October Challenge Day #5-- What are some of your favorite memories with your grandparents?

Unfortunately I do not have memories of my Grandpa Duerden, he died when my father was only 14 years old.  In fact, I have searched high and low for a picture of him, and the only one available from any of the relatives is this picture of him with my Grandma Duerden (we called her Grandma Hazel) and her sisters.  

A few years after he died my Grandma married George Appedaile.  

Grandma Hazel died when I was 9 years old, and Grandpa George married another lady and we lost contact with him.  I only have a few memories of Grandma Hazel, whenever we would stay at her house she would have us kneel by the side of our chairs to say the blessing on the food.  Also, she would always put raw sugar in our cereal, I LOVED the raw sugar.  It made everything taste wonderful! 

Grandma Hazel owned a grocery store across the street from their home and I remember getting to go to the store and get blue popsicles, at the time I hadn't seen blue popsicles anywhere else so that was always a super great treat!  They lived on a corner on 200 West in Salt Lake City.  There was a big grassy median in the middle of the street that we liked to play on.  One of the other memories of Grandma’s house was that she had push button light switches.  My sister and I thought those switches were so cool and would spend hours turning the lights on and off!

 

My mother’s father, Grandpa Offret, died when I was only 8 years old.  The only memories I have of him are when he was sick with cancer and so he just sat around and didn't do very much.  I do remember that he always wore striped overalls.  

 

We spent a lot of time with Grandma Offret after grandpa died.  She added a huge addition onto their house and so there was always a ton of room for the cousins to run around.  The next door neighbors had a daughter my age and we became great friends. Every time we would visit grandma’s house I would rush over to Cheryl’s house to play.  Cheryl and I were roommates in college and we are still friends to this day!

 

When my Great-Grandpa King (Grandma Offret’s father) passed away Grandma Offret moved into my Great-Grandma King’s home in Ogden.  Those two ladies lived together for many years and we spent many hours visiting with them.  It seemed like there were always cousins and aunts and uncles hanging around!

 

While I was going to school at Weber I lived with my grandmas.  There I had my first taste of strawberry-rhubarb jam – oh how I loved that jam!  Another fun memory is that my grandma’s believed very strongly that my severe menstrual cramps would be cured by having me eat a daily dose of vitamin C with rose hips.  I don’t know if it helped or not, but I remember that the pills were enormous!  Much too big to swallow they had to be chewed (supposedly they were chewable) and they were so tart that I felt that my face would grimace for hours afterward!

After a while Grandma Offret bought a house right across the street from Grandma King. 

Grandma always made us homemade Christmas tree ornaments each year.  Many years she stayed with us for the Christmas holidays. 

Grandma passed away a few years ago, leaving an empty hole in my heart. We didn't really "do" much together, it just seemed like she was always there, a part of the family.