Happy Birthday Grandma Stevens!

My Grandma Stevens was a wonderful grandma. She always seemed happy to see us.  She came often for visits, and when she did, she brought us gifts.  She knitted sweaters for us, she bought dolls at Christmas time, and she always had Quaker Puffed Rice in her pantry!!  I was certainly happy to have her there when I got married.

 

As a young woman, she left Kentucky and came to Utah.  Her mother wanted her to go there and find a Mormon husband.  She met my grandpa, who not only was not a Mormon, he disliked Mormons.  But that's another story.  Suffice it to say that she was a stenographer and always typed her letters to me!!  (She was a great correspondent during my college years!!)

 

She always wore lots of jewelry, and as a child I assumed the gems were real and valuable!!  They were costume jewelry, but that really made no difference to me!  They drove a Cadillac too - my grandpa worked for General Motors and got a new car every year - and I thought wealth began and ended with them!!  

And that's not a bad way to feel about your grandparents!!

Her birthday was the day before Alice's birthday - and she always said that a day later or an hour later, didn't matter - Alice missed her birthday!!

I am so grateful that I grew up with a grandma I loved - and who loved me back!!

Happy Day to you Grandma!

Oh, those glory days again!!

I love these old photos of Grandma and Grandpa Stevens. I definitely took them for granted in my life. They were often around, they always seemed happy to see us, and I loved when they came in their new Cadillac to help us wow the neighbors!! (My grandpa worked for General Motors as a Traffic Manager at their plant in Downey, I believe, so he got a new car from them every year! We loved taking rides around the block and feeling positively wealthy!!)

I pretty much remember them looking like this - and I don't know the date of this shot. I know that once I computed how old my grandma was when I was a girl - when I was 12, she was only 63 - younger than I am now - and I was just sure she was old! Funny how age is truly relative!!

Another memory I have is of coming home to gifts from my grandma that she had left off while we were at school. She would be shopping and find bargains she thought we'd enjoy. In particular, I remember a mustard yellow corduroy "barn coat" style jacket. It had contrasting fabric under the collar and along the pockets. I think Alice had one too, but maybe not. She often gave Alice and me matching gifts. We loved that. Anyway, I truly wore that jacket out - I thought it had real style - and it might have - or it might not have - I wasn't especially "cool" or "fashionable" but it did give me joy - and according to Bonny, that's what counts!

This has got to be vintage 70's, since a pre-teen looking David is in the shot - and I have no idea where it was taken - but the woman with her back to us is probably Aunt Bobbie, and next to her is Uncle Steve, I think. And do you love Grandma's outfit and her corsage?? Maybe it was a Mother's Day brunch or something.

The windows in this shot are bow windows - and they were in a back bedroom that was large and spacious - at least it is in my memory - and it had lovely furniture in it - I think it was Grandma's bedroom - and there were framed pictures everywhere - my recollections are more of photos than real people. Some of my favorite pictures of my mother were in that room. And Grandpa was always out in his garden - either gardening or putting on his 3 hole golf course! He was always happy to have you join him too!!

And this is the house! It always seemed so large and spacious to me - but that was probably because there were only 2 people living in it!! When we moved back to California, I remember noticing houses that reminded me so much of my grandparents' house - there aren't many of this style in Utah! And there are lots in this style in Monrovia!!

I can walk down Primrose and have an Inglewood memory whenever I want!!

The Glory Days In Inglewood

When I was a girl, my Grandma and Grandpa Stevens lived in Inglewood. And their "rumpus" room had a wet bar - before wet bars were "de rigeur." When we were at their house, we would "belly up to the bar" and drink 7-Up out of shot glasses - and feel moderately wicked for doing so!

This is a very blurry old photo, but it conjures up many a fun memory for me. Since we seldom had any kind of soda at our house - the occasional root beer float and Verner's Ginger Ale from the Verner's driver who lived across the street had to suffice - it seemed like having 7-Up at our disposal was downright indulgent!!

We enjoyed pretending that we were on Gunsmoke - wiping down the bar, pouring glasses full, and sliding them down to the "customer" at the end.

It didn't take much to make us happy. Frankly, my grandkids now aren't hard to please either. Is it just in the nature of children to love things that are different from the things in their own house? Eve and Esme' have American Girl dolls with lots of accessories at their own homes - yet they very carefully played with Hannah and Eliza's AG dolls on Saturday afternoon - and seemed to be very absorbed in their play.

And all I have to do is get out white boards and markers, and the whole crew is in "hog heaven!!"