I remember seeing her in the nursing home, unable to eat or drink (her wish not to be tubed or IV'd). Dad and I brought family photos for her to look at, so we'd have something to cheer her with. My aunt, whose care she was in, said she probably couldn't hear us and wouldn't likely respond. Dad showed Grandma a photo of herself and her brothers taken when she was in her late teens. Right after the photo was taken, her brother, Donald, shoved a handful of snow in her face.
She laughed! We all cried.
I miss her so very much. She was a constant source of love and approval all of the years she was in my life.
Dad sent her an orchid every year since he was high school age. She would refrigerate it and wear it to Sunday church services.
She and Grandpa never missed an important event in their grandchildren's lives. Even when we moved from California to Washington, we would get visits at least twice a year, and we would visit them at least twice a year.
I probably stayed out of alot of trouble because I cared so much what they thought of me.
Grandma told me she could trace her family history all the way back to the time of Napolean. She showed me a gold watch that had a circle of red velvet inside it. An ancestor fought in Napolean's army, and the general would give his officers these watches with a piece of his coat to carry into battle. My aunt has this watch.
I have a black pot that was brought over from Scotland by my ancestor, David Brown. He was born in 1836 Kilmarnock Parish, Ayrshire, Scotland and was a hotelier. He sold his holdings and migrated to Canada, then to Grand Forks, ND where he married Mary Jane Sheppard and raised a family including my great-grandfather, W.D. Brown. W.D. married Lucy Moore after his first wife passed away, and those two are my grandmother's parents.
Grandma kept reading materials in the pot, and so do I.
David Brown was kind of a local big shot, I heard. He was friends with James J. Hill, of the Great Northern Railroad, and was one of the thirteen private investors in a holding company intended for expansion of the railroad to the west coast and into the southwest. The US Government called this a monopoly, and ordered all the investments returned, so our family missed it's shot at obscene wealth. We don't know where David Brown's fortune went, he would have willed it to the child of his first marriage and the children of his second marriage... maybe it went into stock investments that were depleted in 1929 (the year my father was born).
His son, my grandmother's father, W.D. Brown did have a good-sized farm in Manvel and it was prosperous enough that his family lived in a house in town. There are photos of my grandmother fashionably dressed on the porch of a nice, big frame house. Her hair is always "marceled." I have her curling iron. She was sought after by many young men, but my grandpa Rueben Hoverson is the man who won her.
Dad has a photo of W.D. and Lucy Brown. They have their arms around each other and they are laughing.
I can't find much information on geneology sites about the Hoversons. I know that my grandpa's parents came separately from Norway, and met and married in Grand Forks, ND.
I can see David Brown's place of birth, his date and place of death, but not much else.
David Brown's wife, my grandma's grandmother, was Mary Jane Sheppard. Here's where I found surprises. You can follow her line all the way to England before the landing of the pilgrims in Massachusetts. One of our ancestors, Francis Willoughby, came to Massachusetts Bay Colony from London around 1640 and sometime during his life, was a lieutenant governor and wrote a book on puritanism and government. His lot came from England, remember, to escape religious persecution, but a little reading will tell you the puritans were pretty intolerant themselves.
Francis Willoughby also built the first shipyard in Massachusetts Bay, but I can't find anymore than that.
Grandma and Grandpa had a quarter section farm in Manvel, ND., where their three children were born. My father, Rodgers Hoverson, is the youngest. Grandpa could see that the quarter section would not be much split three ways as an inheritance, so he leased it to one of his brothers and moved the family to Sonoma, CA when my dad was about 12 years old. He drove a truck for Standard Oil Co., and invested in a few rental properties around Sonoma. The family moved to Vallejo after a year or so.
He was right that there was more opportunity for his children's future in California. Grandpa kept the Manvel farm with his nephew as a tenant farmer (surviving the brother) until his death at 95 years old. It's since been sold and the proceeds distributed to his children.
I've seen family pictures taken in my grandparent's front yard with WW2 dirigibles floating in the air above the house. Those had personnel in them who watched for Japanese fighter planes in the case they were still pressing after the Pearl Harbor attack.
I wish I'd paid more attention to the stories Grandma told me about our family history... but the most important things she left me came through the love and example she gave me as a child. Every bit the lady, she taught me manners, values, and even corrected my grammar in a most gentle and humorous way. We played cards, talked politics, and she had almost enough patience to teach me knitting.
A few years ago, on her birthday, I was having coffee with my dad. I complained that aging was such a humiliating process: my girth expands, my face falls, my vocabulary is becoming elusive. He said to me, "You are the image of your grandmother. I see and remember my mother just looking at you. You be proud of that."
I am.
