Grandma Stewart

This entry is going to mostly be about my great Grandma Stewart. But will also have some random things talked about as well. Much like my thought process, my writing goes from here to there in a split second. So I trust you will just ignore the random parts where I ramble on about some thing or another.

First up, Christmas. We had a fantastic Christmas, although it didn't go as I planned, it was still fun. Clinton has been wanting to go see the Hobbit for weeks now and finally convinced me yesterday and so Jeryl graciously said she could watch Vada.

Then Clinton asked Kyle if he wanted to go, he did and wanted to bring his girlfriend along, which was fine with me. Here's where it went downhill. While we were driving to Fall River (where Ceejae, Kyle's "new" girlfriend lives) I doubled checked the show times to find out that they were in fact not playing at 12:45 but at 4 and 7. Crap. And then Kyle freaks out that he won't get to see Ceejae and stresses Clinton out. Double crap.

What does Clinton do? He invites them to come watch movies at our house, which was a wreck because I hadn't gotten a chance to clean up our Christmas morning mess. So point of this was that Kyle had a date on our loveseat, holding hands with his girlfriend. While his brother would come into the kitchen randomly and giggle from excitement. And I didn't have my baby until 4 yesterday because she was visiting her Great Grandparents (which they LOVED seeing her and I'm sure she LOVED seeing people besides me and Clinton).

Second, I GOT MY NEW COMPUTER! And I'm typing on it as we speak. I'm super excited and I really like it so far. We'll see how it holds up when I start our books.

Third and finally, Grandma Stewart. Kelli and I are planning on going to visit her on Friday and I called her today to ask if that was ok. She said it was, and for the next hour she talked my ear off, and I wrote down most of what she said. And I am going to share it with you now. Here we go!

I asked her about World War II- She said that she remembered living in Oregon, and when you saw Japs walking on the street, you moved, because they were planning on taking over the country and you didn't know what they would do. She also said that the Japanese Concentration camps were and I quote "The best thing that ever happened, even though there were a few innocent people in there."

This is coming from the nicest 94 year old woman ever. Well, yeah, ever.

She also started talking about how Poor farms during the depression were actually nursing homes. And how if you were old and could still work, you went out and did the gardening and everything. She told me about how poor of care they received and it made me cringe.

All right, now here comes the fun family facts and stories. I love hearing her talk about the old days and old family members.

Grandma Stewart, born Helen Marie Dingus, was born in February of 1919, in Mound City, Kansas.
Grandpa Stewart, born Vernon Dean Stewart, was born in 1914 in Paola, Kansas.

All of Grandma's aunts and uncles on her fathers side called her Ellen.

 She wore a blue wedding dress and was married at age 16 at the Presbyterian church in Moran, Kansas.  Just Grandpa's family was there. He was 19.

There were 6 brothers and they all were farmers.
Grandpa Stewart owned and drove the combine.
His brother Dewayne owned and worked with the planter. He also had a truck and hauled grain
His other brother Mel owned the plow and Hauled grain.

They all worked together. Books were done by hand and the numbers figured out in your head. Grandma said it was hard but she could do it.

Grandma also said that she left school around her Freshman year, her teacher called her out on not having her books, on account that Grandma's family couldn't afford them, this hurt Grandma's feelings so she left and never went back.

Grandma's father died of Tuberculosis. Leaving my Great great Grandma to raise 2 kids.

Great great Grandpa was married before he married Grandma Stewarts mom, he was married to Grandma Stewarts moms best friend. Who also died of Tuberculosis.

Grandma said she remembers decorating her mom's best friends grave.

Oh and here is a quote for you mom, Gma Stewart was really happy you were there in Wichita to check on Grandpa, because they "Didn't want that queer taking care of him."

She said that she gave birth to her kids at home, with her mother, Grandpa's sister and doctor. And that Grandma Mary-Ellen weighed 7 pounds, exactly the same weight as Vada. They didn't measure the kids then, they didn't think to.

Sorry for all the Grandma's and if this is grammatically correct. It's really just for interesting facts and to get everything out there.

I will try to get back on here and post pictures this week.