Six months into life here

     I'm thinking of my late grandmother this morning on the occasion of the day of her birth, November 19th, 1891.  Catherine Schilling Brown, my mother's mother, passed on to her Heavenly home in 1997 in the winter of her 106th year.  Gone now for over 16 years, Grandmother's legacy to her family and the fact that she lived well over a century are things that I will always remember her for.  She really wasn't too happy about living so long and I'm pretty sure that if she would have held the record, even for just a short time, as the oldest living person on earth that it might have just not set too well with her.  Living to 100 was "ok" but as each subsequent anniversary of her birth in Harvey County, Kansas came around, Grandmother questioned many times her fear that the Lord had forgotten about her being here.  He had not and in the early morning hours one Tuesday morning, she was called to return.  I think of her from time to time, always with gladness and love in my heart for the gift of her life and the things that she taught me, the second to the youngest of her 12 grandchildren.

     Catherine Brown lived her entire life (save for the last 5 years of it) in the same county of south central Kansas. Geesch, she sounds like her granddaughter for some reason and so hey, I was in good company.  Except for the last four years of nursing home living in Hutchinson, she made her home only a few miles from where she was born on the family's homesteaded place between the little Kansas towns of Halstead and Burrton.  She loved it there and really had no need to make the move to anywhere else.  She married my grandfather Andrew at the age of 20 and ended up having 3 daughters with my mother Lois being the baby of her bunch.  The temperature was in the single digits on the morning of her funeral that late January day and as my other grandmother would have been known to say, it's a wonder that we didn't all "freeze stiff a grinning" as we laid her to rest alongside of Grandfather and his 4 bachelor brothers in the winter stillness that frigid morning.  Memories warm the heart.

     It's been 6 months now since Mike and I were married back home in Hutchinson and I moved here to life along the Western Slopes.  You know,  if a thousand things have happened to change my life since Grandmother's death in 1997, then a thousand more have occurred in the short time that I've been here as a newly married woman.  I always considered my grandma to have been like a pioneer woman as she lived her life in those early days.  Now sometimes I feel like a modern day pioneer woman myself as I have made the long and arduous trip over the mountains to come from the plains of Kansas here to my home in Montrose.  Surely though I have been glad for the blessings of technology that weren't available to the folks of a hundred years ago.  I have found a respite from the homesickness and loneliness for the flatlands, especially in the very early days, on the pages of my Facebook friends, cell phone calls and text messages back to family in Kansas and the ability, even though it is 11 hours away, to go home from time to time.  I haven't even come close to dying from being away from my old life in Reno County, I only thought that I might.  God is very good and the life He has planned for me has been good as well. 

     A little part of Catherine Brown came with me as I moved over 600 miles to the west. Her blood runs through me and gives me much strength especially during the times when life has seemed the most difficult to me in the mountainous terrain that I now live in.  Her spirit has given me that gentle nudging and that sometimes "whack upside the head" that I have needed when I nearly gave up.   The lessons that she taught me come back at just the right moments in time and provide me the peace that I need to continue onward on the road of life.  I thank her for that and always shall choose to remain so grateful that God saw fit to make a little girl named Peggy Ann to be her grandchild.  May you have a grandmother or even two or three that you are grateful for as well my friends.

     Time to head out the door soon and head on up the road to Olathe Elementary.  122 years ago today was a great day to be born on and Catherine Brown would tell you to go out and enjoy it on her behalf.  Don't waste even one single moment of it my friends~it shall never return again.  

I always loved this photo taken at Christmas time in 1975 at our family's restaurant in Haven, KS.  My mom, Aunt Beck, Aunt Dorothy and Grandmother Brown all sitting down together after dinner.  The only one remaining is my Aunt Beck who just turned 100 herself last month.  Sweet memories of time gone long by.

The kind and gentle woman who taught me the fine art of learning history from those already gone before us, finally received her rest.  Grandmother and I walked the cemetery many times together and thankfully I was wise enough to listen to all that she taught me about life and about death.  Love you my grandmother, always.

                                             And speaking of being alive....  I am :)