I grew up only a few miles away from my Grandparents, Ometa and Harold Goebel in East Jordan, Michigan. I am so many memories of going to their house and farm, especially in the summer months. They spent half of the year in Zepherhills, Florida. My parents had a Strawberry field on the field next to their house, so my siblings and I spent most of the summer there picking strawberries. Grandma passed away in November, 2009 and Grandpa in February, 2011. Here is my collection of memories I have of them.
-Going to visit them and sitting on their couch talking to them while they sat in their recliners
-Ringing the doorbell quite a few times so that Grandma would laugh and say how silly I was
-Grandma had my kindergarten picture on her mirror for as long as I could remember. She had other grandkids pictures up there too, but I always felt special knowing mine was there
-The chiming clock that went off every hour in their house
-The cold upstairs that wasn't used anymore (where my dad and his siblings bedrooms were). Every once in a while we went up there to play.
-One time we slept upstairs in the twin beds. Grandma had to put plastic sheets on the bed because I was young and still had a tendency to wet the bed
-The family picture painted of them and Joy and Dan that was done in Korea...their eyes looked Korean!
-The super old fashioned tan rotary phones they had
-The same decorations that were in their kitchen on the shelves for years
-The wood burning stove in the kitchen that they always kept running...to keep the kitchen 80 degrees or so!
-The cow decorations in the kitchen
-The cabbage soup diet Grandpa was always doing
-Grandma made me a quilt when I was little. I still have it and will cherish it forever. It has awesome funky scrap fabrics that totally don't match!
-Their fridge had almost nothing in it, but it always had 7-Up!
-The stale cookies Grandma kept in her cookie jar
-The oreo cookies Grandma gave my siblings and I one time for a snack to take to the Strawberry field. The baggie she gave them to us in had Crisco in it like she had used it to grease something, lol
-Her use of lard for cooking
-Grandpa gardening out in his awesome garden. He was usually barefoot!
-The multiple vegetables from their garden that she cooked at meals we had at her house
-The smell of home cooked food. Every time I cook a turkey now I think of her
-Grandma humming in the kitchen. I do this now too and always think of her.
-The porch swing on their porch
-I stayed the night at their house a few times by myself. I slept on their purple couch. One time we watched a movie with Ricci Lake called Big Girls Don't Cry, lol
-Grandpa and his love of watching sports
-The line up of all the Grand kids photos that they had in their living room
-Grandpa called our dog "Brutus" even though his name is Samson. It became his nickname. He always asked how he was doing.
-The last time I visited them in their house. It was the weekend of Rebecca's wedding. We walked in to their house because they didn't answer the door. They were both napping in their bed together and looked so peaceful. Later that day or the next we brought our dog, Samson, to see them. He ran around and made Grandma laugh in the kitchen.
-The last time I saw Grandma was at my baby shower for Victoria on Halloween 2009. I had no idea she would be gone the next month. I sat and talked with her alone for a few minutes. She didn't know who I was because of her Alzheimer's. She asked me "who's having the baby?" :) I asked how Grandpa was and she said "He's up there watching TV" :)
-We went to visit Grandpa at Joy's with Victoria when she was 3 months old or so. He said he loved looking out at the beautiful land out his window.
I will always remember them. They were super sweet country Grandparents :)
