Goodbye for now

On June 12th we made the journey to Roosevelt for Grammie's funeral.  It was a beautiful day and the weather was perfect, just what Grammie would have wanted because it made it possible for a lot of her family to gather. It was such a great service with many tears.  After the funeral Korinne said, "I miss Grammie already" and Britton just about cried during the entire thing. Grammie had a gift for loving people and she had a way of making everyone feel like they were her favorite. A lot of times Great Grandkids feel a bit detached from their great grandparents, but not with Grammie.  She loved everyone and gave out a lot of hugs. Grammie and Pappy were the parents of 3 daughters and somehow still managed to have 23 grandchildren! That is what happens when your 1st daughter has 6 children, your 2nd daughter has 7 children and your 3rd daughter has 10 children.  19 of the 23 grandkids were at the funeral which is pretty amazing when you think about it.  Here they are all together:

Some of the grandkids are grandparents themselves.  When you have such a large posterity this is what the graveside service looks like:

Adam was one of the pallbearers.

It was a sad occasion, but also a happy one.  We will miss Grammie but know she is with Pappy and her parents and all of the many friends and family members who have gone on before her.  She was buried at the Tridell cemetery next to Pappy and where her parents are also buried. 

Not a bad view:

Here is Adam's Mom with her 2 sisters Phyllis and ArVella.

Yeah, you can totally pick them out of a crowd. Same hair, same size.

Here is Adam with 6 of his siblings. One had already left and 2 weren't able to make it to the funeral.

At the luncheon Adam's Dad came up to us and asked us to watch the son of one of Adam's cousins.  He was about Britton's age and he just couldn't believe how similar his and Britton's mannerisms were.  We watched him for awhile and sure enough they were so similar!  They looked kind of alike, but they acted A LOT alike.  The way they reacted to people, chewed gum, walked around, rubbed their eyes, etc. was the same. It was hilarious. You don't think mannerisms are genetic until you find  2nd cousins who are clones.  I took a picture of the boys with their fathers.

With Grammie gone we will probably never see some of these family members again. That is just kind of the way things happen. It was one last hurrah in honor of a grand woman.