A Grand Lady

Grandma Rose

1912 - 2009

Growing up, I always knew that my Grandma Rose was a legend in her own time. Whenever I needed the answer to anything, I could go to Grandma. She had been everywhere and done everything. 

Grandma was born into humble circumstances. She entered this world in a refugee camp in Texas, just across the Mexican border, after her family had been chased off their successful ranch by Mexican revolutionaries. She was one of 16 children, raised by a driven mother who expected nothing but success from all of her children. And successful she was. Grandma raced through school and started college at the age of 15.  While paying her own way, receiving the highest awards given, and participating in many activities, including being a student body officer, she still graduated from BYU at the age of 19. She received her master's degree at Columbia and then her Ph.D. at Berkley in English. During WWII, Grandma joined the Navy as a WAVE officer to help the war effort. 

She then held such responsible jobs as head of an Arizona congressman's office and personal assistant to the CEO of IBM in NY. Soon after, she became a professor of English at BYU. She married my grandfather at the age of 34 and had three children.

 

Grandpa and Grandma were professors at the U of U and BYU, respectively,

but soon were offered adventures they couldn't turn down. Administrative and teaching jobs took them to  Rangoon, Burma and later to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, with three young children in tow. They lived for several years in these obscure corners of the world, becoming, with their young children, truly citizens of the world. 

Grandma traveled to 145 countries in her life time, including such adventurous trips as driving in her own little red Mercedes from Cape Town, South Africa, straight through the middle of the continent to Cairo, Egypt in the 1960's. She continued to travel abroad into her 80's. It always amused me that often, after I mentioned that I had simply taken my children to a local museum or event, she would exclaim, "Oh Camille! How do you do it? You are going to wear yourself out!"  

Even when her legs could no longer carry her to obscure destinations, Grandma never turned down opportunities. Well into her 90's she continued teaching, visiting relief societies to give talks on various notable family members, as well as teaching in her own ward. She read passionately, with a goal of completing 100 books a year for the last 20 years of her life. 

Recently Grandma told me of receiving a phone call from a student who she taught at Globe High School almost 80 years ago. He had seen an interview of her that aired on TV and had to get in touch with Grandma to let her know that she was his most influential teacher. Clearly Grandma played many important roles to the people in her full world. However, to me, the role of grandma was most significant. 

Grandma helped raise me. I remember each Friday on my half days in elementary school, Grandma would take my sister and me on adventures. I still picture her at Ensign Elementary standing up on the door frame of her sky blue Mercedes, shouting "YOOHOO" and waving to me as the masses of children headed to the parking lot of find their mothers. She would whisk us away in search of any festival or tourist attraction in the Salt Lake Valley. We always anticipated the Fall Food Festival at the Salt Palace, where we would be given brown paper grocery sacks and could meander the aisles of product displays, collecting coupons and sampling new products. She would take us to the Kennecot Copper Mine to eye what seemed to be Tonka Toy trucks digging and dumping the earth a mile below the surface, or we would load into the elevators at the Church Office Building and zip to the top floor for a panoramic view of the city. Some of our favorite days were spent in her orchard, helping her pick raspberries and corn or building forts next to the small irrigation canal or in the twisted apple trees. Being the right gender and age, I suppose, Grandma soon expanded our adventures beyond the Utah borders. In third grade she took me on a tour of the deep South. I still remember her big yellow bag that held our treats and the Tang that she would stir up each morning. I remember exploring Cyprus groves in the Carolinas, Bourbon Street in New Orleans, and the halls of the Capitol in Washington D.C.

 However, I think that what my mother will always remember is Grandma's shocking comment that I was flirting with the men on the tour, especially the bus driver. "She must have gotten that from the other side of the family!" Grandma, who was much too practical to ever be flirtatious, proclaimed. Later Grandma introduced me to international travel, taking me through central Europe over my 11th birthday, a tour of the Balkans when I was in high school and finally a Russian cruise along the Volga River when I was in college. She took me on trips to California and Colorado and after I was married, annual trips to the Shakespearean Festival in Southern Utah.

I remember loving being with my grandma so much that, since she was the one who would take care of me when I was sick, I had a true incentive to distort each sniffle or minor ache into a serious bout with the flu or other ailment. Grandpa would meet me out at my mother's car and carry me into my grandma who would be waiting for me in the family room. The red polka dot sheets were always on the pull out couch. Grandma would feed me chicken noodle soup and orange juice and read me stories. How could I help but want to come back for more just a month or so later?   

At Grandma's funeral last week, President Eyring told of how his Aunt Rose always thought that he was better than he really was. The congregation laughed when he said that he hoped that someday before he saw my grandmother again that he really would be as good as she thought that he was. I too felt of Grandma's high expectations. As a teenager, when a rebellious streak ran through me, I remember never following through with my self destructive ideas because I knew that my grandma had much higher expectations of me. I never wanted to disappoint her. Somehow she always had a way of making me feel so loved and of having great potential.

Ever since I was a young girl, I knew that I wanted to name my first daughter after Grandma Rose. When Grandma was 85, we welcomed Emilie Rose into the world. I could think of no better role model for my precious daughter.

 

As Grandma got older and my family and responsibilities grew, our adventures together were limited to our annual birthday dinner for Grandma at the Lion House, lunch with the great grandchildren at Chuck-o-Rama and dinners in my mother's back yard or occasionally at the Mandarin or Olive Garden. 

Our family always looked forward to visiting Grandma. She wanted to know all of the details in my children's lives and what adventures we had been on. She clipped coupons, relevant motherhood articles and sometimes even ordered books for my children from book clubs that she belonged to. We never left her house without a candy bar for each child and several decorative pads of paper and stickers that came in the mail from charitable organizations that she donated to.

Although I am truly saddened by our loss, I temper my feelings by knowing that Grandma is once again free. I am sure that she is jumping at any opportunity that comes her way. I am so grateful to have been shaped by such a grand lady. I truly hope that her legacy lives on through her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, for thus we will all be better people.