.” (Maxwell p.136) Alma has always put others before herself and it might not be that she is putting her own personal desires aside to help others but rather it is her personal desire to help others.
Alma Anderson would agree that she has led a fulfilling life. Some might suggest that the sum of the successes she has enjoyed in her personal life and professional life would add up to the American Dream. Most people would not consider Alma Anderson a leader. Alma herself will tell you that she is not a leader, she and many others might only consider her to be an ordinary American woman. However she perceives herself it is evident in the views of her children and her grandchildren that she is a leader and a very good one at that. She leads by example and follows the golden rule; Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. It’s no surprise to her family or to those with whom she shares her time with, to learn that the Spanish word for soul is Alma.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
by Homer Sanders
To all of you, my granny is lay'd to rest this day its true For the love she shared with me and you, she was heaven sent from God to me and you. For now we bid fairwell and its through Now always show life Like my granny did to me and you.
by Rae Anderson
What I wish I’d said.
Granny stopped aging for me when I was around 10. I never knew Granny's hair had turned grey. Even on her last day on earth her hair was not grey to me. She had no wrinkles, only badges of honor and courage. She was never slow either mentally or physically. She was a women who possessed the power to bring the earth to me through walks, talks and food. She loved me, through her love she educated me even though I didn't realize she was teaching.
No creature cold scare her, no puzzle unsolvable, no child inconsolable. She would spend summers taming an unruly bunch, feeding, bathing and ministering to the wildest tribe. . . . her grandchildren. If not for her I wouldn’t have my own garden, a half started afghan, the courage to blaze my own trail or a penchant for apricot jam. For a girl brought up in the city granny taught me my roots.
She is stitched into my heart with all the love of a quilt made by candlelight.
I need nothing more than the basics:
LOVE
WARMTH
FAITH
All of these basics can be fostered with nothing more than:
A WOODEN HOUSE
A WOOD BURNING STOVE
WELL WATER
A GARDEN
When the basics have been met additional life’s blessings include:
Jack the dog
Tire Swings
Fire Weeds
The Swimmin’ Hole
Loft Jumping
Irrigation ditches
The Lower Sub
The Bar Hill
Bicycles
The Narrows
Canteens
Powdered Milk
Hot Chocolate
Hot Cakes
Jean Quilts
Wet socks and Underwear
Patched pants
Strawberries and
Peas
Frog Slingin’
Bingo
Permanents
Lice Treatments
Bras
Jams
Jellies
Jerky
Dried Fruit
Hammocks
Granny stopped aging for me when I was around 10. I never knew Granny's hair had turned grey. Even on her last day on earth her hair was not grey to me. She had no wrinkles, only badges of honor and courage. She was never slow either mentally or physically. She was a women who possessed the power to bring the earth to me through walks, talks and food. She loved me, through her love she educated me even though I didn't realize she was teaching.
No creature cold scare her, no puzzle unsolvable, no child inconsolable. She would spend summers taming an unruly bunch, feeding, bathing and ministering to the wildest tribe. . . . her grandchildren. If not for her I wouldn’t have my own garden, a half started afghan, the courage to blaze my own trail or a penchant for apricot jam. For a girl brought up in the city granny taught me my roots.
She is stitched into my heart with all the love of a quilt made by candlelight.
I need nothing more than the basics:
LOVE
WARMTH
FAITH
All of these basics can be fostered with nothing more than:
A WOODEN HOUSE
A WOOD BURNING STOVE
WELL WATER
A GARDEN
When the basics have been met additional life’s blessings include:
Jack the dog
Tire Swings
Fire Weeds
The Swimmin’ Hole
Loft Jumping
Irrigation ditches
The Lower Sub
The Bar Hill
Bicycles
The Narrows
Canteens
Powdered Milk
Hot Chocolate
Hot Cakes
Jean Quilts
Wet socks and Underwear
Patched pants
Strawberries and
Peas
Frog Slingin’
Bingo
Permanents
Lice Treatments
Bras
Jams
Jellies
Jerky
Dried Fruit
Hammocks
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Just thinking out loud
Granny's still in ICU on a ventilator... and if the Governor and the Legislature can't agree on a budget I'll be out of a job starting tomorrow. Yay me. Wondering if maybe I should not have told Andrew about Granny. Will he be distracted? Worried?
Monday, June 29, 2009
Granny
These are the emails I've been sending to Andrew in South Africa, Jill and Julie in Australia.
6-28
Granny is better today. She is mostly breathing on her own and the ventilator may be removed tomorrow. She was completely off of sedation today and responding. Not very well - but still. They abandoned the stomach feeder and are sticking with the nose tube. So, good day for Granny.
6-27
Yesterday surgery went well. They were able to remove all the fluid. Today's ct scan shows new bleeders. They had left the drain in and are moving it a little to see if they can get it that way. They tried to put a feeding tube in her stomach today and were unsuccessful. Granny stopped breathing during the procedure and had to be put back on the ventilator. They will try the feeding tube again tomorrow.
6-26
Granny's surgery went well. A huge amount of blood and fluid was removed. Now they will watch for new hemorrhages and infection.
6-24
Granny fell again and hit her head. She has pressure on the brain similar to what Younger and Matthew had surgery for. She was air evac'd from Payson to St Joe's in Phx. A CT scan shows NO brain damage. So they are going to try a drain instead of surgery. If there are no complications she won't need surgery. The drain was put in tonight. I'll let you know if anything changes.
6-28
Granny is better today. She is mostly breathing on her own and the ventilator may be removed tomorrow. She was completely off of sedation today and responding. Not very well - but still. They abandoned the stomach feeder and are sticking with the nose tube. So, good day for Granny.
6-27
Yesterday surgery went well. They were able to remove all the fluid. Today's ct scan shows new bleeders. They had left the drain in and are moving it a little to see if they can get it that way. They tried to put a feeding tube in her stomach today and were unsuccessful. Granny stopped breathing during the procedure and had to be put back on the ventilator. They will try the feeding tube again tomorrow.
6-26
Granny's surgery went well. A huge amount of blood and fluid was removed. Now they will watch for new hemorrhages and infection.
6-24
Granny fell again and hit her head. She has pressure on the brain similar to what Younger and Matthew had surgery for. She was air evac'd from Payson to St Joe's in Phx. A CT scan shows NO brain damage. So they are going to try a drain instead of surgery. If there are no complications she won't need surgery. The drain was put in tonight. I'll let you know if anything changes.
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