Grandma's Gone

January 12, 2005

Richard's grandmother has returned to Texas after staying with us for a month. We were very sad to see her go. She loved visiting...but she's in her 80's and "always cold" and wasn't too keen about our temps dipping below zero on most nights. On the two occasions when we did take her out in the snow (once out to lunch and to get her hair done and once to greet troops who were passing through the Bangor airport), she was terrified she'd slip on the ice and she shivered during the entire trip. But, she really wanted her hair done (you know how we women are!) and, being a WWII veteran herself, she was very excited about greeting troops who were returning from the Middle East.

Grandma told great stories about traveling through the Panama Canal and how, once, they were anchored in the canal for weeks on end before they finally heard the news that the war was over. She was an army nurse who was, unfortunately, prone to severe motion sickness. So, she says when she wasn't nursing the troops on the hospital boat, she was hanging her head over the railing for hours on end. I swear her face still turns green when she talks about it. That was long before they had Dramamine(r)!

After the war ended, she stepped off the boat in California and got to choose which military hospital she wanted to work in. She chose the one in Little Rock because it was closest to her home-state of Illinois, and she'd not seen her family for so long. At that hospital, she cared for a soldier who'd been in a car accident. His name was Raymond Hoy. They fell in love and, of course, got married. It's a very romantic story and one we love to hear over and over again.

Hugs to all!
Angela

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