Christmas 2013

The dates were finally put on the my grandfather's gravestone this year. I can't describe how I feel - it makes things... feel so "final" somehow.

When I placed the grave blankets on my grandparent's graves this year, I spent some time recalling the many Christmases past that my grandparents and aunts and uncles came to visit - and so many of the wonderful memories.

My grandfather on the last Christmas he enjoyed opening presents.

My grandmother with her younger sister, the Mayor of Chula Vista, California and her husband, visiting Lawrence Welk. Mr. Welk was one of my grandmother's most favorite musicians. She loved singing "Toyland, Toyland" and I learned to play it on the piano for her.

My grandfather with his three sisters - My aunts Harry, Johanna Parker, Mary Dunn, and Marian Hawn (my Dad, Robert, is in the chair behind them). Ross Hawn Jr. is the smiling face between the legs. Palmyra, New Jersey circa 1945. Ross Sr., Marian's husband, probably took the photograph.

My mom's mom. I love this photograph, murky as it is, because it shows her shoveling snow out to the clothesline in Milton Mills, New Hampshire. She suffered several strokes while I was young and most of my memories of her are her in a nursing home - unable to remember anyone's name, including her own.

My mom's dad hold my mom on the edge of the ocean - He was a loving but "set in his ways" man - He was the only one of the four grandparents I was with when he died. His heart failed while he was in a snoozing nap - and his end was a peaceful one. It was so hard to envision this man being born in "Indian Territory" (now Oklahoma), serving as a telegraph operator in the Navy during WWI, and retiring to a farmhouse in New Hampshire - miles from the "City". I have since learned some of his story in my quest to get my mom's Daughters of the American Revolution membership.

One of the stories tickles me pink - He was one of 5 strapping young men in his family, they all ran to 6 foot and several inches tall - but it was his mother that they all called for when they spotted a rattlesnake. They would cry, "Momma! Momma! Come quick, there is a snake here!" and the little pioneer woman, she was only 4 foot 8, would rush to their side with a hoe and dispatch the snake for them.

For many years, no matter how much snow was on the roads - these people would somehow find their way to my boyhood home early Christmas Day - and made Christmas... Christmas for three little, much loved, boys.