Viola Jones Taylor 1921-1981

I have an amazing mother. I could NOT live without her. In addition to joyfully providing daycare for my daughter(s) when needed (basically DAILY) she's there to listen to me vent my frustrations, bail me out of jams, calm me down and bear me up when I hit break down mode, and all-in-all just be one of my best friends.

And you've also seen me talk about my beloved Gma aka "Famous Grandma" who I have the blessing of living next door to.

But lately, I've been thinking a lot about my other Gma, My Gma Taylor.



My Dad's mom died when I was only 2 1/2 yrs old. So I don't really have any memories of her. Unless you count this vague recollection I have of the sound of her voice, which I don't know how much is my own creation and how much is really her. I just know that there have been times in my life when I've needed an extra angel, and its been that voice that I've heard, connected with an innate knowledge that it was her.

What I do have are stories of her, told to me (or overheard) from her sister, my dad, and his siblings. In all the stories I've heard over the last 30 years, I've never heard anything negative about her. So you can imagine how she could have become an idol in my eyes. The older I get, the more I know in my head that she couldn't have been perfect either, nonetheless, my appreciation for just how incredible she truly must have been only seems to grow with my age and wisdom.

Growing up, my sister and I yearned for our own rooms, and Dad would always remind us about how he shared a room with 3 of his brothers, and there was barely room to walk between the two sets of bunk beds. (It's true, we saw that with our own eyes.)

Now as my own kids have the same complaint, or whenever I start to feel the walls closing in on me in our 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, 5 occupant apartment, its not my dad I think about, cramped in with his brothers, its Gma. Sure, she got the nice big room, mostly to herself (since Gpa often worked graves and liked the darker room/office next door), but she had 8 kids running underfoot. 8 kids in 2 bedrooms, and only 1 bathroom for the 10 of them. How in the world did she keep from going crazy!!!!!

I would love to ask her how in the world she found time to do all that she did. If 8 kids weren't enough to keep a mother busy, she worked outside the home to help provide. And somehow, she still managed to bake bread for the family each week, paint, crochet, create other crafty items, and bottle fruit.

So much fruit, in fact, that I remember mom and dad opening up bottles of her fruit for us to eat for dinner on hot summer nights for many years after Gma had died. And she did it all without modern luxuries such as wrinkle-free fabrics (ironing sheets...what were they thinking?)

Truly amazing!

But in addition to all that, She also had Gpa.

I love my Gpa.

Gpa died just before my 9th birthday, my memories have the luxury of that innocent childhood filter on them. What I remember was that Gpa was STRONG. The grip of his handshake was legendary. And he loved to put his grandchildren on his lap and hold them. He had really bony legs, so it was really uncomfortable, and we were anxious to get down and play. But he'd hold us there, and at times get downright grumpy about it. I'd give about anything to go back and 'endure' that time to hear more of his stories. After you'd been on one leg for a while (and squirmed a lot), you'd just start thinking you were finally going to escape, but he'd just switch you to the other side, proclaiming that was his 'bad' leg. (Though I swear he was moving me to his bad leg, not the other way around).

I also knew that Gpa had seizures. I knew he took medicine for them. But I don't recall ever witnessing one.

I knew Gpa couldn't drive. Despite making a living as a mechanic, he didn't own a car. He got around on an adult-sized tricycle with a basket on the back that made me quite jealous.

Gpa lost his leg, not long after he and Gma were married, when a heavily-loaded freight train ran over it at the local steel plant. I never considered my gpa to be disabled. He got around just fine on his prosthetic. (never saw him run on it, but I think I contributed that to his age more than his ability, if I even thought about it at all.) After all, I was little, I couldn't drive either, my main source of 'independent' transportation was also a bike.

What I've realized more and more lately are all the gaps in the stories I've heard about Gma. The stories I've gotten from her sister largely cover her growing-up years, right on through Gma and Gpa's courtship, the roll-over they were in while they were dating, how she visited him often during the long months he was in the hospital. How she later went to Nevada to help another sibling for a few months, and she and Gpa would write back and forth. Gpa being the great wordsmith he was (which I wonder now how much was him and how much the injury/recovery) would write these "lengthy" letters something to the effect of:

Dear Vi,

Hope all is well

George

And then the stories kind of skip until the point when her children were old enough to remember/realize things.

I can fill in the timeline. I know Gpa was supposed to be reporting to the draftboard the week he lost his leg, and that it would have been about the time Gma was pregnant with their oldest. I knew their house was built somewhere in that timeframe. But that's about it.

I wonder now, how she would have coped with the loss of Gpa's leg. How hard that must of been on him, sure, but her too. She'd met, and fallen in love with, this handsome curly haired boy at a dance in the hall near her home. Did she ever mourn the loss of his leg and all that meant, or could have meant, for them, and her personally, or was she just too glad to even have him alive to think beyond that?

If she had mourned the loss, or ever resented the life she led, would she have ever let anyone know? Or would she have kept those feelings all locked up inside? Did she resent being the one that had to drive the family around, during a time when most women didn't drive?

Did she see Gpa as disabled? Or was she bothered by others who did?

As science discovers more and more about Traumatic Brain Injuries, it becomes more and more apparent that TBIs probably caused Gpa's seizures, and that his seizures probably weren't the only symptoms he experienced. The more I learn about TBIs, the more saintly Gma becomes in my mind, if that's possible.

But how did she handle that? Did she realize what caused Gpa to be the way he was? Did she long for that handsome curly haired boy? Or did he never leave her? Did she just see through everything else to that diamond? Or did she ever cry herself to sleep at night?

For better or worse, she stood by her husband for 39 years. From the time she met him, when she was still in High School, until the time she died, he was her sweetheart. That alone should speak volumes.

Do you KNOW your Guardian Angels?

“It remains the responsibility of each individual to know his kindred dead. … Even if the [temple] work is done, then it is still each person’s responsibility to study and become acquainted with his ancestors.” President Joseph Fielding Smith quoted in Hearts Turned to the Fathers: A History of the Genealogical Society of Utah, 1894–1994 (1995), 184.

I've been thinking a lot about this lately. We talk a lot, in the church, of it being our responsibility to do the temple work for our ancestors, and what great importance that is. And don't get me wrong, I fully support that.

But I hear so many people use the excuse that "all my work's been done" but there's just something they're missing.

Ok, I've been guilty of similar, I spend much more time on everyone else's work than on mine own because mine has way too many people working on it and it's a big overwhelmingly jumbled mess, but maybe that's why I've been thinking about that "something else" that other reason why we do family history, to get to know our ancestors (and in many ways, ourselves).

One of my favorite songs is "Guardian Angels" by The Judds. They originally released the tune in 1989, but it was nearly 10 years later when I heard it for the first time. I can still tell you the exact spot I was at when it came on the radio, before it was done I was headed to the music store to get my own copy.

I'll let you google the lyrics if you want them, but basically it talks about her great grandparents, who she knows well "from the stories my dear gma tells." It of course refers to them as her guardian angels and tells how when she's going through tough times, they are with her, encouraging her along.

At the time, I too was going through a difficult time in my life, and as I heard those words, somehow I knew it was true, that my own paternal grandparents, both deceased from my childhood, were there with me, watching over me, and trying to help me along.

I was blessed to have many more years with maternal grandparents, so I know them even better personally. Since Gpa died 6 months ago, I can't even begin to tell you the number of times I've felt him with me.

Often times it's in humorous ways, like on Memorial Day when I was cleaning out gma's flower bed and found his garden decor skunk, long forgotten, hidden behind a tree that's now much larger than it had been when the decor was placed there. I couldn't tell what it was at first so I jumped back a bit, expecting a live animal to come running out at me, and I could hear Gpa laughing that after all these years, he'd made me jump again.

Or like the other day, when I walked outside Gma's house after a monsoon and found that a very large redwood plank had floated down the ditch and stopped right in front of Gma's house. Gma said Gpa did it so I'd know he wasn't lying about all the things he'd found "floating down the ditch." But I'm still convinced that very few of those items were really found there.

Sometimes it borders on frustration, like when I went to take an electric hedge trimmer to some of his beautiful roses. I knew he'd be rolling over in his grave, and sure enough, would you believe, my hedge trimmer wouldn't cut through a single thing until Gpa and I had a "talkin' to." I assured him that I knew this was not the way he'd want it done but with everything else I had to do, if this was going to get done at all, it had to be done this way. Once that was settled, would you believe the trimmer actually worked better than it ever has! I'm always pulling the cord out a dozen times when I try to use that thing, but it didn't come out a single time while doing gpa's roses.

But most the time, it's just that strong, gentle hand of his that I feel, giving me silent encouragement and the strength to do what's necessary day by day.

I have no doubt that I have many ancestors who take their turn as my guardian angels. But it's my grandparents that I know best, so it's my grandparents that I can recognize as being with me.

So what if I knew my other ancestors better?

I know that I get my handshake from my Gpa Taylor, and when those hands refuse to be idle, that comes from Gma Taylor, My sweet tooth from Gpa Shields, and my love of reading, well that's been passed down at least from my mom and Gma Shields. But recently I learned that my Great-Gma Nielsen had a love of plants and gardening, and had quite the green thumb. So now I can't plant without thinking about her and wondering about her (wishing I could 'channel' her wisdom).

I'm fully aware that gardening is the most common hobby in the United States, so statistically, it shouldn't be all that hard to find someone that shares that trait, even in your ancestry. Still, there is something empowering in knowing someone you descended from had that same interest/skill.

So while I would never want to challenge a prophet or change his words, I must say "responsibility...to know their kindred dead" almost seems to harsh. I would say it's the JOY of every individual to know their kindred dead.

Have you researched an ancestor today?