Riding The Train To Happy Town

Starting on the top row, from left to right, is Grandma Williams, Grandpa Williams, my mom, Jonie, my dad, Grandma Liza, Grandpa Cles.

On the bottom row, from left to right, is Great Grandpa Evans, Great Grandma Evans, Great Grandma Thomas, Great Grandma Ward & Great Grandpa Ward.

Great Grandma Ward was blind. I always remember being frightened of her, and that was silly, because my Grandma Liza always said how kind she was.

Great Grandpa Ward did not live much longer after this picture. I would liked to have known him.

He drove a Packard, a very expensive car at the time. When people in town laughed at him when he hauled a few sheep to the barn in it, he told them since those sheep paid for that car, they should be able to ride in it.

They also told the story about his filling his car with gas. He would take off the gas cap, light a match and look down into the tank to see how full it was. He grew up during a time when they used horses for riding and for teams to pull wagons and machinery.

Great Grandma Thomas is the one who always made the breakfast biscuits. I think that her mother was the one who showed her how to do it.

The Evans crew is an interesting one. I never knew Great Grandpa Evans. Even as a child I remember Great Grandma Evans. We would visit her once a year, probably on Mother's Day.

My dad hated her. And he always told the same story each time we went for a visit. One year at Christmas, she visited my mom's family, and they brought boxes of breakfast cereal for gifts.

"She's a bitch!" my dad would say.

We were there after church, still in our church clothes. You never wanted to get on my dad's nerves when he was hungry, when he was harvesting grain, when he was tired.

My mother would correct him. "No, she's an old heifer."

My dad would look at my mother. "I have raised beef cattle all my life, and I know a bitch when I see one."

Each time we visited Great Grandma Evans, the same ritual happened.

Years after her passing, the younger generation coined a new word, "bitchin.'" It was another way of saying that something was cool.

But whenever I heard it, it reminded me those Sunday visits with Great Grandma Evans.

Grandpa Cles died when I was a little older than three, but I remember him very well. And I still miss him.

Grandpa Williams died when I was in the third grade. I wish I could have known him. My mother says my "naughty" sense of humor reminds me of him.

I did, however, know my two grandmas.