Monday, September 14, 2009

100 Years Ago Today(Well Not Exactly)

On August 25, 2009 my grandmother, Iona Carlston Wells turned 100 in Heaven. She passed away on June 18, 1999. We called her Nannie, so that is how I will refer to her in this post. She was a very beautiful woman. Here she is when she was in her 20's. I am not sure why this picture was taken but it has always been my favorite of her. Once a local movie theater ran a Miss Legs Contest. She won. Her legs were closest to the measurments of some movie star of that day. She won a movie pass for a year.
Here she is as a young mother. This picture was taken in her house on 5th Ave in Salt Lake. The little baby in my uncle David, the girl kneeling on the floor is my mother, Nellie and the little girl in the red dress in my aunt Jean. People tell me that I am her twin. Of course the man is my grandpa Hod.

This is a picture of Nannie and Grandpa on one of their many visits to Clovis. They would come and stay the whole month of November with us. It was great. One year they came for Christmas instead and it upset all the grandkids. Nannie always said that she would never do that again. She didn't either.


So, in honor of her 100th birthday, Tom and I collected "wet" garbage. Nannie always was burying garbage in her garden. Way before it was "cool" to do it.



We dug a whole out in the backyard in one of our flower beds.





Then we put the wet garbage in the hole.




Then we covered it all up.
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*I still remember the plastic bucket in her kitchen fill with coffee grounds, egg shells etc that she would collect to put in the garden. She would bury anything back there. Once I pulled up a carrot and it had a piece of lace on it.
*Nannie was always there for us. Whenever my mom had a baby, she was there. For our graduations, weddings ,operations, she was there. She was even at our house when my father died.
*She had false teeth and she was always loosing them. Before we left the house she would always ask where her teeth were. Sometimes she would stick her teeth out and mess up her hair and run after us using a scary voice.
*She was the best cook. She made the BEST canned peaches, fried chicken, mustard pickles and peanut butter log(like fudge) I miss that stuff so much but Tom's mom makes some peaches and mustard pickles that are almost exactly like hers.
*Sometimes she didn't wear underwear . I thought that was awful.
*She could pass-gas better than anyone I know. It was as loud as a thunder storm. (sorry)
*She could not sing to save her soul. It was awful. Same note, no tune etc. That is one thing that I wish I had, a recording of her singing.
Well these are some of my memories of Nannie. She was quite the character.






4 comments:

cindyrella said...

great - and funny - memories! I hope you have them all in your journal :-)

Uncle Tom said...

TMI - you could have left out the "no underwear" part. (Now you can't say I never leave a comment).

Susan Rozier said...

What a colorful grandma you had! Certainly memorable. Good post. Fondly, Susan

Grandma Honey said...

I wish the picture of Nannie when she had her little family around her were bigger so I could see it better. I've heard your mom looked like McKenzie as a little girl and I would have loved to see the resemblance. I'd also like to see Aunt Jean, your twin!