We lost our sweet little Grandma Fern Williams last night...we will miss her and love her so much.

I'm so glad we got to visit with her a few months ago, her body had become so frail, but her mind was sharp as a tack! I KNOW she is happy and at peace.   And I know there was a wonderful and long awaited reunion with Grandpa and her sweet baby Dale.

My best memories of Grandma Fern:

~walking to her house after kindergarten

~doing long division homework at her green kitchen table

~sleeping at her house and hearing her work up in the flower shop early in the mornings

~she burnt my fingers while washing them in the restroom at JB Big Boy's in Cedar when I was little

~going to Cedar to the eye doctor, to get tires for the tireshop, and getting a goldfish at Sprouse Rites

~all kinds of her yummy cookies, cookies, and more cookies!

~family dinners at her house after General Conference, New Years, and our Labor Day 'come as you are' early morning breakfasts on her patio

~making 'salads' in the floral shop with the left over flowers and greenery

~memorial day flowers, wedding flowers, ribbon sandwiches, cookies, liters of 7-up, sherbet, the green van loaded for deliveries, playing in flower boxes, everything related to the flower shop and the catering business

~her wigs lined up on styrofoam heads on her dresser

~riding the Amtrak train to Oregon with them when I was 7

~listening to the Disney stories on records at her house and eating cookies (i blame my entire cookie obsession on her!)

~learning how to tie quilts from her and grandpa

~helping her decorate for Christmas

~being so worried about her when she fell and broke her tailbone before their mission

~writing to them and recording tapes for FHE to send to them on their missions

~mowing her lawn in the summers and going for an oreo milkshake at Annies

~watching Lawerence Welk with her and Evelyn Sater on Saturday nights

~thinking I had mastered closing the deep freeze door without her knowing I'd been sneaking cookies, she always knew because I never shut it tight avoiding the locking sound!

~teaching me how to bottle string beans and listening to me vent about my divorce 

~dancing at ballgames in high school, I could often find her and her good friend Evelyn in the stands about even with the 50 yard line or half court cheering me on

~the musty smell of her cellar....

~I dropped 2 of her Thanksgiving pies on Mom's driveway....she just laughed & never failed to remind me about it every Thanksgiving after

~hiding her pink sugar cookies from my college roomies and the boys, soon she just started sending enough for everyone!

~every blanket she has ever made for me and my kids

~the last time we visited her - Troy had taken the kids out to the car, she asked me to thank Troy for being such a good example for Braxton and loving him the way he does.  She was very quick to tell me that Troy was the best choice I'd ever made and how much she appreciated all the things he had done to help her be comfortable when my mom would take her home for family things. She never complained.

 

I feel so blessed to have been so close to her my entire life.  She has left an amazing legacy, I'm so thankful to have a copy of her personal history and many journal entries from their missions to Florida.  I am so blessed to know that familes are forever and that mine is just that!  As Troy and I layed in bed last night discussing our thoughts on what goes on in heaven, I noticed that just for that short time, my thoughts were so focused on the Savior and what is really important, that the things I had been worrying about earlier in the day such as work, paying bills, etc seemed so completely trivial and not worth my time nor energy!  I love you Granny, and it will be just a short while until we see you again!!